Keep it Fresh and eat at it’s Best

1. By Thomas Aiton + Heather Graham Keep it Fresh and eat at it’s Best

2. The reason that we are doing this? The reason that we are doing this is to lower food wastage in Britain. At the moment the figure is standing at 8.3 million tonnes of food is wasted in households every year. To do this click on this link http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/storage_and_tools and it will take you to a website that will help you to keep your food fresh for longer so that you waste less.

3. Fridge tip’s Debbie Meyer Green Bags are absolutely wonderful for keeping fruit and veg fresher for longer. Broccoli especially lasts far longer than usual - I used to throw out a lot of broccoli when it started turning brown. Keep the fridge at a cool 1 - 5 degrees and chilled food will stay fresh for longer. Our most perishable (and often most expensive) food is kept in the fridge, so keep tabs on their use-by dates - the freezer may be the option for food we won't get round to eating in time. Melon can be a great addition to your breakfast in the morning or as an afternoon or evening snack. Simply chop the melon into pieces and place them in an airtight container in the fridge. They should last up to 5 days. If you are only using part of a green or red pepper, leave the stem, seeds and membrane intact, the pepper will store much longer than when you remove them. When I need to cool cooked food quickly, I put it on top of frozen freezer blocks like the ones for picnics, this cools the food quickly so it's less likely to get bugs in and can go into the freezer twice as quickly as just waiting to cool down.

4. Reviving tip’s When I buy my cheese I take it out of its wrapper and wrap it in tin foil. The cheese does not sweat and stays fresh much longer than wrapping it in plastic. If bananas are going riper than will be eaten I pop them in the freezer whole. I then defrost them at a later time to mash & add to pancake batter or use in muffins or even add as part of the fluid to a chocolate cake mix. ( 1/2 cup banana = 1/4 cup fluid). I put a piece of scrap paper in with the vegetables in my fridge drawer. Any moisture goes in the paper not the vegetables or salad. I have often reluctantly thrown a half empty jar of pesto away. No more, you can freeze it in teaspoonfuls in a tightly closed container. Then use ready measured tsps as you need them. Put it into the dish still frozen. I noticed no significant alteration in flavour when used within three weeks of freezing. You could also try topping up the jar in the fridge with good olive oil. Add stale or leftover breakfast cereal crumbs from the bottom of the cereal box to the ingredients in the bread maker ( reduce the amount of flour accordingly). Adds texture to the bread and, surprisingly, even sweet breakfast cereal doesn't make the bread sweet.

5. Freezer tip’s Roll the lemon up and down your work top, pressing hard. When you extract juice you will get more. Juice not required can be frozen in ice cube moulds to use another time - great added to water to give a refreshing zing. To use up veg that I know I won’t get around to eating I make my own ready meals. If I have a few potatoes that I need to use, I’ll boil them up and make mashed potato and freeze it in portions, so next time I am in a rush I know I have them on standby. They’re much cheaper than bought ready meals and there’s something quite nice about knowing you’ve cooked them yourself. When I get home with a new bag of flour, I enclose it in a tightly closed plastic bag (a freezer clip, twist tie, or a clothes peg work well). I then place in the freezing compartment of the fridge for 24 hours. When it is removed, leave the tightly closing plastic bag in place. The cold kills any flour mites and the plastic bag protects the flour from damp etc. You will never have to discard flour again! They’re guaranteed to be crispy and golden if you parboil and freeze them for later. Just thaw in the fridge and roast.