| Time
to Clean Out the Fridge |
| Somewhere on the back of your top shelf in the pantry is
a can of something dating back to World War II. Down there
in the lettuce drawer, buried under the parsley that garnished
your Fourth of July potato salad, sit the cranberries from
last Thanksgiving. And the spices in the back of your spice
rack, chalky gray in their jars, date back to when you received
the spice rack as a wedding gift. |
| Perhaps you are not this bad, but isn¯t it time your kitchen
had a little cleaning, or a good pitching? If it is long overdue
for the little cleaning, just remind yourself you will be
ahead in the preparation for the holidays to come in a couple
of months. If you can see exactly what is on hand, meal planning
goes much easier. Foraging in the fridge becomes a thing of
the past. Leftovers get used promptly. |
| As a matter of budgeting, leftovers are the best thing going
to shave costs on food bills. However, don¯t become a victim
of restaurant foam containers piling up in your refrigerator,
or impulse purchases from the supermarket. "Think of containers
of leftovers as junk mail," advises one friend. In the refrigerator,
we are always adding things, and soon the available space
gets saturated. That is the point when things just get disorganized. |
| Refrigerated products have their own set of rules; pay attention
to "sell by" dates and expiration dates found on many products.
Fruits and vegetables are best if used within a few days of
purchase; if left too long, their quality and nutritional
value suffer. |
| The best advice is don¯t use anything you are unsure of.
Fresh meat, poultry and fish should be frozen within a day
or two of purchase if you¯re not cooking right away. Leftovers
should be refrigerated immediately and left out no more than
two hours, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"Throwing out food is hard for some people. They really don¯t
think it can go bad," confides an USDA official. |
| For questions regarding the safety of storing, cooking and
eating chicken and fish, call the USDA¯s toll free meat and
poultry hot line at (800) 535-4555. There is also a free hot
line for food safety questions at (888) 723-3366. |
| Back in the spice rack, baking powder only lasts about six
months in a tightly sealed container at room temperature.
Baking soda only should be kept for 18 months fairly well-covered
at room temperature. Bouillon cubes should only be kept for
one year at room temperature. Extracts should be kept for
three or four months in tightly sealed bottles at room temperature.
Honey can be kept indefinitely if tightly sealed§it is one
of nature¯s preservation wonders. If it has crystallized,
place the opened jar in a bowl of hot water and stir until
the crystals are dissolved. |
| Gelatin (the dry powder) can be kept for one year if flavored;
three years if unflavored, at room temperature. Peanut butter
should be kept only one year if unopened, at room temperature,
and only three to four months after opening, stored in the
refrigerator. |
| Here is some good news. Salt can be stored indefinitely.
If seasoned salt, store up to one year, tightly capped at
room temperature. Soy sauce can be stored for up to one year,
unopened, at room temperature, one year after opening if it
is kept refrigerated. |
| Finally, dried herbs can be stored up to one year, if whole
and tightly capped on a cool shelf, six months if ground.
Store red spices such as paprika, ground red pepper and chili
powder in the refrigerator or freezer, along with poppy seeds
or sesame seeds, which are rich in oil and can become rancid.
|
| Herbs are especially susceptible to heat, light and air,
so inspect where the spice rack is placed, hopefully not right
over the stove or beneath the oven. |
| Vinegar can be stored indefinitely if unopened, or six months
once opened at room temperature. If the vinegar "mothers"
or has a cloudy jellyfish-like mass in the bottom of the container,
throw it out. |
| The bottom line is that food loses its flavor and quality
the longer it sits. In the pantry, use the old-fashioned rotating
idea, and inspect for expiration dates. According to the Steel
Packing Council, canned foods can be stored up to two years
after purchase. But after a year, many canned goods begin
deteriorating. |
| For example, canned fruit juice loses about 25 percent of
its vitamin C, while canned asparagus loses vitamins and fades
to a pale yellow after about a year. Any can that is dented,
or buckled should be tossed. Toss jars that are leaking, or
containers that have an "off" odor when opened. |
| We are now writing dates on leftovers and things that go
into the freezer. Each year we defrost, and vow to do a better
job of using the frozen foods. It is a constant struggle to
keep my freezer organized, so we group food items together
for easy reference. |
| A friend of mine has a "freezer party" each August, and
cooks up everything that is soon to expire. It is a wacky
idea, but at least the items are eaten. |
