"food storage" news and stories

It's always tempting to buy rice in bulk at big-box stores and supermarket sales. But how long will it last in your pantry?

This picture isn't quite as delectable as some of the other images I regularly post in this space. However, it's such a great idea that when I saw it, I thought to myself, "That's just the sort of thing I have to share with the world of Slashfood readers."

From Biggie of Lunch in a Box, her image shows how she uses plastic water bottles to store frozen veggies like corn, peas and chopped onions. It makes it really easy to pour out a small amount, which is perfect for those times when you are pulling together meals for one. This not only works well for the prepacked frozen veggies that you buy, also for the veggies you freeze yourself. I imagine that the wider mouth bottles would work really well for frozen berries (great for when you make smoothies).

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How many times have you gone home with a bag of delicious cheeses only to discover a week later that they've all gone bad?

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding how we should store cheese. While some people argue that plastic wrap (Saran, Reynolds, etc) suffocates cheese and distorts its flavor, others believe it keeps cheese fresh by containing its moisture. Cheese mongers highly discourage plastic wrap and promote wax paper, and sometimes aluminum foil. Similarly, in the 'NY Times,' Florence Fabricant wrote an article encouraging people to purchase cheese paper "with a sheer wax coating on the outer layer and a breathable film inside," from a company called Formaticum.

All of these methods (plastic wrap, foil, wax paper, and cheese paper) are excellent ways to store cheese. However, universally applying one of these tactics to all types of cheeses would be a haphazard plan of action. So, how do you know which type of wrap is right for which type of cheese? The good news is that you can determine the most appropriate wrapping and storing techniques based on just two characteristics of the cheese, mainly its texture and moisture. Here's our quick and dirty guide to the best storage materials for different types of cheeses.

This might be something that everyone else and their mothers (and likely, grandmothers) already knows, but since there has been all of about three occasions in my entire lifetime that I've ever worn pantyhose, I didn't know that you can use them to store onions.

Apparently, onions will stay fresh for six months if you store them in this way:

1. Take a pair of new pantyhose (they say you can use washed used pantyhose, but that sounds kind of gross to me -- even if they're washed, they still had someone's feet in them!)
   
2. Place the onions into the feet.
   
3. Tie a knot in the pantyhose between the onions.
   
4. Repeat this process. I have never seen it, but I am guessing it looks like a big old chain of onions.
5. Hang the onions in a cool, dry, and dark place
6. Cut an onion off the hose from the bottom each time you need an onion.
   

Neat! Now the only question is, would it be sexier to use fishnets?!?!

[via: Lifehacker]

The refrigerator in my apartment is a very bare-boned model. The shelves are bare wire racks, which means that if something leaks on the top shelf, it very quickly saturates the entire fridge. There isn't a cheese drawer (I have an old clear plastic shoe box on the bottom shelf that corrals the cold cuts and cheeses) and the space on the door is slim. The one thing I do have is two crisper drawers and I use them as much as possible, often stuffing them beyond a comfortable capacity. This does sometimes mean that I lose a green pepper or a head of broccoli, only to find it again when it is soft and brown.

Over at the Unclutterer, Erin has a similar problem with her crisper drawers and began to wonder if the crisper drawer was the best place to store her fruits and veggies. She has put together a list of produce and the storage recommendations for each item. It's a helpful resource and one that may save you a lot of money and pain, as it will teach you how to keep your apples crisp (keep in bags punched with holes on the shelf for good air circulation) and your corn fresh (keep in husk if you're going to use it immediately, otherwise remove the husk and silk, vacuum seal and freeze). She also says that bananas can go in the fridge to slow down their ripening, that onions should go someplace cool, dry and ventilated (not the refrigerator) and that potatoes can be stored in the crisper drawers, but should be given a day to warm up to room temperature before you use them.

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