A couple years ago, I discovered that I had food allergies, so I've been doing a lot more cooking at home and eating less processed foods. As I've gone through, I've learned a lot about preserving vegetables way longer than their "normal" shelf life. I thought I'd share some of the big ones that often went bad as I was figuring these out:
1) Celery and carrots - wash, peel if desired, chop into whatever size will fit into a tupperware, and cover with cold water. Change out water every 4-5 days, but this will let them last at least 2 weeks, sometimes up to a month.
2) Fresh greens (lettuce, spinach, kale) - Wash leaves, dry with salad spinner or shake thoroughly. Lay out a layer of paper towels and put the greens on the paper towels in roughly a single layer (a little overlap is okay but 3 layers of leaves can cause the middle ones to decay). If you run out of room, put another layer of paper towels on top, so that paper towels are between each layer of greens. When you're all done, roll it like a twinkie and stick the roll into a plastic grocery bag and loosely tie. The paper towels help absorb the excess moisture, keeping the greens from rotting early, but also hold enough moisture in there that they stay crisp. You can also use this tactic to perk up wilted greens that have been sitting in the fridge too long.
3) Ginger - peel, chop, and blitz in a blender with a little bit of water. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze; Take out of tray and put into baggies.
4) Tomato paste - oftentimes, you only need 1-2 tbsp in a recipe. Put the rest into 1 tbsp mounds on a piece of wax paper and freeze. Once solid, throw into a plastic baggie in the freezer.
5) Avocados - avocados will ripen outside of the fridge, but the fridge can keep them from going bad once they're ripe.
6) Soft squashes - crisper drawer in refrigerator can keep them for at least a week and a half.
7) Extra chicken broth - freeze in a muffin tin in 1/2 cup aliquots; pop out once frozen and put in freezer bag.
8) Bread - slice up and keep in freezer. When you need a slice, pop the frozen slice into the toaster or wrap in slightly damp paper towel and reheat for 10-15 sec.
9) Fresh herbs - place in plastic bag slightly open with a folded paper towel to absorb extra moisture. If you need them to keep more than a week or two, you can either freeze whole leaves, or blitz them and freeze them like the ginger.
10) Berries - keep in fridge; if you will be using them for baking or yogurt/ice cream toppings, you can wash and freeze them.
I hope some of these help someone! Feel free to add your own :)
Submitted March 16, 2016 at 10:30PM by beanieb http://ift.tt/1UzEAXd YouShouldKnow
