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 In The Kitchen


I've had a problem in the past using food up before it's best before date.  What I now do is keep a box in the kitchen (rather than the pantry) that contains all the food items that need to be used up.  This way I can keep track of what ingredients need to be used, and any snacks and drink mixes get used before moving on to the "fresher" items.



I now keep one drawer in the freezer primarily for soup ingredients.  Any extra little bits of vegetables, such as broccoli stalks--I tend to cut off the tough outer skin--and leftovers from chopping vegetables for other dishes, go into this drawer.  Vegetable stock and any other liquid left over from cooking, such as liquids left from roasting or steaming vegetables, also go into their own container.  If I have to use canned vegetables or beans, the extra also gets saved.  Cheese that will otherwise go uneaten gets put in the drawer, once it's been grated.  I haven't yet tried it, but I have some bread that's gone hard and I plan to put it in the blender to make breadcrumbs, and will include those as well.

When the drawer starts to get full, all the containers come out to be turned into soup.  Thaw the stock and cook the vegetables in it.  When the vegetables are cooked, I puree the soup in the blender, then add the cheese and some milk.  Breadcrumbs will also go in at this point.

If you have onions or garlic that you'd like to use up, chop them up and saute them before adding them to the soup.

I have learned that it's a good idea to make sure that there is a good balance to the vegetables, with not too many acidic vegetables; I did manage to balance that soup out by adding some pasta and extra dairy.  I try to have a good amount of greens and some tomatoes.  If there aren't any tomatoes in the freezer, I'll generally throw in some sun-dried tomatoes.