(Health.com) — Waste happens. Every prepare knows that. Still, finding wilted spices or a fritter of seared bread can make we feel careless. Plus, tossing out food is expensive! The normal American domicile discards between $500 and $2,000 value of food a year.
But there are crafty ways to minimize waste, by storing food delicately or preserving it during a rise to suffer later, says Sherri Brooks Vinton, author of “Put ‘Em Up,” a book about preserving food. Here, a few of a favorites.
Bread
The problem: You bought some-more loaves than we need.
Use it now: Cooks a universe over have come adult with intelligent ways to use aged bread. A super-quick one: croutons. Cut bread into cubes, toss with a small olive oil and salt, and toast in a 275-degree oven for about 20 minutes, jolt a vessel median through, until golden. Cool, afterwards store in an indisputable enclosure for adult to dual weeks. They’re tasty in soups and salads, or dejected and sprinkled over pasta.
Save it for later: While it’s still fresh, place a sliced fritter right in a freezer. Then, lift out slices as we need them and cocktail them in a toaster. “People don’t consider of a freezer as a preserving mechanism, though it is,” Vinton says.
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Fresh fruit
The problem: Buying fruit in deteriorate is wise. “The vitamin calm of anniversary furnish is during a peak,” says Christina Munsell, investigate associate during a Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. But we mostly buy some-more than we can eat.
Use it now: You don’t need a recipe to make fruit salad — many kinds go together naturally. Just cut adult what we have (skip bananas, that go mushy; see a tip below). Add one-quarter teaspoon of vanilla, a inexhaustible fist of citrus (to delayed browning), and a drizzle of honey. Set a play front and core in your fridge; it’ll be a initial thing everybody sees when they go snack-hunting.
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Save it for later: Most soothing fruit (berries, kiwi, peaches) solidify good in easily honeyed syrup. Toss with sugarine (1 teaspoon per crater of fruit) and let it mount until it releases a juices; send to a freezer-safe cosmetic bag, fist out a air, and solidify for adult to 9 months. Firmer fruit like apples and pears can be simmered in a lonesome pot, with a fist of lemon juice, a dash of water, and a integrate of tablespoons of sugar, until hardly limp; when cool, send to a container, and freeze.
What about bananas? Peel developed bananas, mangle into chunks, and place in a freezer-safe bag. You won’t like them thawed — too tear-jerking — though we can supplement solidified pieces to smoothies (they won’t make them watery, as ice does).
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Seasonal vegetables
The problem: They have a robe of stealing out in dim corners of a fridge until they’re over revival.
Use it now: As with fruit, a flavors of many vegetables marry well. Cut whatever we have into bite-size pieces, sauté a diced onion in a soup pot, and supplement a veggies (starting with a firmest, given they take longest to cook). Cover with unfeeling gas and prepare until tender. Purée or eat chunky.
Save it for later: Make your possess solidified veggies. Prepare them as you’d prepare them, solely stop when they’re median done. You can steam or boil immature beans, corn, broccoli, and chard, afterwards quick rinse in cold H2O to stop a cooking, and empty and container in freezer-safe bags. Or plight your veggies.
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Herbs
The problem: Your holiday plate calls for a splash of dill. That leaves we with 9 sprigs that are vanishing fast.
Use it now: Fresh spices are season powerhouses, so it can be wily to improvise but a recipe. A few combos that work deliciously: Try thyme, rosemary, and brook root with chicken; supplement rosemary, parsley, and virtuoso to pork. Toss mint, dill, and cilantro in your salads or immature veggie dishes.
Save it for later: To safety proposal spices (dill, cilantro, parsley), make a salsa or pulp (think pesto) with olive or unfeeling oil. Purée a spotless leaves in a food processor with a oil and a small salt. Cilantro oil, for example, can after be churned with coconut milk, chilies, lime, and soy salsa to make a Thai salsa for fish or chicken. Herb pastes keep adult to one week in a fridge (drizzle oil over a tip to forestall browning) and adult to 6 months in a freezer.
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Hardy herbs, like rosemary and sage, meanwhile, are easy to dry. Clean a bunch, grasp a stems, tie with string, afterwards suspend, leaves down, in a dry room. When spices crumble, send to a jar and store in a cool, dry place. Or plunge spices in a bottle of white-wine vinegar. The season will debonair adult your salads for months.
Copyright Health Magazine 2011
