Daniel from Oxford said:
With the price of food rising it makes sense to make the most of what you buy.
Salad days and Picnics
In the UK are guilty of throwing away nearly half the salad we buy. Every day we also manage to chuck out nearly 1 million slices of ham, 1.2 million sausages and nearly 3 million tomatoes. Not to mention 300,000 unopened packets of crisps! All great picnic food, but why are we not enjoying it? Here are some tips to make things easier to keep fresh and crunchy:
- If your salad is tired and wilted, put it in a bowl of water with a couple of ice cubes for at least half an hour. When you spin it, you'll find that it's become nice and crispy again.
- Some lettuce keeps better than others – try "Little Gem and Cos" which can last longer because of their closed leaves
- To keep lettuce fresh in the fridge, break it into leaves, rinse in cold water, dry in a colander or salad spinner and wrap in kitchen roll, tea towel or newspaper, then keep it in a plastic bag and refrigerate.
- Keep watercress bunches in a bowl of water.
- When you come to serve salad, chill the bowl in the fridge and put kitchen paper underneath the salad. This absorbs the water and the salad will be snapping crisp. Remove the paper before you toss the dressing into the salad.
- To remove insects from salad or vegetables from the garden, fill a sink or bowl with cold water and add a couple of tablespoons of salt. Leave the vegetables or salad leaves to soak in this for about 20 minutes. The insects will sink to the bottom of the bowl and you can then clean the vegetables as normal.
- Too many tomatoes? To freeze tomatoes, remove their stalks and freeze whole in freezer bags. They can then be used in place of canned tomatoes, in a tomato or Bolognese sauce or chilli con carne. Just put the whole frozen tomatoes into the pan at the point when you would add the canned tomatoes.
