Cleaning, drying and stories green veggies

[jbischke]

Hey all. Been consuming a lot more green veggies this year. I'm definitely noticing the difference in my energy levels, mood, etc. However, I've also noticed that I'm spending more time in the kitchen preparing my food. I'm looking for the most efficient way to clean, dry and store green veggies. Here's my routine currently:

Step #1 - Soak the veggies in a produce wash. This doesn't work that well because a lot of the veggies (e.g., kale) don't fit thatwell into the strainer thing that I soak them in.

Step #2 - Dry the veggies for a bit on the counter. Again, not sure how to best do that. I know salad spinners work pretty good for lettuce but not so well for stuff like kale, mustard greens, etc.

Step #3 - Store them in plastic bags in the fridge. I just picked up some of these Amazon.com: Vegetable Storage Bags: Gourmet Food and they seem good. If anyone has a better way than this to store veggies let me know.

Thanks in advance for any advice here.

[ChefSalad]

As far as lettucy things like kale, I have pretty good way of doing it. You want to separate out the leaves into a size you're comfortable with, and rinse. Then shake the leaves to get off most of the water. Now take a roll of paper towel and unroll a large section of it on the counter. Be sure not to rip the paper towel into segments; leave it as is but with some unrolled. Leaving a palms width from the beginning of the towel (farthest from the roll), place the leaves on the paper in a single layer. You want there to be some moisture present so don't dry the leaves with anything other than a quick shake. After all the leaves are laid out on the paper towel, roll the leaves up, tear the roll of leaves off from the roll of paper towel and put it in a bag in the fridge. Now your lettucy leaves will stay fresh.

[jbischke]

This seems like a good method but I'd like to avoid using paper towels if possible. Trying to cut down my "eco-footprint" this year. I guess you could do the same thing with a large dishcloth perhaps. Any other suggestions?

[Jessica Adlin]

Good for you for increasing your consumption of fresh vegetables.

If you use your vegetables in a few days or less, it is a good time-saving idea to wash them ahead of time...like you are already doing. If they are going to stay in the fridge longer than a few days, I recommend that you wash them as you use them...they will stay fresher longer.

Vegetables, especially the green leafy ones, are living...they need oxygen to stay alive. Putting them in a plastic bag, in essence, suffocates them. You can tell this is happening because they get all gooey and mucky. Also, without a bit of moisture, they will wilt...each cell in the vegetable gets dehydrated so they lose the structure the water provides and, well, they wilt. So...I recommend, whether you wash them ahead of time or when you use them, to wrap them loosely in a paper towel and them putting them loosly in a plastic bag. The paper towel soaks up and retain the extra moisture from the vegetable and it also gives the vegetable some "breathing room" in the plastic bag. The breathable bags you purchased are a good idea as well for the same reasons mentioned above.

Some vegetables, like carrots or celery do well in a container of purified water. I wash a bunch of celery so it is ready to eat, put it in a container and add water to barely cover all the stalks. It lasts a long time like that and it is always ready to grab and eat!

Hope this helps!

Seek health-

Jess

[Lauxa]

The salad spinner worked for my kale, parsley, chard, and mustard greens. I cut them into chunks, set them in the strainer, and rinsed them off in the strainer. I threw them in the spinner, didn't worry about getting them completely dry, and stored them in regular non-breathable plastic bags. They have lasted 6 days so far. Some lettuce I processed the same way has lasted 2 weeks. I'm new to this and that was my first batch, but it seems to be working so far.

[jbischke]

Cool. I'm assuming you used a plastic knife? Hadn't thought about that but I suppose it would work. I did get some of the Evert-Fresh bags so between the plastic knife, the salad spinner and the special bags I might have a winning solution!

[Lauxa]

Nope. Mostly I just ripped the greens, but some had really thick stalks and I just used a regular metal knife to cut them up.