Fresh food preservation tips wanted. Pleeeeeeeease?

After coming to the conclusion I'm eating way too much bread for my own good, I've decided to use my budget for groceries this week to get some non-bread foods.

Kroger has apples on sale.  But by the time I get through the entire bag, half of the apples would have molded over.  I'm not one to waste money, especially since I only work like.. three hours a week... if that, and can't afford to.

Vacuu-sealed?  Frozen?  Some magic dance?

I'm going to get all of my vegetables frozen, aside from celery 'cause it's seventy-nine cents for a bunch.  I hate celery but I figured if I can force my way through an entire stick thing, I'll thank myself for it some day.

It's just keeping the fruits alive that I'm having issues with.

Thaaaaaaaaaaank youuuuuuuu.  =)

I wish bananas would stay fresh longer. 

Just keep the apples in the fridge, they should keep for weeks that way.

Pears (hard ones) and apples keep for quite a while in the fridge--seal them in plastic bags and they'll keep for upwards of two weeks. Carrots also keep for a crazy-long period of time. Just seal them in a baggie in the fridge and you can probably keep them for a month, possibly longer. I'm trying to remember how old my carrots are... I can't remember exactly when I bought them, but it must have been at least three weeks ago and they're still fine. In general, root veggies keep quite a long time. Squash, too. Buttercup and sweet momma are my faves! They don't need anything but some margarine. Yum! I've found that broccoli will keep upwards of two weeks in the fridge, too.

http://www.nutrawiz.com/images/using_fresh_pr oduce.pdf

Hopefully this link works. 

Apples will keep for a long long time in the crisper section of the refrigerator - MONTHS even! And they're not likely to go mouldy - they might shrivel up and lose their texture, but they're still good for cooking even then. I buy a bag of apples at the grocery store and it takes about a month for the two of us to eat them all.

If you are keeping your apples in the fridge keep em sealed really well. They release some sort of gas that will make all your other produce wilt/go bad faster. Doesn't mean they'll stay fresh longer, but everything else will.

I tend to just buy 2-3 pieces of a few kinds of fruit each each week, that way nothing goes bad. I'm more of a veggie person, so a banana and 1 or 2 other pieces of fruit a day are more than enough to keep me happy. If I were to buy in bulk, most would go bad and I'd (in the end) eat and spend the same amount if I'd done it this way... but now I gotta deal with the modly fruit in my fridge.

If you do any baking, you can peel and cut up the apples and freeze them for use later on.

Wrap lettuce in paper towels, then put it back in the plastic bag.  It'll last twice as long.

Here are threads I tagged a long time ago.  I knew it would come in handy some day!

Keeping Veggies Fresh

Tips for Storing Fresh Produce

Trouble is that often what's on sale is the stuff that's already ripe and going to go bad soon. This is particularly true of apples sold in bags. They figure you're not going to go through the bag (or can't, if it's plastic not paper) and check each apple individually.

So first rule of thumb is to buy your produce separately. Be choosy and pick carefully. Skip anything that is bruised or has a mushy spot. There's way too much on this topic, because it varies by fruit/veggie, but some searching on the web and you should find a good guide.

As a general rule of thumb, always give it the sniff test. Oranges and apples should smell like oranges and apples. This also applies to melons and tomatoes and... most stuff. If there is no smell, it may have been pumped through with gas to make it look ripe, but it's not. And may never be. Some produce needs to ripen on the vine only.

Pears are a bit different. It's okay to buy pears that don't smell like pears yet, and aren't ripe at all. Take them home and leave them on the counter to ripen. Check each day by softly depressing near the stem. If it is soft and not hard, and it smells like a pear, it's perfect. If you aren't ready to eat it, pop it into the fridge and it should last at least a week.

Bananas that are ripe should go immediately in the fridge to keep. even if they turn yucky brown, they'll be okay inside. Eventually they do go bad though... and won't keep forever.

I always buy only what I know we will eat in a week. I buy items that are ripe to eat right away, and some things that will take a bit longer, for later in the week. I also buy frozen for those days when I haven't gotten to the grocery store and have nothing fresh.

ALSO - if things are going bad in your fridge - TEST the temperature!! I once rented an apt that had a fridge with a bad seal. I couldn't figure out why my produce would go rotten so quickly, until I tested the temp and discovered it was too warm.

I keep most fruit on the counter, until ripe, then it goes into the fridge immediately. The exception is grapes, berries, and citrus.

Next time you can't resist the bags of apples that are on sale, do what I do: eat what you can first, then if they are starting to go, peel them, take off all the bad parts, cut them up, and make a big batch of apple crisp. The cooked apple crisp will feed you for a few days - makes good dessert or a breakfast. I make my apple crisp with just a tiny bit of butter, and lots of packets of unsweetened oatmeal and a little bit of sugar. Add lots of cinnamon and nutmeg. Sometimes I'll throw in wheat germ or raisins or dried cranberries or nuts too. Get creative.

I don't really like celery either but I enjoy it with a bit of peanut butter and raisins! :)

To keep celery fresh: take a cup, fill it with some water, and park the celery in it, like flowers in a vase. Then keep that in the fridge. (Or just wash it, cut it up into sticks, and then store in a tupperware with water in the fridge).

This  - the vase idea - is also a good way to store fresh basil and parsley, but also put a plastic bag over the top of it all.

Eat all the apples you can fresh, and make the rest into applesauce when you can't stand them any longer.  I'm still working on some I froze last year, mixing it with unsweetened yogurt, walnuts and dried apricots for breakfast. 

I buy frozen fruit a lot. Frozen peaches, and berries are good but mangos are so so.

cellophane_star, I recently learned raisins are yucky. =(

Thanks everyone!  Now I just have to get home to tend to the produce.

i love frozen berries!

and i don't know if they'll have it where you are, but at my local grocery store they have slices apples in packages. that may sound a tad weird, but they keep fresh forEVER and taste great, but why wouldn't they, they're just sealed cut-up apples.

I get a lot of frozen vegetables- especially corn because I found myself buying ears of corn and letting it get gross in the fridge! My apples usually keep for a while but I don't buy the pre-packaged bags just because they are rarely the kind I like! I always keep them in the fridge (prefer them cold) and pears do stay awhile as well. Strawberries rarely last that long (I have tried EVERYTHING) so I just eat them quickly!

It's too bad that they go bad a bit quickly but it's kind of a good incentive to eat all your fruits and veggies as much as possible! 

If you wrap your celery in foil it will last a ridiculously long time in the vegetable crisper.  Strange, but true.