Friday, April 20, 2012

Leftover Innovations

I hate wasting food.  It makes me crazy to throw things straight from the fridge into the trash.  Therefore, I have a tendency to become overly satisfied when I can rely on my ingenuity to come up with ways to use leftovers.  That is the story behind this recipe.

Passover was two weeks ago, and Dave and I hosted our first seder.  We made tons of food, planning to just live off leftovers for the week, and the charoset was no exception.  My charoset is my grandmother's recipe, and it's always just eyeballed and tasted until things taste and look right.  I used fuji apples, cinnamon, crushed walnuts, Tokay wine, and a little bit of sugar.  After all was said and done, I had a sandwich bag stuffed to the gills with leftover charoset that would have found a new home in the garbage yesterday had I not been digging around in the freezer, looking for a package of hot dogs to snack on after coming home starving from work (please tell me I'm not the only one to resort to strange food cravings after a long day...)  Anyway, I found a package of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry dough (that had also been in deep freeze for way too long...) and decided that if the experiment was a flop, I wouldn't feel bad about tossing everything because it was all just taking up valuable fridge real estate anyway.  I'm glad I went out on a limb, because the end result was deliciously surprising and very satisfying.


Left Over Charoset Strudel

1 sheet of frozen Pepperidge Farm puff pastry dough, thawed
About 2 cups of charoset
Sugar for sprinkling
Powdered Sugar
Cinnamon
Egg wash (I used egg whites, which looking back I think I should have used the yolks too)
Water

1.  Roll out one sheet of thawed puff pastry dough on a lightly floured surface and cut into quarters.

2.  Place four large tablespoons (or however much looks like it will fit) on one side of each of the quarters of dough (you want them to have mounded middles).  Fold dough over and pinch sides.

3.  Brush with egg wash and sprinkle sugar on top.

4.  Back on an oiled cookie sheet for ~13 min at 400 F degrees until golden brown and puffy.

5.  Mix powdered sugar with a teaspoon of water and cinnamon until glaze consistency is reached.  Drizzle glaze over pastry.

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