Cooking Addict

Nothing is worse than anticipating a mouth watering sandwich only to discover the bread is stale. Not only that, the chips you were going to eat along with your sandwich are stale too. There are ways to combat these types of problems when you learn some tips for storing foods to stay their healthiest and freshest.

Let’s Tackle the Bread

You bought a freshly baked loaf of bread yesterday, but today it seems to be getting harder and harder by the minute. What can you do to keep it feeling as fresh as the day you bought it? Most artisan and freshly baked breads come in paper wrapping. By wrapping the bread in a sheet of plastic before storing, you can keep your bread fresher for a longer period of time. It is also recommended that you put a stalk of celery in the bread bag as well.

Your Celery is Drooping

You may not use celery on a frequent basis, but you want it to stay crisp for as long as possible. Many times you may find yourself breaking off a stalk of celery only to watch it wilt pitifully in your grasp. You can avoid this scenario by taking your celery out of the plastic, and wrapping it up in tinfoil. Your celery will last for weeks using this technique.

If you need to serve a stalk of celery, simply put it in a container of water with ice and put it in the refrigerator for a few hours, and it will get its crispness back. It should be pretty snappy when you dry it off.

Storing Chips and Other Bagged Snacks

If you have spent dollars and dollars on buying those clips made to keep your pretzels and chips fresh, and every time you bring one home they seem to last for one bag of chips, you may be at a loss for a solution. You can take care of this annoyance in an economical way. Go to your local dollar or discount store and buy a bag of wooden clothespins. Put them where you store your snacks, and you will have a clip for your chips every time you need one.

Here are dozens of tips to help store food safely and inexpensively. 

We take our pots, pans and other cooking utensils for granted; but are they safe for us to use? The type of cookware you use to prepare your food can have a huge impact on yours and your family’s health.

How They can Affect Your Nutrition

What you use to cook your food can have a huge affect on what goes into your body. There can be minute particles of dangerous substances that can leach into food as it is cooking. The three main substances that are used for cooking utensils are lead, aluminum and iron. Lead and aluminum have been linked to illnesses, and can harm the very young or old.

Aluminum cookware has been deemed fairly safe. It is thought that at least 50% of all cookware is made from aluminum. Researchers have said that the amount of aluminum that leaches into your food is minimal. Ceramic cookware is lead based. Children need to be protected from lead ingestion. Foods that are acidic such as tomatoes, vinegar or oranges will be more likely to cause lead to leach from the cookware. Leads are more likely to leach into hot beverages and soups rather than cold drinks.

You will also need to watch out for ceramic cookware that is labeled as a collectible, antique or a craft. The reasoning behind this is that these cooking utensils may not meet the government standards for safety. You can purchase a kit in order to test levels of lead that may be present in your ceramic cookware, but they may not be able to detect lower levels that can be equally dangerous.

Using cast iron cookware has been proven to increase the amount of the iron in your diet, although there is usually a minute source of iron present. You can feel fairly confident that any cookware bought from a reputable manufacturer will have all the safety guidelines covered to protect you and your family from harmful substances leaching into your food.

Nothing has been more of a blessing to busy moms who are on the go or work outside the home as the slow cooker. This appliance can be a women’s best friend, no matter what the season. Most people think of slow cooked dinners for hearty wintertime fare, but they can be used in the summer as well. They can keep the kitchen as well as the cook cooler, all while offering up tasty meals the entire family will enjoy.

Although there are concerns that using a slow cooker is not safe, these are unfounded.  It is a perfectly safe method of cooking food. It is especially kind to tougher, more inexpensive cuts of meat, making them soft and savory during cooking. Using a slow cooker, you will observe all the same precautions to avoid risk of harmful bacteria. Use a clean appliance to start with along with clean utensils. Always wash your hands before and after handling uncooked foods, especially meats.

Never put frozen meat or poultry to cook when you use a slow cooker. Ensure the meat or poultry is fully defrosted so that it will cook evenly. The slow cooker cooks food at a steady, low temperature and is adept at killing harmful bacteria. If food is still frozen, you cannot guarantee that the food is entirely safe to eat.

It is best to cut up the ingredients into small pieces when using a slow cooker. It is not recommended you cook a whole chicken or a roast as the food may remain in the danger zone for bacteria for too long a time.

Having a slow cooker can put meals on the table in a flash. With just a few minutes of preparation in the morning you and your family can have a nice hot meal all ready and waiting to be served when you arrive home after a long and hard day.