Tips for your kitchen

I am going to have a bit of soapbox moment today, as I think people need to go back to the basics in food storage so when can reduce our garbage and also be able to buy and store food that has been grown for flavour not length of storage.

As Mr CLI says about most of the tomatoes on sale "they are grown for travelling not eating."

Now I must admit that we seem to have raised a generation of adults, those in the 18 - 25 year old category, that don't seem to know how to keep their food fresh for longer. Or even how to store their food properly. I am not saying all are like this, but from what I have seen there seems to be lack of education.

They seem to just piff the food in the fridge or cupboard and when they have the annual fridge clean out, which seems to be either when the fridge has no more room or there is a funny smell, it all gets thrown away.

While we are trying to eat seasonally and not eat to much processed food, we need to be aware how to store food properly to keep it at its best.

So here are some of my tips, I am not saying that these are the only way to keep food, but this is what I do and what I have taught my 2 daughters- even Mr CLI for that matter.

Cold Meat - Now as soon as you get home remove it from the packaging it has been wrapped in, especially if it is a plastic bag. Place paper towel in the bottom of an airtight container, then place the meat in. Place more paper towel on top. Then seal with the lid.

Now the reason I do this is so that the paper towel absorbs any moisture that might come from the meat which will stop it from sweating.

Feta Cheese - When you buy a piece of feta, not the feta in oil. I place it in a sealed container with fresh water and a teaspoon of salt. This creates a brine to store it in. You just needs to change the water every 2 -3 days.

I have kept the feta for over a week this way.

Jam - Now you may think what do you need to know about storing jam, but you would be surprised how many people use a dirty knife to get their jam out then are surprised next time they open it to find it all mouldy.

Please use a clean knife.

Cheese - Wrap your cheese in either tin foil, baking/parchment paper or even cling wrap, don't leave it partially covered in the fridge as when you get it out next time all the exposed areas will be dry.

Leftovers - These seem to be some of the major fridge tragics that get left behind at the back of the fridge, to be forgotten.

It is pretty simple if you don't really want to eat the leftovers the next night, pop it into a container and put it in the freezer for another time. Don't leave it in the fridge for a week then think "I should freeze that", when it is too late.

Sometimes I will make up a meal with these leftovers and they can be quite good a bit like a buffet on a plate.

You can even add to them to make them some thing else. Like I had leftover meatballs in tomato sauce, what I did was make some more plain tomato sauce broke up the meatballs added this to cooked pasta mixed in some cubed mozzarella, popped it into a baking dish with some more grated cheese on top and baked it till hot.

So what started out as some leftovers became a yummy pasta bake that we thoroughly enjoyed.

So please give some thought to how you store your food to make it last better and help reduce the waste.

Kitchen Etiquette

Now I am going to start today's blog with a warning I am going to have a bit of a rant about etiquette in my kitchen.

There seems to be a group of people that I never see or hear, that sneak into my kitchen to cause mess long after I have cleaned up after tea.

They leave empty packets and wrappers on the sink above the cupboard that has the rubbish bin in. Their hands must be tired from all the lolly eating.

They also take their dirty dishes as far as the bench in the kitchen, but not the extra 2 metres to the sink.

They also sneak empty food containers like peanut butter back into the pantry, and when they find no new one they grumble that whomever does the food shopping should get all the food that is needed !

I have a sign on my fridge which reads

- Complaints to the cook is hazardous to your health -

Does anyone take note, no they still grizzle.

They are also good at drinking the last from a bottle of drink, but never replace it with a new one in the fridge, but guess who has the last laugh - me - yes because I am not the one that has to drink warm lemonade they are. Do they learn from this no they do it again next time.

Well enough complaining from me. Do you have these sneaky people in your kitchen as well ?

What can't you do without in your kitchen ?

There are many new fangled implements that we can buy for our kitchens, some of them quite useless. Like the orange juicer that looks like a metal rocketship, only if you were to use it the juice would go everywhere.

But for every useless bit of equipment there are plenty that once we kitchen queens buy and use, we wonder how we every cooked without them.

Some of the essentials that we need are good sharp knives that are well balanced. Many years ago my old set of knives that hadn't cost me much money really couldn't be sharpened any more. The were more dangerous than a sharp knife.

Mr CLI suggested we go to my favourite kitchen shop in Ballarat - Le Kitchen, to look for a better set of knives. Now I wasn't going to spend a lot of money on the knives, but by the time I had looked at Myer and returned to the shop Mr CLI had discussed knife options with the helpful staff and showed me a knife set made by Wusthof, which were just under $1,000. Now I wasn't going to spend that sort of money, but MR CLI insisted that is was false economy to buy a cheaper set, that would have to be replaced in a few years.

Well I walked out of Le Kitchen with a new set of Wusthof knives. Now 10 years later they are still as sharp as the day I bought them, mind you I do sharpen them regularly, and I still enjoy using them.

Now I don't mind expensive kichen equipment as presents. Another purchase from Le Kitchen was a bamix blender, in pink of course. It has whizzed many a sauce and soup, also Miss Fish has whipped many a container of cream, to have with scones and jam.

This year I got for Easter the small processor that it fits into, so now I am armed to wizz small amounts of herbs, garlic and the like.

After a holiday in Adelaide, a very heavy mortar and pestle returned home in the boot.

Small tongs now you would think that they might be useless, but they aren't they are terrific if you have a small portion of salad or a small bowl of cooked meat instead of large tongs falling out of the bowl, these just sit in there quite comfortably.

Silicone, now how did we manage without silicone baking sheets, cake mix scrapers, brushes, spoons. egg lifters. The list goes on and on. Everytime I look in a kitchen ware shop I see more silicone equipment.

Now I could go on and on about the new bits of very useful equipment. How many pieces of equipment do you have that you can't live without ?