Skip to main content

Keeping Food From Spoiling

Not too long ago, I'd buy a 5 to 10 pound bag of potatoes and other produce items every time I went grocery shopping, and by the end of the two weeks between grocery trips, more than half of the package would be spoiled.

I hate wasting food, but I also didn't want to have to drive to the store every few days to buy more produce. Is it really cost effective to buy fewer produce items at a higher price several times as opposed to buying them in bulk and losing half the package? I don't know.

I have tried "green" bags, which are supposed to keep veggies from spoiling so quickly. Either I didn't use them right or they don't work because I didn't notice any difference in how quickly my produce spoiled.

These days, though, I try to schedule a cutting session during which I peel and shred as many veggies as I can, chop them up and freeze them for use as needed. This works great for onions, carrots and bell peppers but not so well for potatoes, which turn brown once they're peeled, no matter how quickly you put them in the freezer.

To remedy this problem, I've started cooking potatoes ahead. I turn them into boiled potatoes for stew or baked fries for side dishes for other foods. Reheating the boiled ones works great; reheating baked fries doesn't go nearly as smooth but they really don't turn out bad. I just microwave them for about three minutes. They're softer than when I serve them fresh, but not bad.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finding a use for gifts you don't use

( Stuart Miles / FreeRangeStock.com ) Question: Someone gives you a present. You open it, give the gifter a sincere smile, and say, "Thank you," but you know that gift is something you'll never use. Not once. What do you do with it later? Me? I keep them. I just can't shake the feeling of guilt that goes along with regifting or selling them. As a result, my family and I have lots of items we either haven't used in years or have never used at all: An electric knife, electric griddle, a big mixer, something called Yonanas. The list goes on and on. But the bottom line is, Yonanas and electric knives don't fit my family's lifestyle. They never have, and I doubt they ever will. So I think I might need to get over feeling like it would be ungrateful to get rid of them and post them in places like Craigslist or some of those online sales sites on Facebook for sale. That way, at least we can have the cash to pay toward part of our debt. Wouldn't...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trimming the Grocery List

This week is another grocery shopping week, and I'm dreading it. I had at one point managed to get my grocery spending under $175 every two weeks, the last few trips have not gone that well. They've all totaled more than $200, not including any supplementary trips I needed to make later. I'm not really sure what I can do to cut it more at this point beyond rethink what we've been eating. Over the past few months, the price of ground beef has gone up quite a bit, and much of what we eat has ground beef in it. I had been buying the leanest beef available, but on my last grocery trip, I bought 90/10 meat. Perhaps we'll need to eat more chicken.
Post a Comment
Read more

Getting Ready for Etsy Debut

One of my hopes for making a little extra money is to see some of my handmade crafts on Etsy. I have a few items I'd like to list -- a couple of bracelets -- but the beads on them are so small that I'm having trouble getting decent photos of them. Hopefully, I'll have something usable by the end of the week.
Post a Comment
Read more