I had some charoset, a cup and a half or so (a free-form mix of apples, nuts, dates, raisins, wine and cinnamon) leftover from the Passover Seder and I thought, hey presto! isn't that basically a pie filling?

So I dumped it into the corn syrup and egg foundation of a typical pecan pie recipe, this one taken from Marion Cunningham's 1986 revision of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. I baked it in a pre-made pie shell -- a more observant cook would want to use a kosher-for-Passover pastry crust -- and hoped for the best.

It came out good enough for the kids to enjoy it, but not what I wanted. The apples gave off a lot of liquid, which made the filling gooey, and they floated to the top of the pie and looked a bit, shall we say, tired. But I gave myself an A for effort in the Don't Waste Leftovers department.

Care to experiment? Here is the pecan pie recipe I used. Incidentally, this base is awfully sweet.

Mix:
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 teasp. salt
1 cup dark corn syrup
1 teasp. vanilla

Add the cup or so of leftover charoset to the egg-syrup mix. Pour into a homemade or store-bought pie shell. Bake for 10 minutes in a preheated 425 F oven. Lower the heat to 350 F and continue baking 35-45 minutes, until the filling is set.

And good luck with that.