keeping food fresh-- tips?

S

Smurfette

500+ Posts
I went grocery shopping today. I'm still finding myself shocked at how much prices are going up. S

So, I thought maybe we could share some things we do to keep food fresh/ lasting longer.

Here's a couple tricks I use:

Store mushrooms in paper bags in the fridge. Lunch bag size works great. Keeps the shrooms from getting smiley and going bad-- they'll stay good a week easily this way.

Fresh herbs: Clean them and trim off excess stems. Laver them between paper towels-- make sure there's a towel on bottom and one top-- you can do lots of layers. Put them in a large plastic ziplock bag, stab some air holes in it, and store in the fridge. This will keep your herbs good for at least a week, usually more like 2.
 
Good topic.

You can buy meat in the large family packs at a better price, so I take the pieces out of the package and freeze them individually and use whatever amount you need. Place on wax paper on a cookie sheet in the freezer for few hours and then the individually frozen pieces can be stored in a large ziplock bag without sticking to each other. Great for a small household.

Butter freezes really well, so stock up when you see it on sale and take out a stick at a time if you don't use it a lot or just use it to cook with certain recipes. flour also keeps well in the freezer.

A friend sent me an email with a couple of tips about a week ago, but I don't know for sure if true.

Take your bananas apart when you get them home from the store. Leaving them connected to the stem ripens them faster.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold. Celery will keep longer in foil, too. Celery in foil? hmm
 
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Anyone have a good method for keeping lettuce fresh? My parents would wrap it in paper towels. I have done this and also just kept it in plastic storage bags.
 
My main beef with lettuce I find in stores now is it is not as fresh as it used to be. Most heads have a lot of brown rusty looking areas and slimy stems.

My local produce guy said he was having to throw out about half a case of lettuce when the case was opened. This is true at every stores around here.

I used to be able to keep lettuce for 3-4 weeks. I have to use it all in one or two days now or it is trash. Needless to say I do not buy as much lettuce as I used to buy.
 
i have a large tuperware sealed bowl that i keep lettuce in and it stays good for over a week, i keep all my veggies sealed and they will stay good for over a week...when buying perishables, you should shop weekly...the herbs that go bad early are usually not fresh...most items will stay good for a week anyway if you keep them in a cold enough fridge...i dont like to refrigerate fruit because i think they lose flavor if chilled
 
For iceberg lettuce, Tupperware used to have a lettuce keeper that worked wonders. For leaf lettuce, if you rinse it to refresh it, then put it in a spinner, wrap it in paper towels, then into a sealer plastic bag, it will keep longer.

Also, with green onions and celery: if you rinse and clean them, wrap in paper towels and put into a plastic bag, they will last about twice as long.
 
For salad mix lettuce, the Central Market "mixes" that come in the disposable but resealable plastic container keep really well-- much better than the bagged stuff.
 
I have tried them, and they really do work well. I've kept asparagus, zuccini, celery, strawberries and tomatoes for a lot longer than usual. I store everything like that in them now. Anything that is "wet" won't work, though - cut watermelon didn't last well.

I recommend them.
 
I purchased some of the Green Bags last night, at Walgreen's (in the "as seen on TV" section). So, I'm hoping that they work like they say they do. The girl checking me out of Walgreen's, said that several people have told her that they work great.
 
A friend of mine told me to toss a folded paper towel in w/ the salad mix to prolong the life that much more... I haven't tried it though
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One thing you can do is to keep some kind of insulated container in your vehicle. It could be a large cooler or large insulated bag like they sell at Costco or Sam's. Stick all your cold and frozen items in it along with fresh veggies (especially leafy items) and it will prevent them from wilting on the drive home. This is especially important in the summer heat.
 
Consumer Reports recently did a test that showed the green bags worked no better than plastic bags, and in some cases actually had moldy items before the veggies in plain, ziplock bags.
 
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