Two years ago we published a recipe for orange-tinted Halloween Popcorn Balls, shaped like pumpkins.

This new recipe was created by Meghan McGarry of Buttercream Blondie for PotsAndPans.com.

We like it even better, because what Halloween celebrant doesn’t look forward to candy corn?

The candy corn theme does double duty between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

QUICK TIP: No time to make popcorn balls? Tao the candy corn and marshmallows with regular popcorn and a drizzle of honey or agave to bind them (or the candy corn will end up at the bottom of the bowl).
 
 
RECIPE: CANDY CORN POPCORN BALLS

Meghan created a sweet-and-salty recipe with salted peanuts. We used the honey roasted peanuts we had on hand, and added a few dashes of salt.

If you don’t want to use nuts at all, substitute an additional 1/2 cup of candy corn, butterscotch baking chips, or Halloween M&Ms (they’re white and made in the shape of candy corn), etc.

For gifting, you can wrap them like a pomander in orange curling ribbon, or in individual clear cellophane bags with a ribbon tie.

Ingredients For 8-10 Popcorn Balls

 
Preparation

1. LINE a sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside. Spray a large bowl and a spatula with cooking spray and add the popcorn. Set aside.

2. MELT the butter in a medium size saucepan over medium heat. Once butter begins to melt, add the marshmallows and stir continuously until melted. Then stir in vanilla extract.

3. POUR the melted mixture over the popcorn and gently toss with the spatula. Add the candy corn and peanuts.

4. SPRAY your hands with cooking spray and continue to mix by hand until everything is coated and combined. Add the sprinkles just before you’re almost done mixing.

5. SHAPE the popcorn into balls and set on a parchment-lined sheet pan to cool.
 
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*If popping the corn from scratch, you need 6 ounces or 2/3 cup of kernels.

[2] Halloween sprinkles from Dress My Cupcake.

[3] Halloween confetti from Kreative Baking.

[2] Check for fresh, canned or frozen vegetables and make Primavera with olive oil (photo © Melissa’s). Bonus: some leftover chicken.

[3] No veggies? No problem! Garlic, olive oil, chili flakes and some celery and cucumber from the fridge created this tasty dish (photo © P.F. Chang’s).

[4] This Primavera contains canned artichoke hearts and some strips of grated carrot (photo © Grimmway Farms).

October is National Pasta Month.

Most of us have dry pasta in the pantry, an easy-cook dinner.

But what if you have no pasta sauce—at least, no go-to red sauce, or the ingredients* from which to quickly make one?

Recipes evolved because people used what they had on hand. You can do the same.

These alternative sauces for pasta also work with grains and vegetables.
 
 
SUBSTITUTE FOR PARMESAN CHEESE

No parmesan or other Italian grating cheese? Use any other grated or shredded cheese, ricotta or cottage cheese (these latter often used to stuff pasta). Even those that may seem and unusual pairing—Stilton or Gouda, for example—work.

 
 
SUBSTITUTE FOR RED SAUCE

You can use any type of sauce you do have, from cheese sauce to salsa. Adding whatever vegetables—from sundried or cherry tomatoes to onions to any herb or spice on the shelf—gives added dimension. Check out these new Recipe Ready Tomato Paste Pouches from Hunt’s, and keep them in the pantry.

 
More?

Check the fridge and the pantry. You may find adobo, barbecue sauce, chili sauce, chimmichurri, chutney, pesto, piri-piri, sriracha ketchup and so on.

Turn them into a pasta sauce by blending with oil, sour cream, yogurt, etc.

You can make a classic white sauce in just 10 minutes. Use it as is, or add whatever seasonings you like, from olives to nutmeg.

With grated Parmesan, it would be Alfredo Sauce.
 
Ingredients For 1 Cup

 
Preparation

1. MELT the butter over medium heat in a small pan. Add the flour, salt and pepper, whisking until smooth.

2. SLOWLY WHISK in the milk and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until thickened. Use immediately or refrigerate, tightly covered.
 
 
HOW MANY TYPES OF PASTA HAVE YOU TRIED?

Check out the different types of pasta in our photo-packed Pasta Glossary.

 
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*You can turn the following into red sauce: canned tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, tomato paste.
 
 

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Big Slice Apples were first cooked in Grandma Hoerner’s farm kitchen in Kansas in the late 1800s, made from apples straight from the orchard.

Grandson, Duane McCoy, rcalling the wonderful big slices of cooked apples from his youth, could find no commercial product like it. In 1987, after experimenting to replicate her recipe, he was ready to bring them to the world.

Big Slice Juicy Cooked Apples may be the best apple “sauce” you can buy. Thick slices of kettle-cooked apples resting in an a sauce made from reduced apple juice.

It is the way it was originally made with big slices of fresh apples, slow cooked, with only natural ingredients added. These are chunky apples that can be eaten with a fork, although a spoon will do.

The Big Apple Slices are all natural, non-GMO, HFCS free and slow cooked, using domestic apples—just as Grandma Hoerner made them. They are both a luxurious dessert or topping and a healthful grab-and-go snack—a great source of vitamin C and naturally gluten free.

The product, originally (and still) sold in 19.5-ounce jars, is now available in grab-and-go pouches—lots of them—in 4.5-ounce portions, 80 to 90 calories depending on flavor, for $2.50. We found 16-packs on Amazon, but not on the Grandma Hoerner’s website.

Three flavor lines focus on flavor profiles:

 
The only challenge is where to begin. We received samples of each flavor, and can’t decide what to re-order. We may have to proceed alphabetically!
 
HOW TO ENJOY GRANDMA HOERNER’S BIG SLICE APPLES

For starters, here’s how we enjoyed the different Big Slice flavors:

[1] A great grab-and-go snack. [2] A topping for pancakes and other breakfast foods. [3] A yogurt mix-in or topping (photos courtesy Grandma Hoerner’s).

[4] Time for dessert or company for tea? Fill tartlet shells for dessert (photo courtesy Grandma Hoerner’s).

WHERE TO FIND BIG SLICE

The pouches are available at Costco, H -E-B, Hy-Vee. Kowalski’s, Meijer, Price Chopper, Publix, Sprouts, Whole Foods Market, and more than 7,000 food stores nationwide. Here’s a store locator.

You can buy them online at BigSliceApples.com and in multipacks at Amazon.com.

A portion of the purchase to the A Sparkle Life, a non-profit organization aiding women in need.

 
FOR MORE INFORMATION, head to BigSliceApples.com.

[1] A rum cake bundt, heavy on the rum (photo courtesy King Arthur Flour). [2] The rum is poured onto the cake and sits overnight to sink in. This recipe adds cinnamon to the rum syrup (photo courtesy AlwaysOrderDessert.com). [3] Lots of rum syrup make this cake very moist (photo courtesy BrownEyedBaker.com). [4] This butter-rum oil (not rum extract) adds another layer of deliciousness (photo courtesy Lorann Oils).

In the Caribbean, rum cakes are a traditional holiday dessert, descendants of figgy pudding and other Christmas puddings*.

Rum cakes are descended from British holiday puddings, such as figgy pudding (plum pudding) and fruit cake. Traditionally, dried fruit is soaked in rum for months; but in modern recipes, just an overnight soak suffices.

“If you’ve ever traveled to the Caribbean,” says King Arthur Flour, the premium baking ingredients company that sent us this recipe, “chances are you’ve had the amazing rum cakes that the islands are famous for. Sadly, these cakes are not often found in northern latitudes but this recipe is the closest we’ve ever had to the ‘real’ thing.

“Yes, there is a lot of rum in this cake, definitely not for the faint of heart; but the texture and flavor are unbeatable—moist, rich and deeply satisfying. Whisk yourself away to white sandy beaches with this incredible cake.”

Yes, this is definitely a potent cake (all real rum, no “rum flavor”), very moist and fragrant.

If you have half an hour, whip one up. Prep time is 30 minutes to 40 minutes, bake time is 50 minutes to 55 minutes.

In fact, make two: This cake freezes beautifully.

 
RECIPE: CARRIBBEAN RUM CAKE

Ingredients For 1 Large Bundt Cake
 
For The Rum Cake Base

 
Plus

 
For The Rum Soaking Syrup

 
Optional For Serving

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 325°F. Spray a 10 to 12 cup bundt pan with cooking spray. Sprinkle in the almond flour and turn the pan to coat evenly. Set aside.

2. PLACE all of the cake ingredients except the rum, vanilla and butter rum flavoring in the bowl of a stand mixer. Blend on medium speed for 2 minutes scraping down the bowl after one minute.

3. ADD the rum, vanilla and butter rum flavor to the batter and blend for another minute. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and spread level with a spatula.

5. COMBINE the syrup ingredients, except the vanilla, in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring to a rapid boil; then reduce to a simmer and cook for 5 to 8 minutes, until the syrup thickens slightly. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla.

6. POKE holes all over the cake with a skewer. Pour about 1/4 of the syrup over the cake while still in the pan. Allow the syrup to soak in, then repeat again and again until all the syrup is used. Cover the pan loosely with plastic wrap and allow the cake to sit out overnight to soak in the syrup. When ready to serve…

7. LOOSEN the edges of the cake and invert it onto a serving plate.

Most serious bakers use unbleached flour, which is aged. But why did manufacturers start bleaching flour in the first place?

Freshly-milled flour isn’t yet ready for baking. It improves with some aging.

During aging, oxygen in the air reacts with the glutenin proteins, which eventually form gluten, to form even longer chains of gluten. These longer chains provide more elasticity and structure, the latter important for cakes.

During this aging process—around four months—the fresh flour, which is slightly yellowish from carotenoid pigments in the endosperm, becomes paler as the pigments oxidize. This has no impact on the flavor or performance of the flour.

Around the beginning of the 20th century, it became common for mills to use chemicals to speed up the aging process, producing more flour and requiring less storage space. Potassium bromate was commonly used, followed by bleaches like benzoil peroxide and chlorine dioxide, to approximate the whiteness of naturally aged flour.

More recently, health concerns over the consumption of potassium bromate have led to its replacement with ascorbic acid.

Here’s more about aged flour.

What do these fruits have in common? Once sliced, they begin to discolor quickly. First up: sliced apples (photo © US Apple Association).

[2] Another fast browner: sliced banana (photo © Baby-Recipes.com).

[3] Sliced pears (photo © USA Pears).

[4] Squeezing citrus juice on cut fruit is just one of 6 techniques (photo © Texasweet).

Now that we’re into the cooler months and stone fruit and blueberry seasons are over, many people turn to apples, bananas, and pears.

You can eat them whole as hand fruit; or slice them to use them as garnishes, in fruit salads, etc. Or, you may be slicing them to prepare a pie or tart.

But how do you stop them from turning brown?

Browning of fruit is caused by the exposure of the flesh to oxygen. Enzymes in certain fruits react quickly with the oxygen in the air to oxidize, which turns the flesh brown. The discoloration doesn’t affect taste, but appearance.

The solution is to limit that exposure.

Anyone who has read a pie recipe knows to coat the cut surfaces with lemon juice, the strongest edible acid that can stop the enzyme reaction.

This may be the best technique, but there are other techniques as well.
 
 
1. FRUIT JUICE STOPS BROWNING

Lemon juice is the standard in recipes and food articles, but other juices work, too. If you don’t have lemon juice, try:

 
A half cup of juice will sufficiently cover two apples, bananas, or pears. We brush the juice onto the sliced fruit with a pastry brush; a friend uses a small spray bottle (the travel size used for cosmetics).

You can also toss or immerse the fruit in the juice for a few minutes; but when they soak up the juice, they also soak up the flavor. If you don’t want tart flavor from lemon or lime juice, e.g., you can add some sugar.

Once they’re coated in fruit juice, the slices will take much longer to turn brown. They will last without refrigeration in a plastic container for a few hours but are best consumed the same day.
 
In Fruit Salads

The way to stop apples, bananas, and pears in fruit salads from browning is to mix them with high-acid fruits: grapefruit, mandarins, and oranges (the difference), pineapples, tangerines.

Save the juices from slicing these fruits and add them to the bowl. They’ll stop the sensitive flesh from browning.
 
 
2. WRAPPING THE FRUIT

Lay the cut fruit on a plate or tray. Cut a piece of plastic wrap or wax paper to cover, and press it over the top of the slices, creating a shield from the air. This works best when the slices are roughly the same size.
 
 
3. VACUUM STORAGE

If you have a vacuum storage system—whether a heat-sealing system like InLife or hard a vacuum pump like Food Saver, you can create an air-free storage bag.

A hack is to put the slices in a storage bag and squeeze out the air. Refrigerate until ready to use. If you have a bit of lemon juice to sprinkle in, so much the better.

As a last resort, use club soda, seltzer water, soda water (the differences), or just plain water.

Flavored waters can even add a hint of extra flavor.

Soak the slices in the water/club soda. They don’t add flavor, so you can keep them in a lidded container until ready to use.
 
 
5. MAYONNAISE OR OTHER DRESSING

Apples, bananas, and other quick-to-brown fruits can also be coated with mayonnaise or salad dressing. These coatings block out the oxygen, which will also stop the browning process.

If you’re making this type of recipe, you’re covered.
 
 
6. DILUTED CITRIC ACID

Citric acid is the chemical in citrus juices that keeps cut fruits from browning (and also makes the fruit taste sour).

It is sold in a purified form as a canning additive, to keep the cut fruits in the cans or jars from discoloring. Check at a health food store or a hardware store.

However, we mention this as an FYI. It’s easier for home kitchens to use any of the above.

Powdered vitamin C, used as a cold-fighting supplement, is a similar option. Dissolve it in water according to the package directions, and soak the fruit. You can also grind up a vitamin C tablet.
 
 
WHAT IF SLICED FRUIT HAS TURNED BROWN?

Help is at hand: Immerse the discolored fruit slices in pineapple or grapefruit juice for 10-15 minutes.

They won’t return to their pristine whiteness but will lighten and look fresher.
 
 

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