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| Wrap It Up! |
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| Food & Drink > Preservation |
| Written by Tiersa A Buckley |
| Monday, 23 February 2009 13:09 |
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Economic times are tough right now. Still, U.S. Census Bureau's adjusted estimates for January show that grocery store sales are up more by more than 2% over December. In December is when you would expect folks to be making extra food purchases for the holidays. Sales at food services also increased nearly 1%, although most of that increase is reported to be not in more pricey restaurants, but at lower cost, fast food establishments. The bottom line is that we all still have to eat even in the toughest of times. Normally when the economy gets rough, folks tend to lean more on home cooking. The reality is that by the time chores are finished we are just happy to curl up with a hot bowl of soup. With a trend back toward more cooking at home, the average US household throws out nearly one-fourth of the fruits and vegetables they purchase in a years time. That would usually equate to nearly $500 a year. Who wants to throw away 500 bucks a year? Most home gardeners find themselves swinging from having nothing to having an excess of everything from beans to strawberries to zucchini. That forces everyone to find ways to hold some of the excess food for later use. One of those ways that works quite well is the use of paper products. I find that paper bags, paper towels, or just plain old newspaper work quite well in storing excess fruits and vegetables.Nearly any fruit or vegetable seems to do better when they're wrapped by paper towels. The paper absorbs away moisture that evaporates from the fresh produce. Constant moisture on the produce (except perhaps for asparagus which likes to be stored with cut ends parked in water) quickly causes the produce to rot right from the start. Paper towels will work quite well for highly perishable fruits, such as raspberries and strawberries, which can mold almost overnight (even under refrigeration) during warm, humid days from June to August. By layering unwashed berries between paper towels, the fruits stay quite dry, relatively fresh and usable for several days. It also works great for grapes which is one of my favorite snacks. Highly perishable produce wrapped in paper and plastic needs to be checked every couple of days. If the paper towels are still wet and clean, let them air dry and then re-wrap them. Citrus, pears, apples, tomatoes and similar larger items do well between layers of newspaper, stored in a cool dry environment. Use a cooler in a dry place such as a basement or attic is a great place to keep your wrapped fruits in. Last fall I pondered how to store a great crop of bell peppers with paper wrapped storage. I experimented a bit in separately wrapped each pepper in newsprint, then packed with the others in plastic bags inside a garage refrigerator. A few peppers had to be thrown away, but most ripened in storage from green to shades of red. We enjoyed fresh garden peppers all the way through Thanksgiving. It worked beautifully. Paper is often used to wrap produce that has gone bad only to deposit it right in the garbage. If you wrap it up properly in the first place it's a lot more cost-effective in the long run. Be smart and wrap it up! |
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