Tip of the Day—Pre-prep your fruits & veggies

Posted by on Aug 2, 2010 in Blog |

When preparing food, I think most of us want to minimize the cleanup. But, when it comes to fruit and veggies…I like to use fresh, but that means a little more prep time. I was using my salad spinner one day and thought “There ya go!” As I am slicing and preparing my fresh fruit or veggies, I put them right into the basket of the spinner. Then, I add water and some Veggie Wash, place the basket in the water/wash solution, and give ‘em a swish. Drain out the cleaning solution, spray with water until no suds remain, and spin your heart out! They are now cut them into useable pieces, washed, and ready to go when you need them. Pre-prepped. You will find you are MUCH more likely to use ‘em all up rather than looking at them and thinking “{groan} Too much work right now…I’ll fix something else”.

Using the spinner gives you a triple benefit…fewer dishes to wash, your produce is washed of dirt, pesticide residue, & grimy fingers from the Veg Wash, and it spins the produce almost dry. The only fruits I don’t wash ahead of time are strawberries & blueberries (I’m sure there are others, these are just the 2 that I can think of). Why not pre-prep these? They will get macerated  (slimy, yucky—not attractive or tasty) when washed and then stored in the fridge. They also have a shorter shelf-life when washed ahead of time so I only wash as much as I am going to use and leave the rest in the original container.

There…I’m done! :) Record time. Now go eat some strawberries…it’s summer! :)

Note: Please use Veggie Wash—it does make a difference (if your grocer doesn’t supply it…ask…many stores will carry a product if it’s requested). You will be surprised at the amount of dirt in the water after you swish your produce. And, I was behind a produce truck one day that was driving around with the back door open (no idea why…not really safe, ‘specially since there were 2 guys standing in the back of the truck). Anyhoo…these guys were sorting through crates of strawberries and tossing out the bad ones. Nice way to kill 2 birds with one stone—sorting while in transit. :) Howeva’…their hands were about as dirty as they could be (if I can SEE the dirt on their hands from inside my CAR…Yar! :(   The reason I mention this is that many people take fruit straight out of those clear, plastic clamshell containers and eat them and feed them to their children, even. Blech! That cured me forever of not using Veg Wash. :)