An Apple, a Pumpkin and a Banana Walk Into a Bar

Enough of shopping - how about a great way to not waste those apples the kids come home with from the orchard?  I have three times the amount as some of you and I've been watching these poor, unwanted apples sit and long to be a part of something bigger.  Curious as to why these are uneaten?  "Because they are dirty" is what my precious little daughter said to me.  Ah, MomMom would be so proud.  I, however, am now faced with explaining to my children where food actually comes from before it reaches their greedy little hands.  But FEAR NOT!  With my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer (can you truly love an inanimate object?) and the amazing food blogs I'm following I am game to try almost anything and these apples will not go without serving a greater good.  So here is what we are going to do today with them:

First - MAKE APPLESAUCE!  I'm going to take all but two and peel them, cut them and steam them until they are soft.  Then I'll add cinnamon and some sugar to give them a little extra sweetness.  Then I'll divide the applesauce - one batch to eat and one batch to bake with.  

I have two recipes that use applesauce.  One is a recipe for Oatmeal Applesauce Muffins.  This recipe is from a PVE parent who sent out the recipe "because so many people asked about them" at the Morning Muffin Mingle.   As an aside, I am a bit bitter that no one "asked about" my Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.  I mean, really?  Chocolate got passed over for oatmeal?  I find THAT very hard to believe!  Also, I didn't ask for them so why did she send them to EVERYONE?  SIGH.  Food bully!  But at least I now have a use for some of these apples!  The other one is a quickie that will impress everyone and never let them know you took shortcuts.  My MIL, Roberta Straff told me this today and I tweaked it a bit - use crescent roll dough pre made in the refrigerated section.  Lay out all the triangles of the dough on a baking tray (I usually put tinfoil down first but don't grease it) and put a dollop of applesauce in the middle and a couple of pieces of chopped apple.  Close up the corners like a popover and bake. Follow the degrees on the dough can, but be prepared to add a little time.  

While the apples steam, I'm going to multi-task big time.  First I'll soak the oats in milk for the muffin recipe.  Then I'm taking pumpkin pie filling left over from our Pumpkin Waffle Breakfast for Dinner Night and making pumpkin bread.  I'm also making Banana Bread.  Why, you ask, would you make all those breads?  Let me tell you why.  My children love bananas but are only 6 so the likelihood of a banana actually being finished completely is truly a crapshoot that is worse than Vegas odds.  My husband doesn't believe in throwing out food no matter what.  That combination leaves me with a bizarre refrigerator.  I won't even begin to tell you some of the things I've found in there.  However, one of them was half eaten bananas.  My darling other half doesn't know what happens to bananas when you put them in the fridge and the kids didn't eat all the bananas before they went "too ripe".  So here I am with all these bananas, my beautiful persimmon mixer and a mission.  Thus, banana bread.  

For my banana bread and pumpkin bread recipes I went to some of my go to food blogs and found their versions a little too frou frou for the palates at my house (clearly these are the blogs of people who cook for ADULTS).  So I google searched and found on Smitten Kitchen a great one for banana bread:
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2006/11/speckled-for-the-freckled/

PLEASE NOTE I DID NOT USE THE BOURBON!!!!!! (As tempting as it was to double the amount and watch my children slip into dream land and give me a Sunday off!!!)

and on Brown Eyed Baker I found this pumpkin bread recipe and excluded the nuts:
http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2011/09/16/pumpkin-bread-recipe/

Happy Eating!