On a Working Gal's Budget: Proper Food Storage (VeganMoFo)

Cutting your grocery bill doesn’t stop when you get home from the store.  Proper food storage is essential (vital, crucial, mandatory!) to getting the most out of all the food you spend your hard earned money on.  Knowing how best to store and organize your food will help you use it before it goes bad and stop you from throwing your groceries and green into the compost bin.  I’d like to share some things I’ve learned along the way that have stopped me from doing just that. 

It’s important to know how best to store precious produce, especially since this is what tends to spoil the fastest.  Because most of my produce comes from a biweekly CSA, I need to make sure that it lasts me the full two weeks.  The amount of goods I get is enormous and apart from a couple meals that I cook for my man each week, I am basically the only one nomming on it.  What follows are some tips on how to keep your goods good using proper storage methods. 

1.  Invest in proper fruit/vegetable storage:  For this I use Tupperware Fridgesmarts.  I am a Tupperware lady at heart.  Many people gawk at how pricey these containers are, but I have saved plenty when the amount of food I’m NOT throwing away is considered, not to mention the time and gas I save by not having to make emergency trips to the store because my fill in the blank went bad.  Check out Amazon for great deals on Tupperware.  If you are not a Tupperware fan, there are other containers specially made for storing fresh produce that you can get at your local Target or what not.  The important thing is to get your produce out of the plastic bags from the store or your own reusable mesh produce bags and into something that will help it last longer (look for containers with airtight seals that are designed to prevent produce from sitting in its own moisture).

2.  Know how and when to care for your produce:  Berries and delicate fruits/vegetables shouldn’t be washed and then stored.  For the most part, I wait to wash my produce until I am ready to use it or pack it in a lunch.  When I get a huge trough of strawberries from the farmers market I throw them straight into an airtight container and keep them in the fridge.  I then wash what I want, the day I want it.  This gives me a few more days to eat them before they go bad. 

3.  Make sure your storage is organized and everything is visible:  In my experience, food that I can’t readily see doesn’t get eaten.  For this I use as many clear containers as possible and I label everything, even in the fridge.  A roll of masking tape and a permanent marker work wonderfully and won’t leave gunk on your storage.  Each week or so when you are about to make a grocery trip, go through your fridge and clean out anything that is no longer good and stuff that you may want to freeze for later.  Fridge space is precious.

4.  Know what’s best for the fridge, the freezer and beyond: 

Fridge - Most vegetables are going in the fridge.  See some exceptions below.  Fruits that should be refrigerated are berries of all kinds and grapes.  Fruits can be refrigerated to slow down the ripening process as well.  I leave mangos out but if they have ripened and I can’t eat them that day, I’ll stick them in reefer.  This goes for kiwis as well. 

Outside your Fridge – Onions, potatoes, yams, tomatoes and eggplant should not take shelter in your fridge.  Most fruit I keep out of the fridge as well.  Store these items in a rad looking bowl and put them on your dining table or countertop.  With them in your sites, you will probably eat them faster.    

Freezer -  Bread and such like tortillas and wraps should be frozen, especially if you live alone or don’t go through bread really quickly.  My bread can start collecting mold within 2 days of being out on the counter, especially during the warm seasons.  Bread and tortillas are so easy to just defrost what you need when you need it.  Nuts and seeds should also be stored in the freezer when you bring them home.  The oils in nuts can go rancid and it is not a pleasant taste.  These guys are also rather pricey so you don’t want those valuable dollars spent in vain!  Keeping nuts and seeds in the freezer allows you to keep a wide range on hand for various recipes (see Sweet Nut Puree Fruit Topping).    

Special Note on Mushrooms:  Mushrooms go in the fridge and should not be cleaned until you are ready to use them.  They should be wiped clean, rather than placed under running water.  When you get a package home from the store, remove the plastic wrap and place the container in a brown paper bag.  I reuse the same brown paper bag over and over for this.  The brown paper bag prevents the mushrooms from getting slimy. 

Get saving!

VVG

On a Working Gal's Budget: Foods that Should Never (or verrry rarely) be Bought Pre-made

 

People often comment to me that being vegan must be so very expensive.  There seems to be this crazy notion that a vegan lifestyle is a luxury that many regular folks cannot afford, but it just isn’t so!  I make a rather modest salary and live alone, so I have very little disposable income.  My monthly food budget is $120 which includes the cost of my CSA.  As long as I pay attention to that budget and keep track of my grocery bills along the way, I can stay within that budget and still eat fabulously. 

It’s true that certain vegan versions of food products are sold at a premium price.  Although I was a huge meat eater before going veg, I wasn’t doing my own grocery shopping or cooking, and therefore wasn’t aware of the cost of meat.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that the cost of a 20 pound turkey was about the same price (maybe even less) as the piddly Tofurky I was buying for my boyfriend and myself (which we could polish off in one sitting between the two of us)!  Of course it’s not fair and it even made me boil inside, but there are so many things that we can do to combat those high convenience food prices.  I have many more post ideas on this subject, but for today’s purposes I’m going to talk about high priced convenience foods that make no sense for us frugal vegans to but at the store.    

Salad Dressing:  Not only is the bottled stuff expensive and laden with fat but it’s also rare that you can finish a whole bottle before it goes bad.  Why buy that nonsense when you can make your own delicious salad dressing?  You can usually throw together a quick dressing with stuff you have on hand, even.  Who doesn’t have a bottle of mustard in the reefer?  Mix that mustard with some olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper and voila, mustard vinaigrette.  For a larger batch of dressing, try Susan’sFat Free Goddess Dressing over at the Fat Free Vegan Blog.  It’s easy, tasty and versatile.  I especially love using it on falafel.

Veggie Burgers:  The prepackaged frozen stuff will set you back anywhere from $4 to $7 (in my area anyway) and you only get 4 mediocre burgers.  Making your own veggie burgers is easy and can be a great way to use up stuff that’s been hanging in your fridge.  Just about every cookbook and blog has recipes for great burgers.  Homemade burgers can easily be frozen too.  Just let the burgers cool completely and separate layers with wax or parchment paper.  Hurray for homemade convenience food!

Soup:  Canned and boxed vegetarian soups are so overpriced when you consider that you can make a big batch of comforty goodness for about the same price as one measly can.  Like veggie burgers, homemade soups are another way to rid your refrigerator and cabinets of stuff that’s been sitting around.  Some of my go-to soups are split pea, tortilla, and tomato basil.  Jennifer over at It Ain’t Meat Babe (best blog title ever?) recently posted a great soup making idea that seems so versatile and easy.  I can’t wait to try it for myself. 

Tofurky Roast:  I’ll admit, I love (luuurve, loave, luff) Tofurky.  Like I mention above, my boyfriend and I (with some dedication) can polish off one of these bad boys in one sitting.  Sure a stomach ache shortly follows, but the holidays are for gluttony right?  The sad fact though is commercial Tofurky is just ridiculously overpriced for the amount you get.  Brian McCarthy posted a recipe over at Everyday Dish TV for a homemade tofurky that quite accurately mimics the beloved store bought Tofurky.  He even gives the ingenious option to wrap your homemade tofurky in puff pastry, brush with a ketchup-based solution and bake for a short while.  The puff pastry locks in the moisture of your “bird” and crisps up beautifully to simulate traditional turkey skin.  Brilliant.  His homemade tofurky is simple to make, tastes better than store bought and makes twice the amount at a fraction of the cost. 

  

Frozen Burritos:  Sure there are some tasty options out there, but they will usually set you back at least $3 a pop and are quite puny in size.  Why not make your own burritos, package them and throw them  in the freezer for those hectic work weeks?  It’s as easy as making a batch of beans and rice, mixing in whatever seasonings you like (spices, hot sauce, roasted peppers, etc.) and adding optional extras like baked tofu, cheeze and/or seitan.  Wrap them up, let them cool and toss in the freezer for more homemade convenience food at a fraction of store costs. 

A few more convenience foods that are quite simple to make and store at home to save yourself some clams:  hummus, salsa, lunch meat (great recipe from VeganDad HERE), vegetable broth and pasta sauces. 

Saving money makes me smile… 

VVG