Food Storage That Saves Food and Money

It happened again this past week.  My son is staying with me and he was going to make himself a salad for supper.  I told him where to find the lettuce and he asked "Mama...Why do you keep the lettuce wrapped in this cloth?"   I explained to him that it helped keep the lettuce fresh and green and at the same time prevented it spoiling.  It's not uncommon in a slow month that John and I have a package of romaine hearts last us a month, all because of this simple little practice.

For years, I tried all sorts of methods to keep my lettuce fresh.  I bought a 'lettuce keeper' but that didn't do any better than any other method I'd tried.  Then one day when I had time to spare while I was making a salad for supper, I cut the ends off each head of lettuce and washed it well, let it drain, the wrapped it in a cotton cloth and put it in a plastic bag that I could close tightly.  No more rotting lettuce!  In the past I'd hardly been able to go more than two days before the lettuce spoiled after washing but with this method, as I said earlier, I can have lettuce last as long as a month.  And I didn't buy a single thing special to store it in!  I just used an all cotton flour sack towel that I'd cut in half and wrapped the damp lettuce in it then put it in the plastic bag, closed it, popped it in the bottom crisper drawer.



Sam's always been household minded.  So later in the week he asked, "Why do you use glass jars in the cabinets?"   I've found ants and air can penetrate and spoil when items are in a plastic bag or paper carton.  I have never had ants get inside a glass jar with a screw on lid.  I used mostly jars I had on hand already but I did purchase a dozen of the 2 quart wide mouthed jars to store bulkier items in. It worked so well for me that I almost never open a package without putting the contents in a glass jar these days.

I've saved various sized jars and containers over the years.   In fact, I recall a wedding gift from my Grandmama C. included a variety of butter and cottage cheese containers with snap on lids.  A practical if not pretty gift for a  newly married bride because it gave me storage for the leftovers.  I found over time that this was not a practical thing for me.  If I can't see it, I forget about it.  So I started using clear containers instead.  I have some containers with snap on lids, use glass jars and even peanut butter jars to store foods in the fridge.

I do use the cottage cheese containers and such to pack a few dry items in John's lunch, but never anything he's meant to heat.  I always put any foods he'd heat up in a glass container.  Even if I include a paper plate, he will seldom remove food from a plastic container and put on the plate to heat it.

I have a good variety of glass jars I use for storage.  I don't use just glass canning jars.  I look for jars that are sturdy and have a wider mouth: pickle and salsa jars are especially convenient to use.  I like to store a cut onion in a glass jar in my fridge.  Plastic containers may take on the aroma of onion and often let some of it seep out.  Ditto for tuna salad.  Glass is always the best route when I have that to store.    I also find glass jars are excellent storage for berries and citrus.  While the recommendation is to put the citrus (lime or lemon) in water, I don't find it's necessary.  Just placing the lemon or lime in a glass jar and covering it well is sufficient to make it last a good while.  And berries never mold as quickly in glass jars the way they do in those plastic clamshells they are packed in.  I've had berries last me upwards of two weeks provided Josh hasn't visited.

I do like to use glass jars in the freezer but it's often 'iffy'.  If glass is not tempered, if the jar is not a wide mouth jar, then the odds are about 50/50 the jar will burst, especially if the contents are liquid.  However, I've learned the hard way that pouring a liquid that is too warm into a plastic jar can cause it to melt down.  I prefer glass jars but do use peanut butter jars as well.  I can mark the lids of these with permanent marker so I know that the odd looking mix within is actually a soup or just plain tomatoes that have been leftover from other recipes.  I especially like the peanut butter jars (we buy the 29 ounce size) for storing the liquid I drain from canned vegetables, and small amounts of leftover vegetables  for a future soup making day.

Occasionally I need to cover a bowl or casserole pan that hasn't a lid to fit.  In that case I use waxed paper and aluminum foil.  I lay the two together over the bowl, then I start at one side and fold and twist the edges down.  This helps form an airtight seal.  I do not like foil right next to any food I'm storing.  Too often I've discovered that the food contained just enough acid to eat through the foil.  It makes me very leery of eating any food contaminated by corroded foil, too.   I never have that problem with the waxed paper barrier.  If a bowl or pan has absolutely no lip at all, I'll use a long rubber band to go around the edges and hold the paper in place.

Now oddly, while the covering foil is often eaten away by acid on a casserole, I've never had the contents eat through aluminum foil on the BOTTOM of the casserole.  I don't know if freezing inhibits this or if it's because the food covers it and so no air gets to it or if it's because I often have sprayed the foil with a non-stick spray prior to filling the casserole.

I prefer to save cereal box liners and bread sacks to package family packs of meat into two portion sizes for John and I.  I hate to waste a new zippered bag on meats, since I toss anything that has been used to store meat.  I generally wrap the meat well, then store in an older reused zippered bag that has been well washed.  I group wrapped chicken breasts or ground beef packets together in a zippered bag which makes it easier to find.

Another trick I use in my snack cupboard, spice cupboard, fridge and freezers: baskets.  A basket corrals things very well.  I don't lose cereal bars at the back of a cabinet if I've tossed them in a basket.  Ditto for individual boxes of raisins or 100 calorie packets of nuts.

In the fridge I have a basket for cheeses and dairy products like yogurt or sour cream, a basket that has leftovers in one place and a third basket where I keep that jar with the cut onion, the minced garlic, beef and chicken bouillon paste, or other common  ingredients I want to keep together.

In the freezers a basket holds nuts and chocolate chips, or breads, chicken or beef in separate baskets.  This makes it easy for me to find exactly what I want to find quickly. I give up a little space but it's worth it not to dig through myriad odd shaped packages and having them tumble down around me.  It's also much easier to tell someone where an item is located and have them retrieve it than digging around in a freezer that is a mess.

In our pantry area, I not only use the sealable buckets to store our flour and sugar but I also put some of our dry goods like pasta and crackers in the same sort of storage bin I use to store things in the shed.  I like the sort that has a latching lid.  I also keep one of those bins with gallons of water in it.  We had water left after the hurricane this past fall.  I wanted to store it in a way that would not allow the water to leak if the plastic bottles started to break down (they will...that's why water has a shelf life).   This way I know that the water will be contained if such a leak should happen.

These are just a few of the ways I store things in my kitchen and pantry and prevent loss of foodstuffs.