Making food last longer(contains guide)
This cheese for example:
It was covered in mould so I cut it off. I know people who would throw this away. What would you do? How do you make food last longer? What do you do with your leftovers?
It was covered in mould so I cut it off. I know people who would throw this away. What would you do? How do you make food last longer? What do you do with your leftovers?
Comments
I usually just throw things in the fridge and they get eaten pretty fast anyway. I guess I don't really preserve things very well!
Leftovers... Depends what they are. If it's sausages or chicken then I'll save it till the next day, maybe have it in sandwiches or something. Same with pizza.
On Sunday I had a rib of beef, roast it (very rare) and had a bit from it. On Monday I had a thin slice of it fried in a samwich, then cut two beutiful 3/4 inch thick steaks - from the ribeye. Not very long at all on each side and it makes the perfect steak - better than any cut of steak cooked from raw.
I took a break from the left over meat tonight and went for prawns and chorizo.
I will likely have another steak for lunch tomorrow and then cut the rest up finely and as mince / ground beef and store in the freezer to be used in bolognese / cottage pie.
Will also make some stock from the bones and the scrapings of blood and jelly on the plate the beef it on.
Typically I don't save anything long enough for it to mold or go bad.
This is an argument I would love to live for, but some times fresh local produce comes in a glut, but not the glut I can got to market with.
This is very interesting, I have never heard of this practice before, does it affect the taste of the cold cuts? I am going to try it at home, and maybe put it into practice in my kitchen for certain slow moving items that need to stay fresh after cutting for a while. Thanks!
Here is a minor guide for keeping different foods fresh and preventing spoilage, if there is interest I will do a full guide.
General;
There are a lot of different factors involved in preventing spoilage. Different foods spoil for different reasons, dehydration, contamination, and the presence of natural enzymes are the most common. Following a few guidelines can help a lot.
1. Keep it clean. Your fridge, your kitchen, your hands. If you reduce the chance of contamination, your food will last longer. You don't need to be bleaching the fuck out of everything constantly, just keep it clean with simple soap and water.
2. Keep it cold. Ideally your fridge should be 1c-to4c, and your freezer at least -10c. Keeping food cold slows down enzymatic action, and prevents rapid growth of bacteria.
3. Keep it sealed. Keeping cooked food in sealed containers or ziplock bags instead of plastic wrap or tinfoil prevents dehydration and contamination, wrapping you are going to freeze tightly in plastic wrap will prevent freezer burn, and you don't need to buy a fucking $100 vac sealer to do it. Note, though, that sealed containers are not good for all food. And remember to suck the air out of ziplock bags before sealing them, especially when freezing meats and leftovers.
Produce; Keep root vegetables such as turnips, potatoes, beets and carrots in the dark, much like the general population, root vegetables are happiest in the dark. If you do not have an area of your house that is cool and dark, use a cardboard box in your fridge as a makeshift "root cellar", do not keep them in plastic bags, as temperature changes will cause precipitation on the plastic, and encourage growth of mould.
Some fruits and vegetables vegetables produce ethylene gas as they ripen and decompose, notably tomatoes, strawberries, and other vine fruits and vegetables. This gas will cause them to spoil prematurely if it is not vented, keep these in a loose plastic bag with a hole in it, or the vented containers they came in. There are products that adsorb this gas, but I cannot attest to the effectiveness of them.
Keep cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower in loose plastic bags in the crisper drawer of your fridge.
Keep greens in sealed bags, some greens like spinach should be used the day they are bought, others like lettuce will oxidize a little around the edges once cut, but as long as you keep them sealed and moist (a little damp paper towel will do this) you can just cut away the brown bits and use it.
Meats; Ideally you should use meats the day you buy/thaw them. If you store or marinade them make sure you do it in a sealed container. When handling meats for storage, like when you break down a family pack and freeze it in portions, be sure to wash your hands and all the utensils/surfaces involved first to reduce the chance of contamination, and then immediately after, for the same reason.
Cheese, cured meats; Again, ideally, you use these within a few days of buying them. I like wrapping cheese tightly in wax paper, and then putting it into a ziplock bag, same with cured meats. If you freeze cured meats you will degrade them a little, ice crystals form during freezing, then when the product is thawed the water will drain out, leaving your goods a little worse for wear. You can fight this a little by freezing quickly, and thawing slowly.
Any additions to this "proto-guide" would be appreciated, criticism as well.
C/O
"It could be longer, but filler is for sausages"
i heard from multiple sources that youre supposed to store parmesan cheese in this manner, but i decided to try it on other stuff. I used to have a lot of problems with pepperoni getting a weird mould on it, but after wrapping in vinegar cloth, ive never had any mould grow on it. It doesnt change the flavour, but it does give it a vinegary smell obviously.
I only make 'fresh' sausage so that gets frozen in batches when I make them - never made dried sausages, but hope to give that a go in the cominng year.
buy a 10 lb bag of grits.
You can eat it every day for breakfast for 2-3 weeks and they're like 10$
Pantries are cool too.