Stone [Soup] Salad (virtually free; less than fifteen minutes)

This is virtually free, since what you're doing is using the odds and ends you have left over in the fridge to make the salad. You may have to buy some lettuce (you know you want the vegetarian starter kit, right?). Or maybe you have some, or some spinach, or something leafy and green? That's where you start.

Chuck can make two meals: this, and a pasta dish he calls carbonara, but it's really just pasta with olives and turkey bacon. It's really good, equally as good as his salad. He tells me that most of his cooking life was spent microwaving fish sticks or eating processed cheese on tortillas (microwaved). There's a good story about a last minute Thanksgiving he and his brother Bob ended up eating at 3am the morning after Thanksgiving. I've seen him make Bisquick pancakes -- and they're also good. But yeah. Now that we live together, mostly I cook.

Here, however, is his "famous" salad. Salad, in this part of the world, is best in fall and spring, when lettuce is fresh and local.

This one he made for dinner, and the way he makes them, they are a dinner.

What you'll need:

Green leafy substance (this is romaine, but any lettuce or non-cooking greens will do)

some fruit (here he's got apples, tangerines, dates, and raisins)

some vegetables (carrots, tomatoes, scallions, green peppers)

some nuts (here, pecans [how to say it like a native] and walnuts)

some salty stuff (like pickles, olives, capers)

some cheese and whatever else you have a spoonful or two of left in the fridge

Some spices (here, dill, cilantro, red pepper and black pepper)

What you do:

Wash what needs washing. Cut up what needs cutting up into bite-sized pieces.

Tear the lettuce into bite-sized pieces.

Put this in the bottom of a big bowl.

But the other bite-sized stuff on top.

Shake on some Parmesan or other cheese.

Toss and serve.

We eat this without dressing, but for guests we have some bottled stuff, or I drizzle on a little mustard mixed with honey and olive oil, or some Good Seasons Italian.

There you go.

Apple saucy

There I am, standing in the wet (it's been wet ALL SUMMER and ALL FALL this year; I'm sort of nostalgic for the drought, but don't tell anyone), standing I say in the wet at this little po-dunk vegetable stand next to the Goodyear rip-you-off-every-chance-we-get auto repair store by the police station (dear god, Carrollton's finest have a website!), and I'm asking the bluest eyed guy I've ever seen if I can have a box of apples.

"I want," I say, "a whole box. It's a bushel, right?"
"ehYep."
"Can I get Jonamacs?"
Stares at me.
"Jon. A. Macs. You know, cooking apples. Do you have them? A bushel?"
"Wahl, no'm, don't think ah do. But I got these y'here Romes."
"A box?"
"ehYep."
"What do they cost?"
"40 pounds ud be bout eighteen dollar."
"Thank you, I'll take them."
"ehYep."

So I give the guy my $20 bill, buy a couple of other things and head home to make applesauce, apple butter, all kinds of apple-y goodness. I was familiar with Romes (who isn't?), which are very fine cooking apples: they make very good consistency sauces by falling apart as soon as you touch them.

Word to the wise? Don't work with Delicious apples. They taste like sawdust. And only buy apples when they're harvesting where you are. Which is why I was doing this in the fall, just after we'd picked our own Fujis from our one and only productive apple tree.

And I'd made a pie or two.

The key to processing 40 pounds of apples is a peeler/slicer.

I got this one for $12 at the local, wonderful, small-town, old-timey hardware store owned by one of the town's oldest families: Burson's Feed and Seed (of course they don't have a website. If you go there, you'll see what I mean). It's got a suction cup on the bottom and is possessed by the devil. As you peel, the handle rotates off; the corer slides left and right because the wing-nut can't be sufficiently tightened; when you try to move the corer/slicer back into place, it mutilates your hand.

Blood content of my applesauce is not high, but I probably should put it on the label.

The process of making applesauce is pretty simple. Peel, core and chop up some apples.

Add a little water, sugar, and spices (I use cinnamon and a little allspice). Cook until the apples are soft (about 30 minutes). Mash with a potato masher, or if you like your applesauce very smooth (icky), press through a sieve or food mill. That's, like, it. EASY. Why anyone buys the stuff, I don't know, since that crap tastes like -- well, crap. And homemade applesauce is just freaking the best-tasting, warm, homey, mommy-loves-me food there is.

The ratios are this, and you should adjust for the type of apple: the tart-er the apple, the more sugar -- though no more than 2/3 cup per 3 pounds of apples (measured before peeling/coring/cooking).

3 lbs (about 9 med.) apples (Jonamacs, Romes, Granny Smiths) -- peeled, cored, and sliced or quartered
1/3 c sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
3/4 c water (more if the apples seem dry, less if they seem very juicy)

In a large pot, heat to boiling. Stir. Turn heat to low. Cover and cook until soft. Mash until it's the consistency you like. Eat warm or cold.

For extra fiber (if you need it, or you like chewing), add some finely chopped peel before boiling. No more than, say, a cup, loosely packed, or it'll eat less like sauce than like chopped apple peel.

Not only do we just eat this (I served a big bowl at Thanksgiving, but we eat it for dessert, too), I use homemade applesauce regularly in baked goods that require oil. You can make a one-to-one substitution, applesauce to oil, but sometimes that changes consistency and taste pretty significantly, so I substitute half applesauce for half the oil, and subtract out some of the sugar the recipe calls for. Cakes are lighter and moister (and actually less cloyingly sweet) when I do this.

To can this (as I do), you fill hot jars with hot sauce, leaving half inch headroom. Boil in hot water for 20 minutes, lift out, cool, check seal, store. Here's a third of the jars I got from my forty pounds: I think all told, I had 10 quarts, maybe 13 pints, and 8 half-pints. Also 4 pints of apple butter. It'll keep us until next fall, if I don't give it all away.

There you go.