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Food and Cooking Tips
Vegetable Tips
Stalk Vegetables:
Reviving Limp Vegetables:
Vegetables that have been in your refrigerator a little too long and that have gone a bit limp may be revived. Take the vegetable and shave a small amount off from the butt-end, soak it in luke-warm water for 1/2 hour or so and refrigerate. This works for all stalk vegetables, such as celery, parsley, broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce.
Mushrooms:
Mushroom Storage:
To store mushrooms, keep them unwashed, dry, cool and dark. Store them in a brown paper bag, or in a Tupperware type container in the refrigerator.
Cleaning Mushrooms:
To clean mushrooms, wipe them with a damp cloth or soft vegetable brush. Because of their porous nature, mushrooms should not be washed in water, as they will absorb water like a sponge, losing nutrients, flavor and changing texture.
Peeling Mushrooms:
Peeling mushrooms removes many of the nutrients and changes their texture. Cookbooks used to recommend peeling mushrooms because wild varieties had tough skins. Since cultivated mushrooms are now widely available, today's store-bought varieties should never be peeled.
Asparagus:
Uses include steaming, baking, sautéing, or eat them raw. {Please don’t boil them!}
To keep asparagus fresh, cut 1/2 inch off of the base of the stalk and stand the asparagus upright in an inch of warm water. Make sure only the bases are in the water, and not the tips This will also revive asparagus that are wilted and/or limp.
Quality asparagus have tender stalks that are nearly completely green (except for the white asparagus variety). Tender stalks will usually be medium-sized and the tips will be firmly closed. Thick asparagus are great for sautéing - slice at a diagonal to get 1/2” to 3/4” pieces and sauté using olive oil, garlic and pepper {Add or substitute your favorite spices}. Avoid asparagus with wrinkled stalks and wilted tips.
Artichoke
Uses include boiling, steaming and microwaving.
An artichoke is actually a thistle and a member of the sunflower family. The artichoke itself is a flower bud or immature flower head. The tender bases of the petals and the fleshy heart to which the petals are connected are the edible portions.
Artichokes should have leaves that are tight and not "blooming". Winter artichokes should be heavy, compact and may have some white or bronze colored blistering caused by frost, which does not hurt them. Spring artichokes should be more round, heavy, deep green in color with tighter leaves. Summer and fall artichokes should be cone-shaped, lighter colored, less heavy and the leaves will not be as tight. Avoid extremely hard outer leaves and if the leaves are opening or spreading out, the artichoke is old or over mature. Significant discoloration can be signs of bruising. You may also see mold or decay at the point where the damage occurred.
Corn
Yellow and White are the commonest varieties of Sweet Corn
Good quality corn has full, evenly formed and filled ears with straight rows of kernels. The husks will be fresh-looking and bright green, and the silk ends free of decay or worm damage. Be sure the coloring of the kernels is bright and shiny. Pull back the husk and poke one of the kernels at the tip of the silk end with a finger-nail. If juice squirts out and is only slightly cloudy, it's fresh. If the juice is thick or non-existent, the corn is old, dry and probably tasteless. Avoid corn that has shriveled, burned looking husks or has dark-colored slime in the tassel. Large kernels, those with dark yellow and dents and wrinkled kernels with no juice in them are all indications of old corn. Also avoid underdeveloped kernels lacking good color (except in the white variety) and short or crooked ears that are not filled almost to the tip with kernels.
Only a small fraction of the corn grown in the united States is Sweet Corn. Field, or Dent, Corn is the primary crop of corn growers. Dent Corn is used for corn syrup, printers ink, starches, oils, livestock feed, ethanol fuel, crayons, paints and paper. Corn now has more than 50 percent of the non-diet sweetener market. Every major non-diet soft drink on the market uses high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, and many powdered drinks, use crystalline fructose made from corn.
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