Now that you have gone grocery shopping, there is the matter of what you do with things that you brought home.

Meat: If you have purchased your meat in exactly the portions you will need to cook, then freeze what is not needed for the next two days. If not, separate out your meat into meals. Package them up and freeze what is not needed in the next 2 days.

Meat Pieces (Such as chicken breasts, stew meat or pork ribs): Fill plastic baggies with the servings for each specific meal. On the baggie, mark what the item is and the date you put it in the freezer.  For example, chicken breasts on April 2, 2015 would be “Ck Br 4/2/15”

Ground Meat: Divide the meat into the meal portions and wrap securely in foil. You can write with a marker directly on the foil. – but be careful to not push too hard and push through the foil to the meat inside.

Dairy: Store in refrigerator immediately

Canned goods: Pantry or cupboards

Fresh Fruit and Veggies: This can get tricky if you are just starting to cook for yourself. The best rule of thumb is, if you purchased it from a refrigerated section in the store, then put it in the vegetable crisper in your fridge. If you purchased it from the dry good sections, the bins in the middle of the store, then you can put it in the pantry.

Always remember to give it room to breathe. Poke a hole in the bag. If you can buy the “Green Bags”, they really do keep produce fresh longer.

When it comes time to defrost the meat for a meal, take it out of the freezer the night before (as you start preparing or eating that night’s meal) and place it in the fridge. You can defrost items on the counter top during the day, or via a microwave setting, but this gets really tricky and you are allowing for bacteria to develop on your food. If you do forget to defrost a meal the night before., fill a pan with cold water and submerge the frozen food in it for about an hour or so. Empty the pan and repeat. (Using cold water means the meat will not partially cook as it thaws.)

Canisters. Some people use canisters to store dry good ingredients, such as flour, sugar, rice and even pasta. This is all well and good, and some of them are very pretty. If you do use something like this, make SURE that it is airtight. Those little bugs can wiggle into some very small areas and you do not want that.

Tomorrow I’ll post the giveaways, then next week:

• Three simple recipes that look complicated to other people.
• Basic Kitchen Staples
• Cookbook Reviews

-Auntie Zia