Tips for Storing and Eating your Produce

feb 7th utah

Get a kitchen chalkboard,or a highly visible fridge list where you can write down all of the produce you got that week.

• Next, take a good look at your list for the week. I like to think of it as a high-stakes strategy session, because ya know, I think bringing some business into the kitchen is fun. Think of at least three dinners that incorporate some of the veggies from your produce. Write these down

• When putting together your meals, give an eye to what’s going to go bad first. Your broccoli, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, asparagus, etc should be eaten the first week after you get your produce. Any hard winter squash, onions, or potatoes have some time to hang out. Also throw anything in the freezer that will actually benefit from a freeze (I often throw in cabbages so I can have soft cabbage leaves to make cabbage rolls later.) Do the same thing with your fruit: soft, squishies go to the top of the list to eat, hard pomegranates, citrus, and melons can hang out closer to the bottom, and bananas can go in the freezer.

• Now it’s time to store your food. I love to use Still Tasty.com because it shows storage times for all foods depending on whether they’re on the counter or in the fridge. It also shows ways to keep produce better for longer.

• Snacking foods–I’m thinking sweet peppers, apples, cucumbers, and grapes–normally benefit in my fridge from hanging out on the top shelf. It may not always be the best way to keep them, but that whole top of mind thing? Yeah. It works. Keep your healthiest stuff at eye level and you’ll be more likely to eat it.

• If you have still some foods that you don’t think you’ll get to soon enough, think about other ways to use them. Make stock out of veggies. Can some of the fruit into jelly. Freeze stuff to use later in smoothies.