Mrs Green makes apple turnovers
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You might remember I borrowed Margueritte Patten’s ‘Feeding the Nation’ from the library back in November.
Naturally I had lots of plans for making ‘delicious’ and frugal zero waste meals but in reality got around to making about two suggestions from the book. I think I’m going to put it on my Amazon wishlist so that I can store it on my bookshelf for moments of inspiration.
One of the things I DID make however, was apple turnovers. We had a monster harvest of delicious cooking apples last year and I was struggling to use them up. Alas a few kilos went rotten, but I did manage to make use of most of them. I made chutneys and apple crumbles and my aim was to use the remaining fruit for apple butter, but I did not get there. There’s always this year……
Now I love cooking, but I’m all for simplicity. What I realised half way through rolling pastry and filling it with apples and raisins was that I was in fact making portable apple pies. They were just glorified pasties. What a faff! I dutifully made two of the largest turnovers you have ever seen as per the recipe (who said people went hungry during the war? LOL!) and made the rest into a good old fashioned apple pie. Much easier and less rolling. Rolling pastry is not my favourite past time and neither am I that gifted at it.
The only difference to making regular apple pie was from a good tip in the ‘Feeding the nation’ book. Namely, if you sprinkle the pastry with semolina it’s stops the pastry going soggy.
They were delicious, but funnily enough, they tasted just the same as an apple pie – how about that!. Plus I can knock up a family sized pie in the time it takes to make one turnover. Ah well; it’s a good learning curve and I did pick up the soggy pastry tip 😉
Have you made any zero waste favourites lately? Tell us about some of your favourite dishes!
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We had Salmon fishcakes last night.
DH was given a frozen side of salmon the other week, so Sunday we had some with new potatoes and salad, then Dh has had some in his sandwiches for lunch and the remaining was made into fishcakes along with some mashed potato (deliberately cooked extra on Monday) fresh hm white bread breadcrumbs to coat and cooked in the oven, served with hm chips and some veg.
I liked eating these at the Uni! Hare Krishna-types carried them around campus!
you have a point with rolling the pastry – not one of my strongest points, and a reason I’ve avoided learning to bake apple strudel proper so far! so these could be easier, you say?
Do they freeze well? (to have as portable zero waste meals?)
I’m afraid I haven’t done any significant cooking or baking lately.. did get some yummy organic zero waste ingredients which I’m happy I found!! 🙂
Hi Mrs Green
Just looked at your ‘Making Apple Turnovers’ page and saw your photos and comments on making pastry. A couple of tips –
1)Have you tried making pastry with wholemeal flour? Use 50% wholemeal – it’s easier to handle than 100% – and tastes really nice.
2) Looks to me that you need to pinch the edges of your pastry as you roll it out. To be clear, I make a flattened circle with my hands to start off with – not too big. I then roll, then pinch the edge all the way round, then turn as usual, then roll, pinch and turn again. I keep doing this until I get to the required thickness. This usually stops the ‘Australia shape’ and repairs those cracks. Hope this helps and improves your enjoyment in making pastry. If you want me to clarify anything, please email me.
Steph
@maisie dalziel: Homemade fishcakes are one of our favourites, Maisie; especially when made with salmon!
it sounds like you feasted well this week 🙂
@Layla: Not sure about freezing them, Layla. Not much gets frozen in this house; we tend to eat it all. LMG has just had THREE eggs for breakfast LOL!
@Steph Williams: Hi Steph, thank you for taking the time to comment. I appreciate you sharing all your tips with me and I shall try them out next time I’m in a pastry mood.
Wholemeal does taste better doesn’t it? I’ll add 50% next time and the pinching the edges as I grow is something I’ve never heard of, so I’ll be sure to do it.
Thank you so much!