I haven't done a TOP Tuesday blog post in a while. For those of you that are new, Turn Over the Pantry (TOP) Tuesday is just a post with recipes or ideas for using up those foods in your pantry to help rotate your stock. Many times, I will make a whole meal from the pantry without any extra ingredients.
If you prepare for emergencies, shop in bulk, or even just shop sales....there are foods that you buy that you don't use every day but are nice to have on hand. The more you prepare for life's event, the less fear you will have when things happen (like Hurricane Rita and a week without electricity).
Anyway, I buy canned fruit when it runs on sale. Of course I do a lot of my own canning as well, but when I can hit a sale for .50/can for cans of fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, and apricots....I jump on them. Of course those .50 cent prices are long gone....they're $1 now. But since these are not foods that we eat every day, we need to be sure to rotate the cans through. I had 5 cans of fruit cocktail that expired a couple of months ago. Just because a date has passed doesn't mean the food inside is dangerous. Manufacturers guarantee quality until that date, after that the product loses texture and color quality.
So I've been trying to think of a way to use these 5 cans of fruit cocktail, and came up with an idea last night....why not dry it? Dried foods, when properly stored, have an indefinite shelf life. So I opened a can, drained and rinsed them, and put them out on a dryer tray......and this is what I ended up with!
I'm thinking these could be a nice snack, toss them into oatmeal, use them for baking into cookies or cakes, in trail mix......the possibilities are endless!
We also dry a lot of apricots. We catch canned apricots on sale and then dry them in preparation for our Christmas baskets. Once the fruit has dried and cooled, I place it into clean jars....look how great the fruit cocktail looks!
Once the jars are filled, I vacuum seal them and put them in a cool dark spot. They will keep for years to come...or at least until early December when we make baskets.
Anyway, I buy canned fruit when it runs on sale. Of course I do a lot of my own canning as well, but when I can hit a sale for .50/can for cans of fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, and apricots....I jump on them. Of course those .50 cent prices are long gone....they're $1 now. But since these are not foods that we eat every day, we need to be sure to rotate the cans through. I had 5 cans of fruit cocktail that expired a couple of months ago. Just because a date has passed doesn't mean the food inside is dangerous. Manufacturers guarantee quality until that date, after that the product loses texture and color quality. 
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