Joanne Roach (00:13)
Hello and welcome back to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies.
Today's episode is a regular monthly slot where I run through some money saving tips to make the most of the fresh seasonal fruit and veg that we've been buying in this month to make it last longer, go further and store better. The idea is to help you get the best out of your fresh produce so that you spend less, waste less and actually get around to eating what you've bought.
You might know from previous months that I build my content around seasonal produce and my main product that I sell is a set of 12 children's books that are set in a veggie patch. Each of the books focuses on different fruit and veg that's in season during that month and because they were chosen to make sure that children explore lots of different plant families during the year,I use the product groups from the books to talk through storage and money tips for us so that we cover them all during the course of the year too.
This month, the book of the month is Leek's Rainy Day, so our foods for this episode are alliums like leeks, onions and garlic. Whether you've grown some and you need to use them up to make space for this year's plants, or you're finding that they're cheaper or tastier in the shops compared to other times of year, this is an episode to make the most of them.
Between leeks and onions and garlic and chives, alliums are not often the star of a meal but they add something so special to the background hum of many meals that they're really noticeable if they're missing, and they have lots of great health benefits as well as being delicious. But how do we go about storing them well until we're ready to eat them?
Onions don't need to be kept in the fridge. In fact, when they are uncut and still have their skins on, they are better kept in a cool, dry place because the humidity in the fridge can speed up their softening. But obviously once you've cut them open, they need to go in the fridge. If you just slice a section off and leave the skin on the remaining part, you can put the cut side down on a saucer if it's going to be used up quickly. But if you chop up an onion or if you've peeled it, it's best to put it in a container or wrap it up, not only to stop it drying out or spoiling, but also to stop it smelling the fridge up. Chopped onion in a container is good for several days.
For storing your whole onions outside the fridge, somewhere cool and dark, a cupboard that's not near the oven, or if you're lucky enough to have a pantry, cellar or utility, then a dark place in one of those. Check them periodically if you grow them or if you buy a lot in one go, and remove any that are starting to go soft. Chop out the soft bits and use them up or freeze them. And don't store them next to potatoes or apples because the gases can hasten ripening and the onion's sulphury compounds can taint the taste of them too.
It's a similar story for garlic. You can keep them in whole bulbs in a cool dark place for weeks or even months. Try to only break up one bulb at a time because the snapping off of the cloves creates little wounds for mould to get into, but if you leave the skins on any broken off cloves they will still last quite a few days. Garlic needs reasonable airflow to stop going mouldy so a basket or an open container is better than a lidded box. You can even keep them out on the worktop in a basket for short periods as long as they're out of the sunlight. They keep even longer in the fridge, but since they keep so well out of the fridge, don't bother using up fridge space, with the exception that if your fridge is closer to where you chop up foods for cooking than the cool storage place would be, it makes sense to have a little bit in the fridge because it's right there when you're chopping up other things.
And one last quick note about storing garlic, if you have extra chopped garlic and you want to store it in oil, it's best to do that in the fridge and only for a few days or straight into the freezer. Don't pop it in oil in a jar in the cupboard as it can very rarely be tainted with botulism. The jars from the shops in oil are safe when you buy them, but then refrigerate them once they're open. It's really very rare, but it's not worth messing with. So unless you're someone who preserves a lot of it and you want to find out how to add things in to acidify enough to be safe, then it's honestly easy just to store extra garlic that you want to soak in oil in ice cube bricks in the freezer, or just store it in any of the other ways that are not in oil.
Now for leeks. Leeks can be kept at room temperature if you're going to use them within a few days. Take them out of any packaging or at least open the end so the humidity doesn't build up, but if you're keeping them for more than a few days they are best kept in the packaging in the fridge or pop them in a bag if they came loose. This will stop them drying out and going yellowed. You can add in a damp paper towel if you want to make sure. Don't chop them until you're going to use them as all the cut wet surfaces will go off faster than the tough outer skin. But if you cut more than you need in one go, like onions, just pop them in a container for a few days or freeze them.
Chives also don't like getting moist. So whether you've cut some from a pot of herbs or you've bought them from the shop, make sure they're dry and if you wash them, make sure you pat them off dry before storing. If you store them in the fridge in a bag, pop a dry paper towel in there to soak up any moisture that creeps in.
If you find that you're not using up any of your alliums in time, or if you've harvested a load or bought a bunch on an offer, then you can obviously absolutely freeze alliums. I'm going to hand over now to our regular monthly chat with the lovely Kate Hall from The Full Freezer about the principles of freezing alliums.
Joanne (05:16)
Kate, this month of the month is leeks. So we're talking about alliums, so chives, leeks, onions, garlic. So if we've got families who are either growing those or want to buy them because they're in season, how would they go about freezing those?
Kate (05:30)
So this is one of my favourites because all of these are ones that although would be recommended to blanch them if you were freezing them for a long time and blanching is a process of putting vegetables into boiling water to deactivate enzymes in them. For these particular foods, as long as they are not going to be in your freezer for more than two or three months, like, I don't bother blanching any of them. So these are my favourites because I will literally chop up a bag of onions. I'll use a veg chopper. So it's really quick. And I will just chop them up, spread them out on a lined tray and then pop them in the freezer. Allow that to freeze through. If you have a freezer where, you know, it's quite compact, you might want to put a freezer bag over the top just to try and contain the smell a little bit. But I basically just freeze that through and then decant them into a bag. And then when I want to use them, I can just grab a handful. And it's the same for leeks as well. I wash them really well, make sure there's no mud or grime in them, and then just slice them up, open freeze on a tray, and then just grab a handful from the freezer bag whenever I want to cook with them.
You mentioned about garlic - again absolute favorite with this because I literally just put the garlic bulb into a bag in my freezer. I don't do anything with it. You can, if you want it to be ready to cook with when you're cooking in evenings and you don't want to have to do anything at all, you can absolutely mince, you know you can peel it you could mince it or slice it pop it on greaseproof paper and then decant those into a freezer bag once they're frozen. But I just find that it's such a small thing to break it out, peel it, and just crush it with a rocker or do it straight with a crusher into the pan. I tend to just do that. So for me, I will just pop garlic bulbs into the bag in the freezer and then they peel really easily and they last for ages.
Joanne (07:36)
Brilliant.So if you're someone who doesn't like the whole crushing it and chopping it at the time then while you're in the zone, prep some. But if you're somebody that doesn't mind doing that, just lob it in in one piece.
Kate (07:47)
Absolutely. That's it. Completely whatever works for you. And I know, you know, some people will break the bulb up so that they've got the cloves or they'll peel the cloves so that they've got them there ready. But yeah, personally, I just, full bulb in the freezer. Don't have to think about it. And I know I've always got a stash there. And if anyone wants to check out, you know, for things like the onions or anything, if they're uncertain on anything I have got Can I Freeze It? videos for that. So they can just get a bit more information about how I use it and how long I store things for and all of that.
Joanne (08:20)
That's brilliant. Well, I'll definitely link to that in the show notes.
Joanne Roach (08:25)
As we discussed in that clip, some people do dislike prepping garlic at the time of cooking and I'm one of those people, we eat tons of garlic and I just find it a faff. So obviously you can buy tubes or jars of garlic paste, but that can work out quite expensive if you eat a lot like we do. You can also buy frozen garlic cloves or slices and they're pretty cheap by weight. But I go down the road of prepping a big batch of minced garlic in one blast by lobbing loads of peeled cloves in a food processor and then putting the paste into a freezer bag, squeeze it to be sort of flattish and then press some indents into it through the bag so it's easy to break some pieces off.I'll link to a video in the show notes of what I mean if you can't picture what I'm explaining.
You can also put it into ice cube trays and freeze it and then pop them out into a bag, but make sure that you only use that ice cube tray for this or any other strong flavours. I don't think anybody wants garlic flavoured G &T. Well, probably someone does, but it's not me.
For me, the removing of the skins is the bit that annoys me. So if you do it in a big batch, the easiest way is to soak a load of cloves in a bowl of water for about 15 minutes. I put a plate on top to make sure they're all submerged and then you'll find the skins come off just with your fingers.Or you can use the ultimate cheat code if you live anywhere near an Asian supermarket and buy the huge vacuum packs of peeled cloves from the chiller and just process those. I'm very lazy so that's my particular hack. But I still keep some fresh garlic in the kitchen for when I want bigger chunks or slices in the dish. So lots of garlicky tips there.
So that's freezing. For the listeners who are into dehydrating foods, you can definitely dehydrate alliums. You can dry chopped leeks or onions to add into soups or to start off dishes. And some people dry them out for a mirepoix mix, which is the traditional French cookery starter of mixed celery, leek or onion and carrot. So if you want to, you can use that to start off a bunch of recipes. Or you can also dry out garlic and make either crispy discs or powder. These things are quite good if you grow your own and you have a lot of slightly damaged ones that won't store well, but you want to keep them for later. You can chop off the damage and dry them out.
With all of them, I would definitely warn that dehydrating them makes the room they are in SMELL. So if we have onions to dehydrate in particular, we tend to do it on a dry day and put the dehydrator out on the back step on an extension lead so we don't honk the house out, but they can be useful to use later in the year. You can also dehydrate chives, which are great for adding into things and they rehydrate very quickly in sauce.
Okay, so we've stored our alliums, but now we have some to use up. What can you make to use up extra leeks, onions or garlic?
Of course, as usual, there's always soup. There's the famous favourite of leek and potato soup, which can be very child-friendly because it's creamy, especially if you blend it for children who don't like lumps. And you can pair it with cheesy flavours, so cheese on toast or rarebit on the side instead of just bread is a great combo that can encourage soup hesitators to dip a bit more. French onion soup is obviously another classic and great for using up a lot at once, but it can take a while to make and it's quite a hard texture for a lot of children. So bear it in mind, but probably best introduced as a fun “take it or leave it” starter rather than as a main meal. If your child is okay with lumpy or mixed texture soups, then small amounts of leeks add bags of flavour and can often be easier to accept in an already mixed soup like a minestrone.
Children can find allium tastes a bit overwhelming and often find the textures challenging too. They tend to be squeaky when they're lightly cooked And then they can be slimy when they're thoroughly cooked. So think through some of those texture issues and if your child is likely to reject them,build in the fact that they might want to pick them out into your planning. So if you make a tart or a quiche with leeks in, consider having them more in the top layer so kids can still find mouthfuls of the food without those textures in and then they won't build up a memory of not liking the whole dish. They can just pick out the bits they don't like.
That said, leeks work really well in dishes that have creamy or cheesy sauces. So classics would be chicken and leek pie with a white sauce, often with potatoes in too. Cheese and leek tarts and quiches. Cheese and leek sauce on a jacket potato. Leek gratins. All of these harness children's love of creamy cheesy things to introduce a bit of leekiness. I will link to some examples in the show notes, including some dairy-free or plant-based ideas too.
Leeks are also great in eggy things, omelettes, frittatas and so on, with the caveat that I mentioned earlier about texture for some people. One of the ways to offset the change in texture in an otherwise smooth mixed dish is to add in something else that is accepted that also adds texture. So a good example is bacon, ham, smoked tofu or sausages, either meat or Quorn. All of these have some chew, some smokiness and some saltiness and are often quite child-friendly. A bite of a smooth sauce that already has some chewy bacon or a squeaky cube of ham or tofu in it is likely to be easier to add in a taste of squeaky leek too. So that's always worth considering pairing together. A good example of this is a leek and bacon pasta
or adding some little snips of bacon or veggie sausage into a leek and cheese sauce that you put over a jacket potato or a little meatiness into a gratin. Again, I'll link to some examples, including a recipe on my website of a leek pasta dish that children can make for themselves.
Leeks are often paired with mushrooms for good reason because the flavour combination is great, but mushrooms are often a hard sell for children too, so that combo won't work for everyone. But if you want to try something leek and mushroom related,then adding leeks into a mushroom risotto or a stroganoff sauce works well because of the creamy texture and the combination can also work well on the pizza. So if you have family style dinner where there's pizza in the middle, having one of them be leek and mushroom as a topping can build up their familiarity and show that this is a combination that people like.
Also, leeks and onions both work well in small pieces in savoury bread and scones, so think leek and cheese cornbread or cheese and leek scones.
Onions aren't something that generally takes centre stage in a recipe.But for introducing them to kids, there is one onion forward recipe that comes to mind, which is that viral online recipe of parmesan onion rings, where you basically bake onion rings with parmesan sprinkled on top until they're crispy. Lots of kids like these because they're intensely savoury and cheesy.
Otherwise, children can build their acceptance of onions by including them in small amounts in regular meals and sauces,and they can get used to them raw by having a single ring on their burger buns or chopped red onions which are a bit sweeter can be added into small amounts on salad or in a coleslaw.
For garlic, generally for kids, the gateway drug is garlic bread. so a good way to get kids to appreciate the roll of garlic in it is to make some garlic butter together, it's an easy and fun recipe with quite a few skills for a small item, as well as building familiarity with the smell and texture of it.
Another way to show how garlic can be helpful in meals, if your child likes takeaways, is its role in Asian food, how it balances with chilli, ginger and salty flavours. A good example is honey garlic chicken or honey garlic tofu. I'll link to a child-friendly example.
So that's my roundup on storing and using up all kinds of alliums. I'll pop some links to Kate's videos on freezing all of these in the show notes along with links to quite a few recipes for the suggestions. I'll see you on Thursday for another episode. And in the meantime, happy eating.
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