When my 20-year-old son noticed the basket of hot green chili peppers, he asked whether I would consider making some schug. Schug is a Yemenite condiment, known for being extremely fiery.

After taking a quick look at some internet recipes, I realized I needed some fresh coriander, otherwise known as cilantro. I had an errand near the shuk, so I picked up two small bunches and went to work.

My son donned gloves and removed the seeds and membranes from the peppers. I let the food processor peel the garlic, added the other ingredients and we were done. Unfortunately it wasn’t as spicy as my son had hoped and you can practically eat it straight with a spoon. Even though most Yemenites wouldn’t be impressed, we are enjoying it. I think we  got a weak variety of peppers.

Reader Ilyse comments: “You can add “hel” (I think it’s cardamon in English?)to give it real authentic Yemenite flavor. Also, the peppers have not been spicy yet this year…try smelling them to check for spiciness. If your nose comes up a bit irritated after a real close sniff, then they are hot! I make LOTS at a time, and it freezes well!”

Making fresh condiments in the food processor is a pleasure. Then I know that they don’t have added sugar or preservatives. The lack of preservatives means that they won’t last quite as long though, so you may want to halve the recipe.

I took some lovely pictures, but my computer decided not to cooperate with the upload so they will have to wait.

You can use the schug to spice up a sandwich, or serve it with meat, fish, or chumus. Israelis like to eat it on falafel.

As part of the online Gold Conference on breastfeeding, I attended a webinar with Italian physician Adriano Cattaneo entitled “Principles for the Introduction of Starting Solids.”

Dr. Cattaneo’s comments on  prepared baby foods reminded me of my post about what makes processed foods bad. His reasons for avoiding jarred food for babies include:

• Contaminants like heavy metals, additives and colorings.
• False nutritional claims. This is especially true regarding fats and vitamins. And because of their long shelf life, the quality of the food deteriorates.
• The quality of these components is poor. To increase profits, manufacturers prefer cheap starches and oils.
• The foods have have no taste or fragrance, with an unpleasant look and texture. Babies don’t like them.
• They are expensive and harm the environment (think of all of that glass!).

Most of these concerns apply to the processed foods that adults eat as well. However, because babies are still growing the quality of their food has a greater long-term effect. Babies and toddlers have small stomachs, so it’s important to make every bite count.

Cattaneo also recommends against spoon-feeding of pureed soups or mixed vegetables even when homemade.  Babies need control over their food, including how much they take in each bite, how much of each particular food they want (as opposed to mixtures), and when to stop.

In fact, Cattaneo advises that babies are ready for solids as soon as they grab them and eat them. Babies who get everything they need from breastmilk, or who are not physically ready, won’t bother. Most babies show interest during the range of 4 to 9 months, with most babies nearer to the 6-month mark a few outliers, especially at the later end. Despite the recent, poorly evidenced recommendations adopted by most European countries and Israel, there is no reason to be worried if  your baby doesn’t want solids despite being older than 26 weeks.

Babies enjoy learning to manipulate solid foods and experimenting with flavors and textures. Parents can encourage this by inviting baby to eat along with them at meals. Breastfeeding babies are already used to the flavors of the mother’s diet. Feeding babies is about much more than getting the correct amount of protein, calcium and fat into their stomachs. It’s about trusting babies’ instincts to get what they need, and encouraging their inborn desire and ability to imitate their parents and learn adult skills.

Related posts:

9 Great Reasons to Cook with Your Kids

Cooking for a Family with a New Baby

Starting Solids the Easy Way

Make Your Own “Convenience” Foods for Your Baby

Should Toddlers Eat Dessert?

image: Fimb 

Third in a series on food storage containers.

Part I: Introduction to Food Storage Containers 

Part II: Choosing the Best Shape for Freshness and Convenience.

Most of us have a messy drawer or cabinet—or two or three–devoted to plastic storage containers.  Plastic containers are light and slide around easily. The different sizes and shapes can be hard to tell apart. Worst of all are the lids, that seem to disappear altogether.

Here are my favorite tips for keeping storage containers from taking over your kitchen:

• Stick to a few sizes and shapes.  Most containers are a translucent and are hard to tell apart and find the right cover. Instead of buying a matching set with different sized containers, stick to a few containers of each size, in a unique style and color. A set with containers of different sizes, but identically sized covers, works for some.
• Avoid large storage containers. They are usually not necessary for storing leftovers, since the contents will take a lot of time to freeze and defrost. And they take up room in your refrigerator or cabinet.
• Choose containers that stack. This saves a considerable amount of space.
• Use a permanent marker to label matching containers and lids, or if the containers are meant for particular items. You might know which is the sugar container, but your family won’t.
• Store lids separately from the matching containers. You can stack them on their ends in a dishrack, napkin holder, or box.
• Be vigilant about getting rid of containers that are smelly, badly scratched, missing a cover or don’t close properly.
• Keep a couple of old containers that you can spare, like ones used to store bought foods. Use these instead of disposables ones when bringing food to neighbors, like someone who just had a baby.
• Recycle old containers for storing small items like socks, makeup, or medicines.

What tips can you share for organizing your storage containers?

Part I: Introduction to Food Storage Containers 

Part II: Choosing the Best Shape for Freshness and Convenience.

You may also enjoy:

11 Tips for Easy Kitchen Cleanup

Why You Should Finish Everything on Your Plate

Recipe: Creamy Parsnip Soup

Have you ever had to cook when traveling? Maybe you were on a special diet, or simply wanted to save money by avoiding tourist traps.

When I recently attended a conference in Europe, I couldn’t eat much of the food because I keep kosher. Luckily I traveled with my friend D., who has experience cooking in hotel rooms. In advance of our trip, she offered to organize things for the two of us while I was entertaining out-of-town company.  At past conferences D. has used an electric water kettle, but this time she asked the conference organizer if she could find us a microwave. D. and I really appreciated this effort, as it enabled us to have hot food at least once a day.

For the soup, D. brought little bags from home containing red lentils, bulgur and a variety of spices.She chose bulgur and red lentils, because they are healthy foods that require little cooking time. She also brought a one-liter (one-quart) microwave-safe cooking pot, complete with cover, that fit easily into her suitcase. This was the most important item! At home I use heavier glass or ceramic utensils that can break during travel. We had a paring knife and some plastic utensils.

We purchased fresh vegetables at the local grocery store and set out to make our soup. When I complimented D. on her resourcefulness she said that I told her about using the microwave for cooking, and she had been experimenting at home.

When we prepared the soup, I was a little concerned that the onions would stay crunchy. But the soup was completely cooked, and delicious, after only 20 minutes.

When we made it a second time we used more bulgur, which absorbed most of the liquid. It came out more like a risotto.

You may also enjoy:

Twenty Tips for Tasty Soup without Soup Powder or Canned Broth

Simple Microwave Recipes

Cool Summer Cooking Tips (also good for travel)

Notes: I’ve updated my list of Passover Recipes. You can also check out the most recent Kosher Cooking Carnivals at Batya’s and Yosefa’s.

Think for a moment about how many storage containers you have in your kitchen. Are you using them as efficiently as you can? This is the second part of my series on storage containers. See Introduction: Choosing the Best Material.

Part III: Best Ways to Organize Your Food Storage Containers

• Size: If your storage container is too big, the center will take a long time to cool and your food will spoil more quickly. Food frozen in a large block can take days to defrost. If you are storing large quantities, you’ll want to separate them into smaller containers. The only time you’ll want a bigger container is for storing large, whole items like chicken, fish or cake.
  Smaller containers will mean washing more items, but if your needs change you can leave one in the refrigerator or freezer. Every time you open a container you allow bacteria to get in, and your food will spoil faster.
• Shallow containers are good for liquids. They allow the cold air to reach more of the food so it cools faster.
• Maximize storage space by choosing similar sized containers that can stack or be arranged side by side. Do separate them for cooling or defrosting so that the air can reach all sides.
• What size do you need? Buy containers that approximate how much you need for the next meal. If you live alone, you will want containers for a single serving. Since I have a large family I divide the soup for one meal into two containers for safer and easier storage.
• What do you generally store in your containers? If you store cooked whole carrots, you will have less flexibility than with cooked, that can fit in any container.
• Round or square corners? Round containers take up more space, but it’s slightly easier to remove the food because there are no corners. A plastic spatula helps. Rectangular containers often rounded edges.
• Is the container’s mouth wide or narrow? Pouring food into a wide opening is easier, but a narrow one is easier to pour out of into something else. Check that the around on the inside of the upper edge is smooth and reached easily with a spatula.

You may also enjoy:

10 Best Tips for Freezing for a Crowd

13 Smart Ways to Manage Leftovers

Why You Should Finish Everything on Your Plate

Reader Rita writes:

“Do you know of old or ancient ways of cooking? Someone told me or I read (?) that when you cook above ground food to put in boiling water! And if cooking below-ground food put in cold water and bring up the heat to boiling!!

They said that this is the old Hebrew way…you mentioned you had done a Barmitzva…so may be you would know!!!”

Well, I don’t know of any Jewish sources that mention this. I decided to go to  responses:

Miriam Kresh of Israeli Kitchen: “I don’t thnk it’s connected to ancient ways, except that in ancient times people were just as smart about cooking as they are now. Above-ground food like string beans cook up quickly and you preserve their nutrition by plopping them into boiling water. Slower-cooking root veg benefit by starting in cold. Did I read this in Adele Davis? Don’t remember. But that’s the way I cook too.”

Dan Shernicoff of Brassnet: There is no benefit to cooking roots like potatoes starting from cold water, there is no benefit to starting from hot for them. Since starting from cold is easier, that’s what we do.  As to “above-ground” veggies, it’s not nutrition, it’s that we want to have more control over cooking times since they cook very fast and it’s easy to over cook them.

Faye Levy. author of Feast from the Mideast: This was a rule I learned at cooking school in Paris. Basically green vegetables go into boiling water so they stay green and are easier to keep crisp-tender and not too soft. Root vegetables sometimes have strong flavors (or did in the old days) that you want to draw out by starting them in cold water and cooking them more slowly.

Gil Marks, author of Encyclopedia of Jewish Food: Chicken and meat retain flavor when started in hot water, while more seeps into the liquid when started in cold water. So soup should be started with cold water and poached should be hot.

I’d like to weigh in on the nutrition issue. While the ancients lacked our scientific knowledge of vitamins, they could see that certain vegetables lost their color and texture when cooked for longer. So some developed techniques to retain color and texture,  whether or not they were aware of the health benefits. Of course some cuisines favored over-cooked foods.

My mother cooked root vegetables starting with a small amount of cold water, to keep the vitamins from leaching into the water. Generally she timed cooking to perfection but since she underestimated the amount of water, the smell of burnt potatoes remains a strong childhood memory. She steamed vegetables like string beans. Boiling the water, then adding the steamer so that the vegetables don’t touch the water, preserves both flavor and nutrition. But it takes longer and is not practical for root vegetables.

You may also enjoy:

My Mother’s Re-Recyled Soup

Nine Tips to Help Food Last Longer

Recipe: Low-Fat Turkey Meatloaf

Please welcome Alex for today’s reader interview. If you’d like to be interviewed, contact me.

Introduction: I’m Alex from the United Kingdom, Currently Living Alone, but recently moved out of my parents’ home which was host to a closely knit family of four.  I’m the owner of the Cheap Living Blog and am currently trying to save money and inform others of doing the same mainly by cooking cheap, but tasty food.

1. What do you remember about family meals and your mother’s cooking style when you were growing up? Family meals were always a time to share our days with each other and were pretty traditional – the whole family sat around the table with pretty traditional home cooked British food being cooked (think roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, gravy and greens).  I think this traditional mealtime set-up is perhaps one of the reasons our family was close, aside from enjoying the meal together often times when my brother and I were younger we would help with the preparation of the food witch again, I feel added to the richness of the experience.
2. How is your cooking style different from your mother’s? My cooking tends to focus on less traditional fare with a focus on saving money.  For example I’ve recently been experimenting with Asian and Eastern European foods which can be really cheap and really tasty if cooked right, typically focusing on staples such as rice and hearty soups.
3. What is your favorite gadget? Not really a gadget, but the most important tool in my kitchen is the knife block.  I really splashed out on a set of extremely high quality Japanese steel knives – it makes cooking so much easier and consequently, more enjoyable. (I’m sure neatly sliced veg tastes better too!).
4. Can you share a typical daily menu? Weekly menu? This really does vary as I go through ‘flights of fancy’ when it comes to food.  As I mentioned earlier, I’m really into Eastern European home style cooking at the moment.  Last week one of the better meals I was experimenting with was Roast Beef with Dumplings (Houskové Knedlíky) – I got the recipe from My Prague Sites if anyone wants to try it!  Another great eastern food to try out is “bramboracky” (potato pancakes) really hearty and delicious with some home made gravy!
5. Can you recommend any cookbooks, TV shows or websites that have inspired you? I couldn’t pinpoint just one as I usually get inspired by something I’ve seen out and about in my daily life, such as the mention of a particular country, or a simple food and I’ll then go online and Google recipes for that destination or foodstuff so it really does vary wildly.
6. What posts on CM have you enjoyed? Do you have suggestions for future posts? I really enjoy the posts on Cooking Manager that focus on baking, as if you have the time I believe it’s a really rewarding pursuit, and who doesn’t love the smell of freshly baked bread?!  I’m looking forward to trying out Tips on Baking withWhole Wheat Flour as I’ve been known to jump on the healthy food bandwagon now and again.
7. What is the oldest item in your kitchen? The newest? I’m ashamed to say that I’m probably the oldest item in my kitchen – there are very few things in there that aren’t brand new as I’ve only just moved in! I’m looking forward to purchasing some cast iron cookwear that will hopefully outlast me though!

Please share a recipe that you enjoy.

Reader Tim sent this guest post as a response to my post on Baking Cleanup Tips. He explains the advantages of silicone for mixing and baking and how to choose high-quality silicone products.

Tim writes: 

Food sticking to bowls can be time consuming to clean, and increase expense by causing food waste.

Any kind of food sticking to a bowl can be prevented by using high quality silicone bowls.  Silicone is naturally non-stick, so it cleans very quickly and easily.  And, because silicone bowls do not need to be greased, you can use less fat in your food.

Silicone can be used at any temperature, ranging from sub-zero temperatures to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (230 Celsius). Some kinds can even be used at up to 600 degrees Fahrenheit (315 Celsius). Even better, silicone bowls can go straight from the freezer into a hot oven, unlike glass which will crack.  Imagine being able to combine ingredients, mix, and cook in the same bowl – without any cleanup in-between steps.   With silicone you can.  Also, silicone is safe for use in microwave ovens and dishwashers, and is totally nontoxic.

Pans made from high-quality silicone have the same benefits as the bowls described above, and more.  With silicone pans, you’re always able to get cakes and muffins out of the pan without damaging them — even burnt-on pans.  Baked items fall right out of silicone baking pan when turned upside down, even shapes with small indentations like a rose-shaped cupcake.  Cleaning corners inside silicone pans is super-easy, because the pan is non-stick and corners can be temporarily turned inside-out for easy access.

High quality silicone will not retain stains or odors.  I tested this by making enchiladas with spicy molé sauce in my silicone pan, then immediately making brownies in the same pan.  The brownies tasted and smelled only like brownies and not like molé sauce.

Silicone kitchen items are multi-tasking.  For example, a silicone ice cube tray can be used to make ice, chocolates, hard candy, and small cupcakes.  A silicone colander can be used for straining pasta, steaming food (in a larger container), and used upside down as a splatter cover.

High quality silicone is very durable if it is not exposed to sharp surfaces like knives.  Use high quality silicone items with care and they will last for years, even with frequent use.

The benefits of silicone described above only apply to high quality silicone, meaning pure silicone without plastic or latex fillers.  Most silicone kitchen items are made from silicone with fillers.  One way to test if a silicone item was manufactured using fillers is to tightly fold it.  If the material at the fold becomes white or lightens in color, then fillers were used to make that item.

The easy way to assure one buys only items that are made from pure silicone is to buy products made by iSi Basics and Orka by Mastrad.  Both of these companies make excellent products that can be purchased from many sources online.

The two companies specialize in different types of  products. iSi Basics makes silicone bowls and measuring cups that are rigid to the perfect degree; the bowls are flexible enough to have the bowl walls brought close together to form a pouring spout, yet rigid enough to stand up well unsupported and make mixing very easy without collapsing.  Orka by Mastrad makes baking and steaming cookware that is rigid enough to stand unsupported. It also retains its shape without buckling or spilling contents when picked up—even when completely full.  The tops of Orka’s pans and steamers have a very unique, mostly-rigid, microwave-safe frame at the top that includes convenient handles.

Thank you, Tim, for sharing your experience. I have a a silicon brush and spatula that I love, and two muffin pans that I suspect are not high quality but have served me well so far. 

Are there any readers who have used silicone steamers, bowls or measuring cups? Please share your experience in the comments.

You may also enjoy:

Converting Commerical Yeast Recipes to Sourdough

Six Questions to Ask When Buying a Kitchen Knife

How I Cut My Baking Time in Half

The Guardian’s Elaine Glaser writes about the supposed Food Revolution, asking whether it is a big fat lie. She criticizes the television cooking shows most of all (emphasis mine):

Reality, normality, hard-working families: this is the mantra of the multimillionaire celebrity chef. But the recipes have trouble sticking to it because, despite the homely trappings, they are essentially restaurant food. Take Nigella Express, the book of the TV show promising “fabulous fast food and incredible short cuts”. The recipes are quick to make, it’s true, but look at the ingredients: mirin, poussin, pomegranate juice, quail, harissa, sake, garlic oil. It would take an afternoon to track them down. I have for many years wrestled with the matter of fresh herbs. They improve simple dishes no end: most of Jamie [Oliver]‘s 30-Minute Meals rely on them. But I always find myself rummaging impatiently through a supermarket’s highly selective herb selection to find the one I need.

Yes, yes, yes. Cooking shows might be fun to watch, but your average working person does not have the time or the money to cook like that. Even if one lives near the market and has the time to buy fresh ingredients each day, what is supposed to be done with all of the leftovers? I don’t want to keep several shelves and drawers full of condiments and spices that I will rarely use. Heck, I just bought sesame oil and haven’t figured out what to do with it, since none of the recipes I generally make call for it. I don’t have time to look around for new recipes either—I stick with what is easy for me and what I am fairly sure that (most) of my family will eat.

Finally, cooking shows do not show any of the prep time. The ingredients are washed, peeled and chopped, just waiting in small bowls for their 15 seconds of fame.

I agree with Glaser that fresh herbs are a relatively easy way to enhance your food. But why stick to what the recipe calls for? My balcony garden boasts some hardy plants like mint and chives. Still, my experience is similar to Glaser’s, whose herbs died after a few weeks. So I’ll get a big bunch of parsley or dill and keep using it in various soups, main dishes and salads until it’s gone. Or I’ll preserve it—more on that in a future post.

Glaser criticizes Oliver as well. He is best known for his efforts to improve school lunches.

. . . My problem is our refusal to admit that reality is obscured by illusory ideals. It’s not only that Jamie employs around 5,000 staff and is reportedly worth £65m, it’s that he foregrounds his lovely-jubbly persona and rapport with dinner ladies. TV executives try to get around these contradictions with the help of that weasel word “aspirational”. But it just doesn’t wash. This is not just food. This is 100% mock-authentic, mock-egalitarian class hierarchy. Supermarket labels such as “organic”, “finest” and “taste the difference”, or “economy”, “basics” and “everyday”, are euphemisms for food apartheid.

“Food apartheid!” I love it. There is something to this.

Glaser also writes about not finding “seasonal” vegetables or even knowing which ones they are, in today’s urban supermarkets. Her solution: ”But if the other [cooking celebrities] really wanted to come up with a quick and easy cookbook for “hard-working families”, they’d write one that used only the kind of ingredients I can buy at my local Costcutter: potatoes, tomatoes, onions and carrots.”

I don’t live in England, but I suspect that most of the year there are a few other options. Perhaps look out for the less extravagant ones—like squash, fennel, turnips, spinach, broccoli, cabbage or beets—when they appear, and experiment. The trick is not to be afraid of an unfamiliar vegetable.

I’ve always felt that the American approach of planning a menu by starting with a recipe–whether from a cooking show, website, or cookbook–is misguided. One should always start with what is in the house, and move on to what is fresh and reasonably priced in the grocery store. Then it becomes a matter of figuring out how to cook it and making the adjustments to match your skills, ingredients, equipment and time limitations. One can easily find information about cooking techniques for virtually every ingredient through a Google search.

Practical, quick and frugal home meals prepared each day by busy adults each day are simply not exciting enough for a cooking show. The vegetable-washing and chopping that takes up the bulk of the work will never make good television.

But I can’t help wonder what the “Cooking Manager” reality TV show would look like. Hmmm. . .

 Related: 

The Secret to Great Home Cooking

Tips for Choosing Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Ten Quick Tips for Cutting Your Produce Bill

Part II: Tips for Choosing the Best Shape for Freshness and Convenience

Part III: Best Ways to Organize Your Food Storage Containers

My kids like to take leftover casseroles to school. So last night I made a large batch of lasagna with spinach, homemade noodles and marinara sauce. This took a couple of days of planning to make sure I had enough of every ingredient and help available for the final assembly.

But when it came time to divide up the leftovers for freezing, I remembered that I don’t have enough appropriate storage containers. I could have used plastic or foil. But aside from my distaste for disposables, the kids couldn’t eat defrosted lasagna out of plastic wrap. And aluminum should never be used for storing acidic foods as the aluminum will leach into the food.

Storage containers may not be a sexy topic, but home cooks deal with them nearly every day. So I’m starting a series covering the ins and outs of food containers for leftovers or “pre-leftovers.”

Usually our storage containers are made of glass or plastic, or occasionally of metal or ceramic. I’ll give a short summary of the materials and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Plastic:

• Inexpensive.
• May affect flavor of food.
• Wide variety of shapes and sizes available.
• Some types go from freezer to microwave. Sometimes a container is marked as microwave-safe, when the cover isn’t.
• May be difficult to remove grease.
• Large variation in quality.
• Often translucent so you can see what you have.
• Does not keep food as well as glass.
• Reuse containers from purchased foods, like ice cream or cottage cheese.

Note on BPA: You may have heard concerns regarding the safety of plastic containers. A few years ago, it was discovered that baby bottles were discovered to leach a type of chemical known as bisphenol A, or BPA. BPA has been shown in animal studies to affect neurological development in the fetus and infant. The dangers of BPA are still controversial, but it’s best to avoid it if possible. The hard plastic, labeled “7,” is most likely to contain BPA especially if it also says “PC”. BPA has also been found in the linings of many canned foods. I have not seen concern about BPA in food storage containers.

Glass:

• Easy to clean.
• Breaks easily.
• Lasts forever if not broken.
• Transparent.
• Air-tight seal with screw-top. With proper canning techniques, glass can be used for long-term storage.
• Excellent for microwave use.
• Heavy, so difficult for large quantities or for people with disabilities.

Ceramic is wonderful for cooking in, but the covers are not usually air-tight. Decorative ceramic containers are good for storing foods like sugar or pasta on the counter.

Stainless steel containers are excellent, but need an airtight plastic cover.

Please share your questions and ideas on food containers in the comments.

Part II: Tips for Choosing the Best Shape for Freshness and Convenience

Part III: Best Ways to Organize Your Food Storage Containers

 You may also enjoy:

Foods for Putting Quick Meals Together

10 Kid-Friendly Meals Using Leftovers

Putting Food in Perspective: Strategies to Prevent Food Issues

13 Smart Ways to Manage Your Leftovers