Tips for Storing Leftovers

During my Peace Corps service, I lived with a family of eight people. Eight! I had never known fear in the kitchen until I worried about whether I had cooked enough food for everyone, especially since dinner was usually the only hot meal of the day. Leftovers were a foreign concept during those two years.

Gathering around the table for meals made the fear of cooking for eight worth it.

Now that I’m back in the US, I’m living on my own and leftovers have become the bane of my existence. Lasagna is great on Sunday, arguably even better on Monday, but come Tuesday night I never want to eat lasagna again.

It has taken me a long time to figure out all of the nuances of what foods can be frozen, how to store them, and how to defrost that pound of turkey chili. Somewhere between eating lasagna for seven meals in a row, throwing away containers of freezer burned mysteries and scouring the Internet, I’ve put together some suggestions for preparing leftovers.

Label, label, label

You’ve found a mysterious container of unidentifiable soup at the back of your freezer. You have no idea what’s inside or how long it’s been there. Sound familiar? Make a practice of labeling your leftovers with the ingredients and date. It will save you a lot of serious questions about your eating habits in the future.

Use Ziploc bags rather than Tupperware

Unless you plan to reheat the entire dish at once, it’s best to break up your leftovers into one or two person servings. This will allow you to defrost the amount of food you need without worrying about contamination. Storing serving sizes in Ziploc bags opens up room in your freezer for more food, makes labeling easier, and makes removing the food from the container simpler, as you can turn the bags inside out. Soups and stews can be tricky in a Ziploc, luckily this post at Southern Living offers tips for how to flat package soups.

I find this freezer featured on The Kitchn both comforting and terrifying. Flat packing of your leftovers will open up more room in your freezer.

Know how long the food can be kept

Even frozen, all foods have an expiration date. It blew my mind to learn raw chicken last nine months in the freezer. Raw foods have more longevity but make sure to check Foodsafety.gov when storing your food. Cooked food becomes a trickier subject, while the food may last for 3 to 4 months; your taste buds aren’t going to jump for joy at the 4-month point. The quality of taste degrades over time, so try to rotate your leftovers every 1 to 2 months.

Ice trays are your friends

I have a terrible habit of buying broths and stocks, using half the container, and letting the rest rot blissfully away in my refrigerator. It’s a vicious circle. The best advice I’ve received in to store leftover broth and stock in ice cube trays. It’s brilliant. Now, whenever I need chicken stock, I pop out a few cubes and throw them in the pot. Each well holds one ounce of liquid, which is equal to two tablespoons. Remember that one cup equals eight ounces and be on your merry, broth saving, way.

-The Garlic Graduate

Cheesy Potatoes

Oh the weather outside if frightful

But the Netflix fire is so delightful

And since I’ve got no place to go

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

And snow it will. I moved to the South to avoid the reality of winter, but recently North Carolina has been looking a lot more like Philadelphia with its week of snow of ice.

Maybe it’s the Irish in me but when the winter weather rears its ugly head, I turn to the warmth of potatoes for comfort. Cheesy potatoes to be specific. My mom still laughs at how long it took me to figure out that Au Gratin meant cheese and I still feel a little bit of despair at how many years I missed out on this amazing combination of potatoes and cheese.

I usually make cheesy potatoes in a crock put using this recipe from the Sunshine Mom, but today I’m craving the crispy, almost burnt, top layer, which can only be achieved in the oven.

Ingredients Needed:

3 large russet potatoes

8oz shredded cheese (I used Monterrey Jack)

3 tbsp. butter

3 tbsp. flour

1-½ cups of milk

1 tsp. salt

Garlic salt to taste

Pepper to taste

The first step is to clean and peel your potatoes. Yes, I clean them even though I'm going to peel the skin off because now I don't have to be particular about getting 100% of the skin off. I used my knife to peel these potatoes, but if you have a potato peeler it will cut down on prep time.

Preheat your oven to 350°

Slice 'em up. If you're using a knife to slice your potatoes, pay close attention to maintaining an even thickness. I prefer my potatoes thin so I try to keep my slice around a 1/4" thick. I keep telling myself that I'm going to get around to replacing my mandolin slicer, but until that day comes a sharp knife will suffice.

The next step is the hardest one in my opinion. It's time to make the ever elusive roux. Place a medium to large sized pot on medium heat and melt the butter until it begins to bubble. When the butter bubbles add in the flour and salt and whisk continuously. Continue whisking the roux until it becomes a dark yellow/light brown color. When your roux begins to brown, add in the milk and cheese and stir. Allow the sauce the cook until the cheese in completely melted and begins to boil. You can move onto the next step, but keep an eye on your sauce and make sure to stir occasionally. 

In a deep casserole dish or baking pan, begin to layer the potatoes. Lay down one layer of potatoes and then add garlic salt and pepper to taste. You can choose to use sea salt in place of the garlic salt. Repeat layers until you've used all of your potatoes.

Now that your cheese sauce is finished and delicious, pour it over the potatoes, making sure to cover the dish evenly.

Place your potatoes in the oven and allow them to cook for 1 hour. As I mentioned, I prefer a nice crispy top to my potatoes, so I switch the oven to the broiler and cook the dish for another 3-5 minutes to get a nice burnt top.

Grab a spoon or a fork and enjoy. If you want to spice up your dish I recommend adding some Andouille Sausage to add a punch and a protein.

-The Garlic Graduate

Caring for your knives

I was a picky eater as a child. I ordered mozzarella sticks at nearly every restaurant I ate in and if I wasn't eating mozzarella sticks it was because I had ordered chicken fingers instead. It really wasn't until college that I began expanding my horizons and discovered that I really loved food.

In what might seem like a non-sequitur, I need to tell you about Johnny. Johnny is my dad's best friend and he is also a chef. Being my dad's best friend, Johnny and his family often vacationed with mine and, being a chef, my pickiness drove Johnny mad. Johnny would cook a gorgeous gourmet meal and I would ask for a hot dog. In retrospect, I can see why this upset him.

To tie it all together, when I finally discovered a passion in food and cooking, Johnny nearly took out an ad in the Philadelphia Inquire to announce it to the world. What he really did was buy me my first real Chef's knife, and for that I will forever be grateful.

But with great power comes great responsibility. Knives are one of the most important tools in the kitchen and often one of the most mistreated. To help with giving you knives a long life of happiness I have assembled some dos and don'ts for caring for them.

Don't leave your knife in the kitchen sink
Whether your knife is made from stainless steel or carbon-steel a prolonged exposure to water is damaging. Leaving your knives in the sink is not only dangerous to someone else, but it is also the best way to ruin a knife. While a stainless steel or ceramic knife won't rust as a carbon-steel knife does, the water wears down the edge and creates a dull blade.

Do clean your knife in hot soapy water and leave it to dry on a dishcloth instead of a drying rack.

Don't keep your knife in a utensil drawer
In a crowded utensil drawer, your knife will accumulate various nicks and dings that take away from it's life.

This photo from Zknives.com shows the damage to a Chef's knife from sitting in a utensil drawer. 

Do purchase a butcher's block to hold your knives. If you must keep them in a utensil drawer, buy a knife sleeve to minimize the damage to your knife.

Don't cut on anything other than a cutting board

I am guilty of abusing my knife from time to time by cutting straight on my counter top. I justify it by saying it's only a slice or two but every time you use your knife on an improper surface you're risking chipping and dulling the blade. 

Do buy the cutting board that is best for your knife and for your kitchen. I use a plastic cutting board. While plastic isn't the best material for a cutting board, it's what fits best with my current kitchen and lifestyle. Check out this awesome guide to what type of cutting board will work best for you.

Don't let your knife dull

Besides begin incredibly frustrating to work with, a dull knife is dangerous in the kitchen. When your knife is dull you need more force to cut through food, which increases the risk of losing control. A dull blade is also more damaging if you cut yourself because they are more likely to impale rather than slice.

Do keep your blade sharpened and if you're not sure if your blade needs tending to try this paper test to check its condition 

Cooking for One

Cooking for One

It doesn't have to be too much trouble

I love cooking. I find it so relaxing and also exciting to try out new recipes and pair together odd ingredients. But, most of the cookbooks and recipes out in the blogosphere are for 4 to 6 servings. I don't need a enchilada casserole for four, I need recipes for one.

Being single and preparing regular meals doesn't have to be "too much trouble". I have collected a series of blog post that offer some great tips to help bring variety and ease to cooking for one.

The Kitchn 

The Kitchn is a great food resource run by Maxwell Ryan and Sara Kate Gillingham. Beyond recipes, they offer advice on kitchen hardware, how-to's, and shopping advice. Their 5 Essential Tips in Cooking For One offers advice on leftovers, planning ahead, and how to spice up your cooking schedule. My favorite tip, is to cook on back-to-back nights, which allows you to switch up leftovers during the rest of the week.

SparkPeople

SparkPeople offers practical tips on everything from cooking to buying bulk supplies. Their safety tips on storing and thawing leftovers has helped me avoid a few major mistakes when storing soups and stews.

Apartment Guide

I know it seems odd, a real estate website offering cooking advice, but their tips on single serving sizes has some great tips. There was a pretty big learning curve when I was learning what could and could not survive in the freezer. I threw out many a freezer burned chicken breast before I began wrapping them individually. This guide has a list of the best foods for the freezer and how to prepare them. Check out their guide to dining alone too.

Spinach Garlic Pizza

Homemade Spinach Garlic Pizza

A thick and chewy garlic crust with a topping of fresh tomatoes and sautéed spinach.

Confession: Pizza is my desert island food. Seriously, I could eat pizza day after day without complaint because there are so many options that I could go for months without repeating a pizza.

Making a pizza from scratch might sound daunting. Why should you spend the time kneading out dough and chopping up toppings when a frozen pizza is just as good? I promise you, homemade pizza dough and fresh toppings are so worth it.

I use a bread maker to prepare the pizza dough. I use the Oster ExpressBake which has a specific dough setting that takes 1 1/2 hours to prepare. If you don't have a bread maker, no problem. This recipe is just as easy by hand, plus you'll get a nice arm workout!

The Dough

First off, let's gather all of the ingredients we need for the garlic pizza dough.

2 cups bread flour (All purpose flour can be used as a substitute)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

4 tbsp Roasted Garlic Instant Mashed Potatoes

1 tsp white sugar

1 cup of warm water (temperature is important)

If you are using a bread machine, add these ingredients in the order recommended by the machine's maker and go read a good book for a little while.

For those of you making the dough by hand, roll up your sleeves and get ready to dive in. First, we need to prepare the yeast. In a small bowl combine the yeast and sugar with 2 tbsp of warm water and let the mixture sit for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, once the mixture has bubbled up, add in the flour, potato mix and the rest of the water. Continue to mix and knead the mixture until it begins to look and feel like dough, which should take 4 to 5 minutes. When you're done kneading, cover the bowl with a dry cloth or plastic wrap and set it in a warm place for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Now you can go read your book.

Once the dough has risen, (or the bread machine finished) place the dough on a clean floured surface, cover the dough in flour and knead it for 1 minute. Let the dough stand for 5-minutes. 

At this point, turn on your oven to 450°F. If you are using a ceramic pizza stone, put it in the oven as it is preheating to avoid damage to the stone.

Using your hands or a rolling pin, spread out the dough until it cover the entire pan. When the entire surface is covered, use your fingers along the edges to make them a bit thicker for the crust. 

This step is important: Cover your pizza in a very thin layer of olive oil and place it in the oven. It's okay if your oven isn't up to temperature yet. Allow your dough to bake without any toppings for 10-12 minutes, or until it begins to brown. 

The Toppings

While your dough gets its bake on, it's time to prepare the best part of the pizza: the toppings! For our spinach garlic pizza, we'll need the following ingredients

1 bag of baby spinach leaves

4 tbsp olive oil

2 tomatoes (sliced thin)

Garlic (minced)

1 onion (chopped)

2 cups shredded cheese

1 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder

1 1/2 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 tsp Oregano Leaves

To prepare the spinach I always return to T.Swift's chef BFF, Ina Garten. I discovered her sautéed spinach recipe years ago and absolutely nothing about it needs to be changed. That said, for our pizza we're going to skip the last step of her recipe and withhold from the butter and lemon.

Ina Garten's Garlic Sautéd Spinach

Put it all together

When your pizza crust begins to brown, remove it from the oven and begin to place your toppings. While many believe there's no right or wrong way to order your ingredients, I disagree. I believe a smattering of cheese between layers of larger ingredients really pulls the pizza together. Here is my tried and true topping pattern:

Olive oil and seasonings

cheese

tomatoes

cheese

spinach and onions

cheese

a pinch more of seasoning

a dribble of olive oil

Finally, stick that beautiful looking pizza back in the oven for 10-15 minutes until is has achieved your desired level of melted, cheesy deliciousness. I like my pizza dark and crispy, so I put my pizza back in for the full 15 minutes. 

Slice that beautiful looking pie and promise yourself to never settle for frozen pizza again.

The Garlic Graduate