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Nature, in all of its permutations, isn’t always beautiful, you know. Sometimes things come out weird, misshapen, a bit of a funny colour, kind of knobbly…If you’ve ever avoided that funny-looking strawberry in the bottom of the punnet – or turned your nose up at a wonky carrot – you’ll know just how easy it is to be fickle about things which don’t live up to supermarket, cookie-cutter perfection. Sadly, as with most things in life, if something is a little bit different, we tend to be wary of it – a fact which leads to tremendous food wastage for the fresh produce which doesn’t make it into ready meals or alternative products.
It’s bananas…
It’s a very weird way to approach fresh produce. Organic food doesn’t come out of a machine perfectly formed. Instead, every individual fruit and vegetable is a a natural creation, grown individually and susceptible to changes in the weather, growing conditions – you name it. If every raspberry looked identical, we’d be living in a very weird world indeed…
Fortunately, this week supermarket giant Waitrose started to fight back against our obsession with picture perfect fruit and veg. Following a terrible season of wind, hail and flooding across Ghana, Kenya and South Africa where many of its Waitrose Foundation farms are based, the supermarket began offering slightly cheaper bags of “weather-blemished apples” to encourage fussy shoppers to look closer at less-than-lovely looking fruit and to save their farmers from a nightmare season. Good on you, Waitrose.
How to put “ugly” apples to good use
Whether you’re a little bit fussy about how your fruit looks, or have friends and family who shy away from slightly squiffy Granny Smiths, I’ve put together a few ideas to help you make the most of those “ugly” apples so that nobody will ever know the difference…
- Apple soup!
The other day, with this Waitrose story in mind, I stumbled across a weird and wonderful recipe on Fruitful Office’s blog (a company who keep workplaces well stocked with fruity goodness). To accompany the glut of apples in their fruit deliveries, Fruitful Office recommend an Apple soup – rich in vitamin A and unexpectedly scrummy. This is the perfect way to make the most of these cheaper “weather-blemished apples” which might put fussier types off your fruit bowl.
It might sound a bit wrong – but think about just how good apple sauce is on pork. Yummy, right? Yes indeed! To make this surprisingly tasty treat I adapted the recipe just a little. To make my version you’ll need:
- 3 medium “weather-blemished” or otherwise wonky apples
- 1 large onion
- 3 tbsp butter
- 500g carrots
- 700ml chicken (or vegetable) stock
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp fresh grated ginger
- a swirl of crème fraiche
- a sprinkling of fresh chives
To make:
- Melt butter in a large pot. Once melted, add and sautee the chopped onion until golden.
- Peel and chop the apples and carrots. Then add to the onions with the stock, sugar, salt and ginger. Bring to the boil then leave to simmer for 20 minutes.
- Turn off the heat, leave to cool slightly, then blend until smooth with a stick blender.
- To serve, reheat until piping hot, dish up then add a swirl of crème fraiche and sprinkling of fresh chives.
- Chutneys, jellies & jams
Almost any fruit or vegetable has jam or chutney potential – whatever it looks like! This is also a really good way to use up picture perfect fruit which is getting a bit old and squishy, perfect for those of you who grow your own and end up with the occasional glut!
Mango chutney, whitecurrant jelly, apple chutney, blackberry jam – the creations you concoct are entirely up to you and the produce you have to hand. If you’re looking for some inspiration, the BBC Good Food website has all sorts of recipes to get you filling up those jam jars. I’m especially taken with their spicy plum and apple chutney at the moment – great for using up those South African apples you can get from an african store and utterly delicious with a mature cheddar.
- Crumbles
If you’re feeling a bit more traditional, it’s time to break out a classic crumble. Peeled, chopped and cooked down with delicious spices, nobody will ever know that your apples weren’t the most attractive fruits on the bough. If you’d like to try a different twist on this British favourite, why not try Nigel Slater’s savoury apple crumble for a main course? Cutting out the sugar and introducing parmesan to the crumbly topping is an intriguing idea I can’t wait to try!
Do you avoid ugly looking fruit in greengrocers and supermarkets? Are you guilty of getting rid of less than perfect vegetables? Do you have any great ideas for making the most of this season’s glue of weather-damaged Western Cape apples? We’d love to hear about them, share your thoughts and ideas with our readers below!
Claire Dumont is a lover of all things shiny, Green and healthy and a writer of blogs about good food, good health and good living.
