The Kitchn Archive: Sep 2012

Q: Does the expiration date of food “reset” after it is frozen? For example, I bake a large ham on Sunday and freeze the bone on Friday. When it is thawed and used in soup or stew, is the ham still considered to be 5 days old and should the soup/stew be eaten very quickly?Would it be better to freeze the bone immediately?Sent by LindaEditor: Linda, freezing to 0°F does inactivate any bacteria or molds on your food, but once the food is thawed, they become active again.

Nutty, nourishing brown rice is a great addition to rice bowls and the perfect accompaniment to stir-fries, but its long cooking time makes it a tough sell for busy weeknight dinners. Packaged, precooked brown rice from the frozen section of the supermarket makes preparation quick and foolproof enough for last-minute meals — but why pay extra when it is so simple to freeze your own portioned brown rice at home? Freezing cooked brown rice flat in freezer bags makes it easy to store.

Open my freezer and you will see a stockpile of frozen fish fillets, chicken breasts, steaks, and sausage links. This is my saving grace during weeks when my meal plans go awry or I can’t get to the store. Wrapped carefully against the cold, they are just as good after their time in the freezer as they were when purchased.When packaging meats for the freezer, the most important thing is to protect them from exposure to air.

Dosage is a wine word specific to the production of Champagne and sparkling wine. It refers to the amount of sugar added to the sparkling wine just before corking, or to the sweetness level of the finished wine.The dosage, or liqueur d’expedition (as it is called in French), is typically a mixture of sugar and wine, though it could just be a sweet wine. The tradition of adding dosage comes from Champagne.

Why does food (and especially a sandwich!) always taste better when someone else makes it? My mother makes a simple but delicious sandwich every day for lunch. Always the same, she slices good hearth bread, slathers it with Hellman’s Best Mayo on both slices, adds a few squares of Swiss cheese and piles on several leaves of crunchy lettuce or occasionally baby spinach. On goes the top, and with a slice down the middle, there it is — the perfect sandwich.

Have you caught the baking bug? I have several friends who have vowed to start baking their own bread this fall, and as a longtime home baker myself, this is an endeavor that I wholeheartedly support. Whether you’re getting ready to bake your first loaf or whether you’re coming back to it after a summer away, here are a few tips to help you bake the best sandwich bread ever.

Making big batches of grains and refrigerating or freezing the leftovers1. Add them to soups. Chewy whole grains add a new textural dimension and extra nutrition to any type of soup or stew. Beyond chicken and rice, try barley in split pea soup or farro in a hearty minestrone.2. Toss them in salads. You can either use cooked grains as the basis for a hearty grain salad, or add grains to a vegetable- or bean-based salad, like this chickpea, barley and zucchini ribbon salad.3. Bulk up frittatas.

In the warmer months, yogurt and granola are my go-to breakfast. As fall approaches, I start making more and more oatmeal and each year I aim to perfect this relatively simple breakfast. With these three main tips, we’re pretty close to perfection.People like their oatmeal in very different ways. Not just the toppings, but the preparation itself. Some like it uber-creamy and soft while others prefer oats that are more chewy and toothsome.

Emma used the word hangry in her recipe for granola bars earlier today, and it made me think about this very helpful word, a word to signal impending storm clouds and danger, a word to fear. Do you get hangry?! What happens when you do? Oh — not familiar with the term? Let me bring you up to speed. This is a word you should know.Hangry is a word to describe the glowering state of hunger that has passed the pleasant edge of anticipation.

Last week I explained the wine word ‘Traditional Method‘. Tank Method is another wine word, specific to sparkling wine. Tank Method is also know as ‘Cuve Close’ or Charmat Method. Tank Method is a name for a sparkling wine making process. Unlike the ‘Traditional Fermentation’, whereby the second fermentation happens in bottle, in Tank Method it takes place in a large closed pressure tank.

I don’t bother with carefully measuring water or fiddling around with getting just the right flame when I cook whole grains on the stove. Instead, I cook pretty much every type of grain using the same no-fuss method — with great results every time.Basically, I use the same method for cooking whole grains that I use for cooking pasta: I simmer the grains in a good amount of salted water until they are the right texture, and then drain them.

Did you know that egg whites play quite an important role in the making of red wine? They work as a fining agent. Interested in finding out more? Read on to find out why and how egg whites are used to help make wine! Most of us expect that when we pour a glass of wine it will be clear and bright. Unfortunately when a wine finishes fermenting it is far from so.

I’ve been focused on high-protein snacks lately, and a tried-and-true taste is a hard boiled egg. I love them dearly and usually boil a full dozen at a go. Some weeks I eat them all and some weeks I turn to the freezer for help! Although egg whites don’t take too kindly to freezing (they will leak water and turn funny colors), the yolks are perfect for freezing. To do this, simply cut your egg in half, discard or eat the whites, and then toss your yolks in a zip top bag.

It comes up in our house a lot. I’m guessing it might in yours, too. It goes something like this: one of us is holding up X ingredient to the other asking, “do you think this is still good?” What follows is a delicate dance of sniffing, staring, scratching our heads and making a quick decision that’s often more guess than certain knowledge. But with eggs, that decision can be much easier. Now if you’ve ever encountered a really bad egg, you’d know.