In our lunchroom at work, the table closest to the door has been unofficially designated “the help yourself table”. If a department orders pizza or brings in bagels and there are leftovers, they usually end up on the table with a note that says, “help yourself”. It’s held congratulatory cakes, bags of tomatoes, cukes, and zukes from over-abundant gardens, buckets and baskets of Halloween and Easter candy, Christmas cookies, office party leftovers, and leftover chips and dips from someone’s Super Bowl party. It also offers lots of non-foods such as fast food coupons, theme park discount tickets, paperback books, computer accessories such as out-dated but still working printers (someone got an upgrade, LOL), and free gifts and handouts that the traders bring back from out-of-town conventions and symposiums (I scored a messenger bag from the table that my son uses for his laptop). It’s a truly magical table.
The other day, someone left a nice ripe Fuji apple on it. I passed on it because, eh, well, not so good with the substandard dentures that grace my face. And I don’t really care for the skin; food quirk. It was still there today, though, so I went ahead and grabbed it; an idea was forming. Because of the apple, I decided on Panera (St. Louis Bread Company here) for lunch. Panera offers a choice of sides, bread, potato chips, or an apple (pretty sure that’s where that Fuji came from in the first place) with their lunch selections; I chose the Turkey Bacon Dijon Panini (omg, SOOO good, you have to try one!), with a side of potato chips, and I bought a shortbread cookie. Then I headed over to the carryout condiments and snagged a couple mayonnaise packets (okay, don’t get bored yet; I’m going somewhere with this), a few lemon wedges, a handful of Turbinado sugar packets, and another of butter packets. You may think I’m just restocking my desk drawer, but not today; today I’m making condiment cobbler in the microwave!
The Panera Pomme-Pomme Surprise
1 shortbread cookie
1 or 2 mayonnaise packets (about 1 tablespoon)
10-12 Turbinado sugar packets
1 apple
3-4 lemon wedges (they slice them really small there)
1 bag potato chips
3 single-serving butter tubs
Finely crumble the cookie; mix in the mayonnaise and 2 packs of Turbinado sugar. Press into the bottom of a 2 cup microwave safe bowl.
Core, peel and cut the apple into ¼ inch slices. Place on top of the crust, sprinkling each layer with lemon juice and a packet of sugar, about 3 or 4 layers.
Finely crush the potato chips and mix in 4 packets of sugar; reserve 1 teaspoon of topping. Sprinkle the larger portion over the apples and dot with butter.
Cover loosely and microwave on high for 3 ½ minutes. Sprinkle with the reserved teaspoon of topping (I thought of this step after I ate it).
Now, because it was microwaved, the textures were a little... different. The crust wasn’t crusty and the chips weren’t crispy, but I was okay with that, and it tasted surprisingly good! And the apples cooked to perfection! I might actually try making this in the oven some time. All in all, it was quite tasty for a spur of the moment dessert made entirely of side dishes and free condiments. (Except for the cookie. But I only paid $1.59 for it)
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