08/28/2012
Photo by Todd Coleman
Busy moms, help is here! From now through September, Mom 100 cookbook author Katie Workman will share her tips and recipes in a weekly guest blog post that will help you put dinner on the table with minimal effort. Plus, we're offering the chance to win free groceries and a private cooking class for you and four friends with Katie herself. Click here to enter, and check back every week to read more from Katie.
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Throwing away food makes me nuts. I hate when I forget about that wrapped up piece of chicken in the back of the fridge, when I fail to use up the cream before it turns, when the bell pepper turns soft. I feel like I have brought dishonor upon my kitchen ecosystem.
And so I work to make sure this happens as infrequently as possible, and find the challenge of it is mostly therapeutic. You might find me making banana bread at midnight, to make sure those brown bananas fulfill their purpose, or creating an entire stir-fry to use up three cups of leftover cold rice. It’s a happy mission, if a slightly OCD one.
Something I often found myself struggling to use up in time were opened cans of tomato paste. A recipe calls for 2 tablespoons, you open up a can, take out the amount called for, cover the remaining tomato paste in the can with plastic wrap and put it into the fridge. Inevitably you come across that opened can a few weeks later, the top of the contents covered with a fuzzy whitish mold, and throw it away, muttering to yourself and feeling guilty.
Katie Workman is the Founding Editor in Chief of Cookstr.com, and author of the brand new Mom 100 cookbook. Visit themom100.com for tips and recipes from Katie. Also find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter @katieworkman100.
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And so I work to make sure this happens as infrequently as possible, and find the challenge of it is mostly therapeutic. You might find me making banana bread at midnight, to make sure those brown bananas fulfill their purpose, or creating an entire stir-fry to use up three cups of leftover cold rice. It’s a happy mission, if a slightly OCD one.
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Here’s the way to avoid that scenario. Take whatever is left of the tomato paste and put in a freezer safe zipper top baggie. Flatten out the tomato paste inside the bag, seal it up (making sure to press out any air), label it, and put it in the freezer; check out the video for the how-to action on this. When you need tomato paste for your next recipe, take it out, break off a piece that equals the amount you need, and add it to whatever you are making. Keep the tomato paste in the freezer for months, breaking off what you need, when you need it.
And if you’re looking for a recipe to use up some of that tomato paste, try a super simple recipe for homemade Barbecue Sauce (here featured in a recipe for Pulled Pork).
Katie Workman is the Founding Editor in Chief of Cookstr.com, and author of the brand new Mom 100 cookbook. Visit themom100.com for tips and recipes from Katie. Also find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter @katieworkman100.
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