Showing posts with label food storage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food storage. Show all posts

Post-Pandemic Pantry Management, pt 2

How you store food items makes a big difference in how long the food can be safely stored.

Apples can stay firm for about a week without refrigeration (in the Pacific Northwest); but as it gets warmer and there is less humidity in the air, the apples will start to wrinkle and become not as firm. They'll start to rot after four weeks at room temperature without refrigeration during winter/spring, maybe faster during summer/fall. They can last a lot longer when kept in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator for a month or more; but not longer than six months. 

During each year of the pandemic, I dehydrated about 40 pounds of organic apples, some with the skin on and some with the skin peeled off. That is another way to create a sugar-free snack with a very long shelf life. I would recommend that you eat these dehydrated apple rings before the following year; but the apple rings are still edible, they're not as tasty as when they came out of the dehydrator.

Is that too long? Hahaha. By then, the apples, if you got them on sale and have not done anything with them, you could still chop them up and cut off the bad parts and use the fruit in a pie or bread or make applesauce.

Fresh lemons and limes can be stored in lidded Cambro containers (food-safe plastic). Costco now carries the 2-quart Cambro containers ($15/4 containers) which is a great price; considering that I used to buy these containers from a restaurant supply store. I generally put as many as the container can hold, up to three lemons and/or limes a quart-sized container. If you want, you can also add a clean folded paper towel at the bottom to absorb any condensation. Stored in the refrigerator, these fresh fruits can keep for about a month without wrinkling or drying out.

Fresh eggs:

Always refrigerated. I reorganized the shelves in my refrigerator so that these egg flats can fit on the top shelf. However, I also buy 4 dozen organic eggs at a time (from Costco) and for me, it's about a month's worth of eggs.

Butter/Ghee:

I typically store 4-8 pounds of butter; half in the freezer and half in the refrigerator. And generally, one stick of butter sits on a dish in my cupboards at room temperature regardless of the season we're in. Except for summer when the cupboard temperature rises above 80 F, then it gets stored in the refrigerator.

I keep ghee in a mason jar at room temp.