The Charmed Kitchen

As the weeks go by I am more aware then normal about making foods last. Onions aren’t hard to store for a long time if you give them the right environment. I am talking about cooking or yellow onions. Sweet onions don’t keep as long and should be used fairly quickly after you buy them. So what do you do?

Onions like cool and dry surroundings to hold up best. Unlike potatoes which like cool, moist conditions, onions will start to get moldy or sprout if the air in too wet. Ideal temperatures are around 40-50 degrees. Most basements have areas that are close to cool enough during cold weather. You can just hang the onions in the mesh bags they often come in however, if there is one bad onion in the bag the whole bunch may follow.  You can use old pantyhose to keep them apart and last even longer. Just take the leg of old pantyhose and drop in an onion. Tie a knot in the hose and add another onion. Continue until you run out of onions- or hose. Hang up somewhere cool and dry. When you need an onion just snip the pantyhose and remove. Onions stored this way can easily be stored for several months.

I have plenty of oatmeal- but one does need a break from that every morning. Since I have plenty of dried fruit and a  supply of nuts I made granola this morning. Here is the recipe I used.

Granola

3 c. rolled oats

1/4 -1/2 c. each of any of the following to equal 1-2 c. total

Sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, wheat germ, peanuts, pecans, almonds, hazel nuts, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, coconut (chop up any big pieces)

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. orange peel

1/2 t. nutmeg

1/4 c. oil

1/4 c. honey

2 t. vanilla

Dried fruit to equal 1/2 -1 1/2 cups. Some choices could include: raisins, dried cranberries, cherries, pineapple, dates, figs, apricots, bananas, blueberries etc.

In large bowl combine oats with seeds and nuts and toss well with seasonings. Heat together oil, honey and vanilla and pour over oat mixture, tossing to coat evenly. Spread on a cookie sheet and bake in a 300 degree oven for 30 minutes. Halfway through the baking time stir mixture so the edges won’t burn. Remove from oven and return to large bowl. Toss with the dried fruit and allow to cool before storing in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. Use in 1 month. Makes 5-7 cups

Well it’s been two weeks and I haven’t been to the grocery store. I must admit I am going through a certain amount of withdrawl. It isn’t that I am running out of food- I am not. I just like the grocery store sometimes. I like to find that bargains or get that impulse item because I went there hungry.  I am getting low on some fresh veggies and I will sadly run out of oranges soon. Still, I have plenty of tasty, nutritious foods to pick from.

The real mystery is the freezer. I’ll explain.

I carefully defrosted it and did an accurate inventory. That was more than 2 weeks ago. I have been eating chicken and other stuff out of the freezer. I carefully mark the sheet to keep track of what has been removed. Two weeks. It is still full. Like the biblical story of the loaves and fishes- no matter what I take out of the freezer it seems to remain full. There is some explanation in what I did yesterday. I took out a duck, made duck soup and put 6 quarts of duck soup in the freezer. Ok, that makes sense. But the freezer was jammed as I tried to get the soup in there last night.

What is the frozen food up to when the door is closed?

So the agenda for this week is all about replenishing. I have been sprouting pea seeds- I’ll post the photos soon and talk about spouting.  I have a lot of seeds to choose from and they’ll provide me with fresh greens. I am nearly out of lettuce. I also plan on using some of my Greek yogurt-it has active cultures- and making more yogurt. That way I can keep the supply up. I don’t have a yogurt maker- but think I have a solution. time will tell.

Invited a couple of people over tomorrow night. Still hadn’t decided what to make for dessert. Having posted it on Facebook I got some ideas. Since I am still eating and cooking out of what is on hand I have to make do with what is already here. Good news- I haven’t really been baking much this week so I have plenty of ingredients to choose from. Sarah Scherer mentioned little cheesecakes with wine jelly on the top. Sounds yummy. While I am still deciding on dessert here is a quick and easy recipe for mini cheesecakes. The recipe only makes 6  cheesecakes but can easily be multiplied.

Mini Cheesecakes

6 vanilla wafers

1 (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

1/4 c. sugar

1 t. vanilla

1 egg

Line 6 muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 wafer in each. Beat together remaining ingredients for 1 minute with electric mixer. Divide this mixture in the muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full. Bake 25 minutes at 325 degrees. Cool and decorate with fruit topping, if desired. Makes 6. These can be frozen. Serves 2-3.

I got an e-mail from my cousin Marianne the other day. She was asking about capers. She bought them for one dish, but found she didn’t use them otherwise and ended up tossing them. There are those items that we all cook with that fall into this category. You might use it once in a great while but aren’t sure what else to do with it or how to keep it from going bad. These ingredients are often expensive and can be a great waste of money to just toss.

There are ways to handle the situation. You can find more uses for the product or ways to make it keep longer. So let discuss a few products and how you can get more from them.

Capers: The buds from the caper bush, capers come pickled and are salty and similar in flavor to gherkins. Probably most often used in tartar sauce they can be used lots of other places. Since they taste like intense little pickles use them where you might use pickles.  Capers are great in potato salad, chicken, tuna or ham salads and in eggs dishes and omelets. They also go great with seafood.  Once open they are kept in the fridge and will keep for a good while. For longer storage you can add a little vinegar to the jar to up the acidity. It will keep them longer.

Tomato Paste: Think of tomato paste as super concentrated tomato sauce.  Strong in flavor a little goes a long way. How many of us have opened a  jar for the one tablespoon of tomato paste a recipe calls for and then end up throwing the rest away when we find it in the back of the fridge weeks later looking like a science experiment gone bad? You can get tomato paste in squeeze tubes that keep longer in the fridge or you can freeze it. That seems to be the easiest solution. Put dollops of tomato paste in ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen you can pop out the cubes, place them in little freezer bags, label and toss back in the freezer. Now when you need that tablespoon on tomato paste- you’ll have it.

Chutney: This fruit- based relish is used in Indian dishes. Most often made with mangoes. It can be used in tuna and chicken salad. You can use chutney as you might use cranberry sauce as a side dish or to glaze meats. A mix of fruit, garlic, vinegar, sugar and spices it has a complex flavor. I use it in boboti- a North African casserole. It is one of those items that you might use a couple of times and then forget about. Because of its sugar and vinegar base it will keep for a pretty long time in the fridge. Like tomato paste you can freeze the chutney in smaller amounts and defrost for later use. What’s better though is to start to use it more.

 Ginger:  This versatile root can be grated in everything from savory to sweet dishes. Although often associated with Asian cooking ginger is used in all sorts of foods.  I get this question all the time. How do I keep my fresh ginger root longer? Some people like to peel it and place it in a jar of sherry and keep it in the fridge. You can also save peeled garlic cloves this way. But I prefer to just freeze it. Take the whole ginger root and place in a freezer bag. I like to keep mine on the freezer door so I can find it easily. When ready to use just scrape off the peel, like you might on a carrot. Use a grater on the ginger while it is still frozen and return the unused portion to the freezer.  It will keep for a very long time this way- as long as the ginger is in a freezer bag. You can even slice and chop the frozen ginger- although I must admit that is a little trickier. Next time you are making gingersnaps try using the fresh/frozen ginger over the dried version.

Buttermilk: I buy fresh buttermilk planning on baking more with it. Unlike my friend Martha, I do not like to just drink it. That leaves me with unused buttermilk all the time. I hate just pouring that money down the drain. I freeze it! Keep in mind it will separate when thawed- but you can still cook and bake with it.  Another easy solution is to buy powdered buttermilk and just mix up what you need. Yet another answer is to make your own- well, sort of. Just use regular milk in the recipe but add some acid to it to make it curdle. I use lemon juice- but vinegar works well, too. If the recipe calls for a cup of buttermilk- measure out the cup of milk just a little short-leaving room for the extra liquid.  1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar per cup of milk will work fine.

I hope this helps you to save more of the food you buy and then end up saving money. Thanks for all the questions and input.

My sister, Cindy Morgner, lives in Central Lake, Michigan. She sent this e-mail to me today and with her permission I am sharing it with all of you. Just her thoughts on my plan to live off stored food for a month or longer.

Cindy Wrote:

“Hi Sis,

I’ve been checking your blog; interesting and thought-provoking. Your comment about running low on eggs and not having a chicken addresses the core of your challenge. We don’t live in the self-contained world of our farming ancestors who were responsible for growing/hunting/making everything they needed to survive.

Over the years, I’m still surprised by comments from people when they learn that I live 20 miles from the nearest “real” grocery store and carefully plan my once-a-week trips. Of course my consolation prize, living where I do now, is that fresh produce is just up the road all summer; and I can buy locally grown eggs and beef year-round.

The issue of wasted food is another thing; I’m amazed at how casual many people are about buying too much or just being careless with what they have. Not the way we were raised, for sure. I take great pride in a very low waste level in my home.

One thing I do is keep an inventory of my freezer. (I still chuckle at the story you tell about the 1950s meat someone called to ask about when you were with the OSU hotline). I think there is a lot of freezer-burn waste out there. I defrost once a year, keep an inventory on a clipboard, and use freezer containers rather than bags. Easier to stack and rotate stock that way. I have a few 20 year old containers that still work just fine. I’ve gotten pretty good over the years at freezing just enough of the veggies, fruits, etc. that we like to last until the new crop comes in. I try to be sure everything I prep gets used.

I’m not going to attempt your challenge; mostly because a) I’d run out of wine, and  b) I’d use up the good stuff in my freezer all at once. Also, my weekly trip to Charlevoix covers K-mart, the feed store and the fish market. Gotta have a little social life, after all 😉

I do wish you success and it will be interesting to see what sort of responses you get.

Have fun!

C  :-)”

Well Cindy, I agree about the wine. I did not buy enough. Jonathan said we can make mead- but I think that takes too long!!!!

I got a question yesterday from Kathy about keeping her potatoes fresh longer. Potatoes are not the most expensive vegetable out there but that doesn’t mean we want to waste them.  Still, we tend to buy them in pretty big bags and its frustrating to go to get a couple for dinner and find them shriveled or green and sprouting. Potatoes need a combination of a cool and moist environment. They keep best around 40-50 degrees which can best be achieved in a cellar. I know plenty of people who keep them in the fridge. Refrigerators are a little too cool for potatoes. They’ll look fine but tend to get dark when you cook them. Edible, but not pretty. Its because when potatoes are stored too cool they get sweeter- the increased sugar causes darkening- sugar burns. If you have your spuds in the fridge all hope is not lost. Take them out and keep them at  normal room temps for a week and they should be fine.

Also because potatoes give off ethylene gas they will cause other fruits and veggies to ripen too quickly so store them by themselves.  You can keep them in a bin, but make sure there is some ventilation. Excess moisture will also cause them to rot or sprout. A box with a few vent holes on the top is perfect. You can also keep them in paper bags. Avoid keeping them in plastic bags with no ventilation- that will also cause them to rot.  For short-term storage it does not matter that much- but for longer- term follow the guidelines discussed here.

Now for green potatoes- potatoes exposed to sunlight will turn green. The green parts are toxic!!!!!    If it is a small portion cut it off- for a really green potato- throw it away.

I can here the questions already. What if I don’t have a cellar? For folks without a cellar the obvious answer is to buy fewer potatoes and use them up quickly. If you find yourself with a lot of potatoes and no place to optimally store them they can be  dried in a dehydrator. They have to be sliced and cooked first or they’ll turn black. But what if you don’t have a dehydrator?

If there are no other options you can cook the potatoes, either boiling or baking them, and mash them up and freeze them for later use. When you defrost them you can heat them up and add butter, milk or whatever you like in mashed potatoes. I found myself with a lot of potatoes one time and was living in an apartment. Since I didn’t have a lot of options I baked them, scooped out the filling- added cheese and seasonings and butter and spooned the filling back into the skins. Basically a twice- baked potato. I wrapped them individually and froze them. When I wanted one I would cook it in the microwave. Not perfect- but not bad.

Well Kathy, I hope that helped.

The challenge is going fine. I don’t miss the grocery store yet, but in all fairness its only been a week. I still have fresh veggies and fruits. People survived for centuries in cold climates by storing foods and making do. I am almost looking forward to later on as I have to get inventive- although not looking forward to running out of some foods. Some of you will be getting dinner invites in the coming weeks. That will be interesting.

I committed myself to not going to the grocery store for at least a month. Use up foods I have canned, dried and frozen. I must admit the first week has been pretty easy. Seriously, I did stock up on fresh veggies and fruits. Also bought seeds for sprouting so I can supply myself with fresh greens well into my little project. Boredom will be the factor as time goes on. Once the last of the lettuce is gone I may not be feeling so sunny.  Trick now is making what I do have that is fresh last as long as possible. The focus next week will be on just that. I’ve already been using green bags for produce. I want to talk a little next week on root cellaring.  How many pounds of wrinkly potatoes and sprouting onions do we all toss every year? Part of the point of this whole project is to save money. Not just by preserving seasonal foods and taking advantage of sales but also by not throwing away what we already have bought.

Let me know what foods you toss out the most and I’ll try to address that next week as well. For now I’m enjoying fresh kale cooked with potatoes and smoked sausage. Thanks in part to a mild December. You can e-mail me at judi_strauss@att.net

Thanks to the suggestion of my dear friend Sue, I decided to not stay in today but to enjoy a little outside time with a picnic. Four of us enjoyed a lovely, though breezy afternoon, at Wildwood State Park. We managed to start a fire in the fireplace and enjoyed a version of a Reuben – Sue bought turkey pastrami- and hot coffee and cider. We also had carrot oat bran muffins- recipe follows – carrot salad and marinated mushrooms. With chunks of fresh pineapple the meal was complete. Also made it over to Blue Pike Farm to take food to Carl. He was kind enough to harvest some fresh kale for me. Wanted to know if it was breaking my rules about not going to the grocery store for a couple of months. I said it wasn’t- as long as I brought him some food in exchange. Since I had plenty of zucchini frozen I made him zucchini bread in exchange.

I’m going to a party tomorrow night- I’ll also bring a dish from home. Its a potluck so I figure that as long as I bring food- I can share in food that is there. Going to make something with the kale, potatoes and smoked turkey sausage.

Carl asked how things were going so far in my pledge to not shop for a month- probably 2. Well, its easy so far- only been a week. I will say that I have to watch egg use. Went through a lot of eggs in the last few days. at this rate I’ll run out. Have to get creative and be careful. I’ll have guests for dinner and I’ll be missing eggs then. Kind of sorry now I opted not to take one of Carl’s chicken home with me for the winter.  The challenge is easy right now- I have fresh fruits and veggies- ask me again at the end of the month. Se here are the recipes for the muffins we enjoyed at our picnic today and the zucchini bread I took to Carl. Try them. The muffins especially are really good for you.

We had blueberry Belgian waffles for dinner last night. I did a healthier version using buttermilk and whole wheat pastry flour. I’ll post that recipe soon.

 Carrot Oat Bran Muffins

 1 c. skim milk or buttermilk

1 c. oat bran

1 egg or 1 egg white

1/3 c. oil

3 T. brown sugar

1 t. vanilla

1 t. orange peel

1 c. shredded carrots

1 c. flour (all purpose or whole wheat pastry flour)

1 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

½ t. salt

½ c. raisins

In mixing bowl combine oat bran and milk. Add egg, oil, sugar, vanilla, peel and carrots. Beat well. Combine remaining ingredients in small bowl and mix well. Gently fold into bran mixture. Divide batter in 12 muffin cups that are either greased or lined with paper cups. Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for 20-25 minutes. Makes 12.

Zucchini Bread

 3 c. flour

3 eggs

2 c. sugar

2 c. shredded zucchini

1 c. oil

1 c. chopped nuts or raisins

½ c. sour cream or strained yogurt

1 t. each vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 2 (9×5 inch) loaf pans. Set aside. Place flour in large bowl. Beat eggs and add with remaining ingredients to flour, mixing well and scraping bowl. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake 1 hour, or until browned and toothpick in center emerges clean. Cool in pans on wire rack. Freezes well. Makes 2 .

Do you know the difference between herbs and spices? Read to the end for the answer.

I love cooking with herbs and spices. Grow a fair amount of herbs myself. They add flavor and can help to use less salt. They don’t last forever, though so its a good idea to go through them once a year to check for freshness. Ideally you should only keep leafy herbs for a year or so for best flavor. The easiest way to check is to open them up and smell them. If they smell fresh- great. If they have little or no smell toss them into the compost pile or trash. When you buy herbs get them in leaf form as opposed to rubbed or powdered. Bigger pieces hold their taste longer. Same is true when you dry your own. Break them up as little as possible for storage.

Store dried herbs in a cool, dark and dry environment. While a lot of people like to store their herbs near the stove that is the worst place. Kitchens are warm- but try to find the coolest place in an otherwise warm room. Avoid storage next to appliances. Refrigerators give off heat as do dishwashers and even microwaves- although not constant heat. Another place to avoid is above under counter lights. We all leave these lights on. Put your hand on the shelf right above them when they have been on for a while. It gets really toasty. I know, I know, I’ve eliminated a lot of spaces. Still find a cupboard away from these heat sources to keep your herbs fresh.

As to the red seasonings- cayenne pepper, paprika, chili powder, red pepper flakes- these should all be stored in the fridge- especially once opened. They are all made from peppers and contain pepper seeds. The seeds contain oil which will go rancid in time. If you have a big old jar of paprika, which sits by the stove and has been there since your first marriage I ‘d say its time to get a new one. You may find you actually like parikash. Maybe the last batch was made with paprika that was old and rancid.

Buy herbs from busy stores and buy amounts you will use up in a year or less. Bulk buying is no bargain if you end up tossing a lot of it out.

Spices are a different story. If you buy whole spices they last for ages. Even cinnamon ground up will keep its flavor for several years when stored properly. Also, if you have something really pricey- like saffron or cardamom- feel free to store them in the freezer or fridge to keep them longer.

Unseasonably warm tomorrow so I am off to a picnic with friends. I had rye bread in the freezer along with Swiss cheese and sauerkraut, plus the makings for Thousand Island Dressing- someone is contributing turkey pastrami so we’ll have modified Reubens.   I am also bringing coffee and soft drinks. I’ll also be making carrot oat bran muffins from stored ingredients for a healthy dessert.

I hope this helps with some of your pantry and food storage issues.

Almost forgot- the difference between herbs and spices is where they will grow. Temperate zone plants are herbs- tropical plants are spices. Spices tend to be pods and seeds and bark- herbs are almost always leafy greens. But dill seeds are an herb as is saffron- which is the pistols and stamens from a fall- blooming crocus!