Re: Any Shortcuts to feeding besides freezing?

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Posted by Diana on March 20, 2001 at 12:28:30:

In Reply to: Any Shortcuts to feeding besides freezing? posted by Christy on March 19, 2001 at 17:40:01:

This will be a somewhat boring post I might warn you, but for you die-hards, here's what I do:

Every week, I buy about 10 fresh vegetables (all on the "approved list"). I chop up enough of each one to fill one of those little "snack sized" ziplock baggies they have out now. I used to chop by hand but now, I have a wonderful system down. I got one of those "salsa makers" (they're around $6) and I put each vegetable in it one at a time and chop it up, dump it into a baggie and move on to the next one. This way takes a ton less time than hand chopping, I get no cuts, and the vegetables are small and easily digestable.

I then store the rest of the unchopped vegetable (squashes, parships, etc) in the crisper because the cut-up vegetables seem to go bad more quickly than the whole or partially whole ones do.

The reason I use the snack sized baggies and store the different kinds of vegies separately, is because through trial and error, I've found that different kinds of foods rot at amazingly different rates. Softer foods (zuchini, yellow squash) go bad much quicker than the harder orange squashes. So, by keeping them chopped up in a "week's-worth-baggie", I get the convienience of having chopped up vegetables every day, but don't have to worry about them rotting and spoiling each other. By doing it this way, I can make the soft vegetables last at least a week, and the harder ones last longer because the soft ones aren't mixed with them to make them rot.

After I have all 10 or so of the small baggies filled and sealed with a variety of foods, I put them all together in a gallon sized baggie to make it easy on myself to grab the whole bag out of the fridge every day. (I usually feed them twice or three times a day, so it makes it easy to just grab the bag and go.)

With the collards and mustard greens, I wash them, separate them to dry on papertowels, and then break off all the stems. Then I lay them on top of each other flat, and put in a gallon sized zip lock bag, make sure all the air is out of it, seal it, and store them. They last well over a week this way. With the stems, I chop them up in the salsa maker and combine them with the green beans and snow peas. The igs love them, plus, they're juicy and full of water, and it wastes less. (I used to throw the stems away.)

Hope this helps!
Diana

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: This will be a somewhat boring post I might warn you, but for you die-hards, here's what I do: : Every week, I buy about 10 fresh vegetables (all on the "approved list"). I chop up enough of each one to fill one of those little "snack sized" ziplock baggies they have out now. I used to chop by hand but now, I have a wonderful system down. I got one of those "salsa makers" (they're around $6) and I put each vegetable in it one at a time and chop it up, dump it into a baggie and move on to the next one. This way takes a ton less time than hand chopping, I get no cuts, and the vegetables are small and easily digestable. : I then store the rest of the unchopped vegetable (squashes, parships, etc) in the crisper because the cut-up vegetables seem to go bad more quickly than the whole or partially whole ones do. : The reason I use the snack sized baggies and store the different kinds of vegies separately, is because through trial and error, I've found that different kinds of foods rot at amazingly different rates. Softer foods (zuchini, yellow squash) go bad much quicker than the harder orange squashes. So, by keeping them chopped up in a "week's-worth-baggie", I get the convienience of having chopped up vegetables every day, but don't have to worry about them rotting and spoiling each other. By doing it this way, I can make the soft vegetables last at least a week, and the harder ones last longer because the soft ones aren't mixed with them to make them rot. : After I have all 10 or so of the small baggies filled and sealed with a variety of foods, I put them all together in a gallon sized baggie to make it easy on myself to grab the whole bag out of the fridge every day. (I usually feed them twice or three times a day, so it makes it easy to just grab the bag and go.) : With the collards and mustard greens, I wash them, separate them to dry on papertowels, and then break off all the stems. Then I lay them on top of each other flat, and put in a gallon sized zip lock bag, make sure all the air is out of it, seal it, and store them. They last well over a week this way. With the stems, I chop them up in the salsa maker and combine them with the green beans and snow peas. The igs love them, plus, they're juicy and full of water, and it wastes less. (I used to throw the stems away.) : Hope this helps! : Diana

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