Have you ever gone to the grocery store and purchased a bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables since you were determined to eat healthy and then forgot about them in the fridge? I have!
I have very good intentions—but sometimes forget about the fresh items and find the vegetables and fruit a couple of days before they go bad. But you don’t have to trash them. There are some simple solutions to save this produce:
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Salsa- Do you have tomatoes, jalapenos or onions that are getting ready to go bad? You can either chop them up and add in some cilantro and lime juice and call it pico de gallo or you can boil it all and then mix it up in a food processor with some garlic, lime juice and cilantro and make homemade salsa. This works even if there are some spots of the vegetable you need to get rid of since the appearance does not matter for the end result.
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Chop them and freeze them- I have chopped up onion and corn on the cob and jalapenos and many vegetables that do not turn soft when they go bad and then freeze them as is with no cooking.
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Blanch- If you have items like potatoes, carrots, squash or other vegetables I blanch them by boiling them for a few minutes and then submerging them in ice water. After they cool down I bag them and then freeze them.
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Soup– If I still have vegetables that do not freeze well (cucumbers, avocados and tomatoes come to mind) I then make soup with the vegetables that are good in soup.
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Ceviche– sometimes some vegetable are just not very tasty in soup. Those vegetables are perfect in ceviche. I make ceviche by dicing up some cucumbers, onion, avocados, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic and mixing it in with some cooked shrimp. I then put lime juice over all of it. Yummy!
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Fruits– Peaches, strawberries, grapes, plums and many other soft fruits freeze well and thaw well as well.
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Make sauce– For the fruits that do not freeze well, such as apples and pears, you can make sauce. Applesauce and pearsauce are excellent as a side dish with dinner, as a snack for children or perfect for a quick breakfast. Since it is homemade, you are also better able to determine that amount of sugar added.
How do you make use of the fruits and vegetables that are almost past their prime?