Quick Tip - Chicken broth and stock

Grocery labels are often one part deceptive: the front part. Great example–yesterday at Meijer, I needed low-sodium chicken stock. I'm always looking for the best value for my family, and it looked like the Meijer 'blue can' reduced sodium broth would be the clear winner. The Meijer Naturals brand was a teeny bit cheaper, but I prefer a low-sodium product.

I decided to take a look at the nutrition panel. Unless I misread this, the reduced-sodium product contained 60 mg MORE sodium per serving. Glad I checked.

The Meijer Naturals brand also claims to be gluten-free. If that's one of your concerns, I contacted a friend who avoids gluten, whey (casein), MSG, and sweeteners. She recommends Kitchen Basics or Emeril's. 

Quick Tip - Celery

If you enjoy making soups, stews and other savory dishes, you probably see celery on your list of ingredients. Typically, you only need a stalk or two at the most. It's tempting to skip it, or try to substitute ground celery seed or freeze-dried stalks. I like those options, but sometimes I splurge and buy it fresh. What do you do with the rest?

What I used to do was first pretend like I was going to eat it raw, and then ignore it until it started to go limp and stink up the refrigerator. Now, I wash, chop, blanch (which means plunge into boiling water) for three minutes, dunk into an ice bath to stop the cooking process and freeze. It's quick (15-20 minutes of work, tops) and completely worth it. I've noted no flavor loss in my recipes, and while a lot of the extension services recommend freezing it in half-cup portions, I just spread the blanched pieces onto a wax-paper lined cookie sheet for 12-24 hours and put it them into a freezer bag the next day. It's easy to break off the amount I need, and saves time, money, and having to hold my breath as I clean the crisper drawer.