A Bad Apple

About once a month I buy a bag of apples. I don’t pay much attention to what kind they are because I tend to jump around depending on price. I’m always amazed at how many new varieties of apples appear in the store. There are actually over 2500 of them, I looked it up. I don’t think I’ve ever bought Honeycrisps or Cameos. Honeycrisps should be graham crackers and Cameos, well, they’re the things you pin on your blouse. Anyway, the first one I ate out of the last bag I bought had absolutely no taste at all so there they sat in my fridge day after day. I expect an apple to be a sweet, slightly tart and crunchy fruit. I finally got tired of looking at them, especially since the skin on a couple were puckering letting me know they were drying out. I wondered what I could do besides eat them raw. I'm one of those people who hates to throw away food, and I’m not a lover of sweets so pie was out of the question.

I went to Google for an easy recipe for an apple bread and found this one:

Apple Loaf

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup apple, peeled cored and shredded (I grated it)

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease one 9 X 5 loaf pan. Mix together, flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and nuts. In a large bowl, beat margarine, sugar, and 1 egg until smooth. Beat in 2^nd egg and stir in vanilla. Stir in shredded apples. Pour flour mixture into batter, stir just until moistened. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes, then remove from pan. Place on a rack to cool.

I didn't have any nuts of any kind but it turned out great without them. The only problem was I had 6 apples and the bread recipe only needed 2 to make a cup so I grated the rest, added sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla and cooked them in my microwave for 6 minutes. They were delicious on top of a slice of the apple loaf. It was a hearty meal warmed in the mornings for breakfast with my first cup of coffee for the day, and it was even good for dessert with a dollop of whipped cream. I ended up freezing half of the loaf and when a slice was warmed up in the microwave, it tasted as fresh as just-baked.

So the moral to this story is that a bad apple may turn out not to be bad at all. It depends on what you do with it, and I think that could apply to the fruit or the person.