Q: I’m trying to get more veggies into my diet. Any quick and easy ideas?
Ditch the chips and dip and go for crudités (raw carrots, celery sticks, broccoli, etc.) and hummus for a cheap and healthy snack before dinner. Frozen peas—and frozen vegetables in general—are full of vitamins and nutrients, almost as good as getting them fresh. Canned veggies are also a good option if you rinse off all the salty goo they’re preserved in. If you feel like doing some cooking, make sweet potato fries, a beet salad or a hearty vegetable lentil soup, and try different wintry squashes (most come with cooking instructions right on their shell).
Q: With not as much local produce available in the winter, where’s the best place to get fresh fruit?
I remember having a very interesting conversation with a chef named Vaughan Chittock, who is a great believer in moving produce from the southern hemisphere to the north. Using berries as an example, in Ontario they may be in season for a month or so, but there are 11 other months in the year during which we can obtain perfectly ripe raspberries and strawberries. New Zealand will supply them for three months, and then they’ll come from Chile and then Argentina. “If you buy strawberries from your continent, they’re going to rely on trucks,” says Chittock. “But if you buy strawberries from [places like] Israel, they’re going to be flown here in a day and a half. They’re picked when they’re just a day off being ripe.” Food for thought for those who want an option to those midwinter cardboard-like California strawberries.
Q: How do I keep the freezer clean—and stop freezer burn?
To avoid the dreaded freezer burn, tightly wrap your food in freezer bags (with the air pushed out) or plastic containers, making sure to label with the contents and dates. A fresh box of baking soda in the deep freeze will cut down on the stink, and try to follow the FIFO (first in, first out) principle to avoid leaving food behind for years. The food police suggest that a sparkling clean freezer is a safer environment for food storage, and, ideally, you should clean yours out every three months. But we all know that ain’t gonna happen, right?
