The Plan:
Day 1: Grain bowls with quinoa, sweet potatoes, roasted beets, walnuts, dried cherries, and mustard balsamic vinaigrette
Day 2: Beef and butternut squash stew, Crusty bread
Day 3: Homemade pizza
Day 4: Baked tostadas
Day 5: Tomato soup, Grilled cheese sandwiches
Day 6: Slow cooker pulled pork, Roasted potatoes, Slow cooker applesauce
Day 7: Creamy carrot soup, Pumpkin date muffins
Pantry Shuffle:
Out of Storage: (preserved when in season and coming out of my root cellar, freezer, canned, or dehydrated stash)
- Sweet potatoes
- Beets
- Butternut squash
- Tomato soup (frozen in a gallon zipper bag in fall)
- Carrots
- Chicken broth
- Pumpkin puree
- Apples – some are getting a little dry and wrinkled so I’m making applesauce in the slow cooker
- Potatoes
- Beef stew meat and pork butt roast from Mastadon Valley Farm
Into Storage:
- Extra batch of pumpkin date muffins
Notes: Easy Applesauce
I went into my “root cellar” (a.k.a. spare refrigerator) today and found that a few of the apples I picked in the fall are starting to wrinkle. Some varieties of apples will keep for up to 6 months, but if they don’t have proper moisture, they will start to get a little soft and the skin will wrinkle. As long as there is no mold or detectable rot, they are perfectly edible! But biting into a soft apple is not the most pleasant experience to me. So to use up the soft ones, I am making applesauce.
I have to tell you this is the first time I have made applesauce from scratch. My kitchen smells a-maz-ing! My husband even commented that I should put apples in the slow cooker everyday just for the smell!! Not only that, but it was soooo easy and tasty that I’m regretting every other jar that I’ve bought at the store.
All you need is about 3 pounds of apples, water, cinnamon, a slow cooker, and a blender. Keep the skins on the apples for extra fiber, nutrition, and less food waste. Serve warm on a winter day. I’m telling you once you go homemade, you will never go back. This is one I’ll be making again and again. In fact, I decided to put it on my meal plan and I’ll save some to make pumpkin muffins.
Recipe will be up later this week!
