Culinary Tips

Storing Foods

*** I'd like to Thank Karen for bringing this to my attention, when storing any of the following below always remember to date your items *** 

1. Do you buy Flour, Brown Sugar & Chocolate Chips when they are on sale?
Well, last week Walgreens in our area had chocolate chips nestle brand for $0.82 a bag what a deal,
and I picked up brown sugar and flour on sale at the grocery store.  Now, none expire soon but I buy 3-4 packages when they are on sale and use them when I need them.  So how to keep them fresh?  Well...... Just pop them in the freezer and they stay good for a long time!  Its great, when I need it, I just pull it from the freezer and let them come to room temperature to use.  Cold flour can hurt your baked items when mixing.  There are other items besides what I mentioned that you can store in the freezer for instance bread & pasta.  It prevents bugs from coming out in pasta and bread will stay fresher longer.  How do you store items you buy in bulk?

2.  Storing Bulk Foods So last week I caught a sale at our local wholesale store and bought Corn Dogs and Hot Dogs. Now, I like to have hot dogs, hamburgers and other items on hand once the temperatures start warming up. I am big on quick grill meals and will share more as the season changes but back to the hot dogs. So I have a 5 lb pack of hot dogs and what I do is put them in bags and seal them. Now I have multiple meals ready for when I want throw together a quick meal. I store frozen items in basically two ways

1. The first way is: I ask myself how long do I plan on having it in the freezer? For instance, hot dogs, roasts, corn dogs, pork, are a few examples that I use over time. So those items I seal with my sealer see the pics of the hot dogs. I pack them in packages that I can just pull out for a meal
2. Now for other items like plain chicken, ground beef, for example that aren't in the freezer long I use this second method: I put them in individual baggies and then in a larger freezer bag to keep them from getting freezer burnt. I use this second method for flour, brown sugar that I spoke of in my first set of Culinary Tips. Sometimes when you put items in the freezer that are going to stay in there for a while but really can't be sealed just put them in a Freezer Tight bag so it doesn't pick up the taste or smell of your freezer. It makes an outer layer of protection for your food. Nothing is worse then saving money on an item only to have it freezer burnt.

3.Culinary Tip for Fresh Onions & Peppers

So yesterday I discovered a new produce place in our area. I could not believe the prices so I got onions and peppers along with a lot of other fresh vegetables. So you can guess we had an indoor picnic last night, lol. Yes, I pulled out a pack of the hot dogs and it was great. Okay back to the Culinary tip if you buy alot of peppers or onions and can't use them at one time here is a way to store them. Think of how you use them, now what I do is clean the peppers and onions. Then I take them and cut them in strips and put them in separate sandwich bags and then put them in a freezer bag and freeze them. I do the same thing for onions and this works out well. They will get soft being frozen and are fine for cooking them. If your having sausage and peppers & onions. Just brown your sausage and put it in a pan, and top with the amount of onions and peppers you need. I use them for fajitas, sausage & peppers, soup wherever you need onions and/or peppers your going to cook. Its a great way to have peppers and/or onions ready for cooking. I cut them in strips because I find it an easy size to use. You can dice them or use them as is.
***Note Freeze the onions & peppers separately and no need to blanch cook them.

4. Storing Tip #3 Lemons, Oranges, Limes & Egg Whites

If you have lemons, Oranges or limes and they won't save to leave them in the refrigerator, here is a way to save the juice and rind - first grate the outer rind off (so if you need zest you have it) and place that in baggies and then in a larger freezer bag and freeze. Now juice the lemons for example, strain out any seeds. I place it in ice cube trays and freeze it. Then Place the cubes in a freezer container and defrost them when I ready to use them. Now if you use alot of egg yolks and have egg whites left over then, you can freeze them to BUT I would use containers that you can clean thoroughly so its not contaminated by the eggs. Always remember to label your containers with the amount you have in it. Now when you need juice or egg whites just pull out the amount you need and let defrost. These are tips my Mother taught me and I find very handy.

5. Culinary Tip #5 Storing Boneless Chicken

Taking Boneless Chicken Breasts and storing them
For boneless chicken -

Boneless chicken breasts

Trim excess fat off chicken and flip chicken over

Cut Tenderloin off

Now you have the large chicken breast and a tenderloin

Because this chicken meat was so large we split them into two known as butterflying them

Now you have 2 pieces of chicken

Now I take the chicken breasts and put them in individual bags and then place them in a freezer bag. If I plan to use the chicken soon, I may throw Italian dressing on it and put it in a freezer bag. I only do that if the chicken isn't going to be frozen to long.

How do you store your chicken for freezing?

6. Culinary Tip # 6 Breading Chicken or Pork Chops or Meats in general

How to Make a 3 Stage Breading Station:

Make a 3 stage breading station. What is that you ask? It is taking what ever you are going to bread through 3 stages of breading. Place defrosted meat on a plate to have it ready for breading.

STAGE 1:
The first stage is the flour stage. Take your flour and season it with salt and pepper. I like to add garlic and granulated onion to meats like chicken for instance and stir that into my flour.

STAGE 2
The second stage is egg wash. Crack your eggs in a bowl and add milk or water to them.



STAGE 3
The third stage is your breading. You can take bread crumbs, panko crumbs, or cracker crumbs and bread your item.

Now the process for this is to take your meat place it in the flour (known as dredging) flip shake off excess and then dip in the egg same as flour and then dip in your breading same as flour. Place your meat in a medium hot frying pan that is lightly coated with oil or butter. DO NOT Have your frying pan too high or it will burn the outside of the meat not brown it. Then put in a pan to finish in the oven. Amounts of flour, egg wash and breading depend on the amount of meat you are cooking.

How do you bread your items? Did you ever make homemade onion rings? What tips would you like to find out or learn about? Send me an email and let me know.