Make your food last longer and save your grocery bill

I’m always looking for ways to make food stay fresh longer. With the rise in grocery prices and food insecurity, wasting food comes with its own brand of guilt. There is nothing more disappointing than finding rotting food in your fridge; and I’m not talking about leftovers that have found their way to the back of your fridge. I’m talking about the perfectly good, well-intentioned fruits and vegetables that weren’t eaten and have been wasted. Over the course of the past couple of years I have sought to find ways to prolong the life of the food I use; I’ve cut up and frozen my vegetables, changing how I store food in my fridge, and have started prepping meals. There are many ways to preserve food in the home that can both save on the grocery bill and keep food fresh longer.

1.Freezing Foods

Freezing foods is a great way to make your food last longer. In the two decades I spent in the service industry I learned a great deal that I use in my home kitchen as well.

Freezing Recommendations

1. Always label your food: So you’ve frozen some herbs in oil and bagged them. What are they? Don’t know? Might not be a problem unless you get something like dill or basil mixed up which have pretty strong flavors. LABEL YOUR FOOD. While you might know what’s in the bag the other people in the house may not. In a commercial setting, this type of communication is key for keeping food fresh and safe.
2. Date your food: If you do a lot of meal prep you’ll be familiar with this practice. I recommend doing this for any food your freeze even if it’s berries. This will help you keep track of what you have and how long its been there. It will also be integral to the next step
3. Rotate your food: If you’ve gone through the trouble to labelling and dating the food, make sure the oldest date is in the front. First in, first out. Using this method means you will always rotate through your food and not find some white, non descript, maybe-it’s-chicken, looking bag of food in the back of your freezer in a few months.
4. Use proper freezer bags: When the budget is tight I will make do with what I have, even if its plastic wrap. Wrapped properly and well, the food will last but it will have a higher risk of freezer burn. I would highly recommend using proper freezer bags because they are designed for the freezer not for keeping your sandwich fresh till lunch. Plus, most freezer bags have a label on them making it easier to label and date. You can also use re-usable freezer bags, I tend to use these for fridge storage but they will work in the freezer as well, just make sure you clean them thoroughly in warm soapy water and I would avoid using for meat storage.

Peppers

Peppers freeze very well. I typically have a bag or two of them in my freezer for stir-fry, casseroles, scrambled eggs or as a side dish. Sometimes seeing the bag of peppers in the freezer is the inspiration I need to decide what to have for dinner on lazy nights. Keep in mind once you freeze the peppers they will need to be cooked. I would not recommend using them in a salad after freezing, they will be watery and soggy if you try to eat them.

Herbs

You can create your own flavored oil which is amazing for stir fry, soup, or even for seasoning side dishes of vegetables. Chop herbs and place in an ice cube tray, fill each cube with oil until full and freeze, A silicon ice cube tray is best for this because it will be easier to get the cubes out. Once they are frozen you can then, place them in freezer bags, label them, and store them for later use.

Potatoes as French Fries

Controversial take on the potatoes as they are not great for freezing, but I stumbled upon this a few years ago when I was looking for more ways to make frozen foods at home. So yes you can freeze them, but it’s a bit of a process.

1. Peel and cut potatoes into fries.

2.Parboil the potatoes for 2 minutes., ( If you are unfamiliar with the term “parboil” it means to partially boil, or you can “parcook” something which mean to partially cook something. It’s usually done to speed up cooking processes later. Proper cooking and storage is important so make sure you keep safety in mind as this method is not safe for all foods, especially meat)

3.Once you have boiled the potatoes for 2 minutes, drain and place them in Ice water for 1 minute. Lay them out on paper towel ( or clean dishtowel) and pat dry.

4.Toss the fries in oil, with a splash of lemon juice ( which prevents potato from browning due to oxidization) and whatever seasoning you want. You can keep the seasonings simple or get creative, I like to keep mine simple with some sea salt.

5.Lay them out on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and freeze for approximately and hour. They may be stuck to the tray when you take them out, gently remove them or let them sit for a couple of minutes and remove them. Once removed you can bag, label and freeze them. To cook, preheat oven to 350F cook for 10-15 min then flip and cook 10-15 min. Cooking time may vary.

Berries

You can freeze berries, in fact I would suggest you do this regularly. They can be used them for smoothies, fruit syrup for pancakes or waffles, you can make a topping cheesecakes or other desserts. If you are going to freeze your berries make sure to wash them first. This goes for all fruits and vegetables that you freeze, its better to freeze clean food.

2. Storage techniques

You can prolong the life of your food by changing the way you store your food in the fridge. One thing to remember is to make sure there is room in your fridge ( or freezer) for air circulation otherwise you may have an issue with your produce freezing in your fridge which is not good at all.

Berries

How you store you berries matters and can be the difference between having berries for a week ( if you’re lucky) or having them for two or more weeks. Berries can be tricky and I find during the summer it’s important to keep checking them. Despite my cynicism I tried the mason jar method and it worked better than I had initially thought it would. I managed to get at least two weeks out of my berries without them going bad. One thing to remember is to not wash them before you put them in the mason jar. Excess moisture will cause the berries to rot faster, just wash them as you eat them. My fridge was a bit fussy last summer and started freezing my produce so I stored the mason jars on the door instead of in the fridge.

Celery

Celery is one of those vegetables that does well when stored in water. In the last article I talked about how to grow celery in water you can also keep it fresh in your fridge using water as well. Get a container and fill the bottom with water store your celery in the container. The cold water will keep the celery crisp and will keep it from rotting.

Lettuce

You can keep lettuce in water but it will become water logged and will run a higher risk of freezing if the temperature fluctuates. I recommend a couple different methods. you can place the lettuce in a container with a damp paper towel on the bottom and on the top. Or you can roll out paper towel, remove lettuce leaves, wash and wrap in paper towel. This will help keep your lettuce fresher for longer,

Dried Goods

You can also dry some of your foods for longer storage. You can dehydrate your foods without a dehydrator if you like. You’re oven may take longer but it’s already there. Many of the recipes for drying fruits require a long cook time ( 8-12 hours on heat like 100F) it will take while so make it worth your while by doing larger batches.

Berries

This is the third time berries has been on the list I know but you can do so much to keep them and they are pretty expensive so the more you do to preserve them the better! You can use berries to make homemade fruit roll ups, or homemade fruit snacks. You can also dehydrate them in the oven and use them as a candy substitute or add them to granola.

Herbs

Herbs don’t necessarily need to be dehydrated in the oven. You can tie them with string and hang them, it’ll take a week or so but it will make your house smell nice and it is more of a set and forget it approach which I enjoy. Once they’ve dried you can use a mortar and pestle, a herb stripper or your hands to finish the dried herbs and store them in bottles in your spice cupboard.

Celery: I recently discovered ( I have yet to try this) that if you dehydrate celery leaves and crush them you can make your own celery powder.

3, meal prep

One of the best ways to preserve your food and make it last longer is to prepare it beforehand and store it. This requires some forethought, but it can shape how you cook, how you shop and how your store your food. I do love having meals to choose from at the end of the day, takes the guess work out of the weeknights. Plus, it’s great incentive to eat healthy because it’s already prepared. If you do choose to do meal prep regularly please refer back to the top of this article to freezing recommendations.

And that does it! Of course there are thousands of tips and tricks to choose from. These are just a few that I have used in my own kitchen that have been useful. I still look for new methods to try, new ways to be more creative and versatile in my kitchen. Keeps things interesting! Till next time.

Leslie

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