Tag: <span>Freezing food</span>

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Arowana Food: Crickets

There are many types of food you can feed your Arowana. From insects to amphibians, from worms to different sea creatures, and even artificial feeds, there’s a whole lot of food available for this type of fish. In this article, however, you will find everything you need to know about one type of bug that Arowanas like to eat. In this article, crickets as Arowana food will be the main topic of discussion.

A spectrum of nutrients is provided to an Arowana when a cricket is fed to it. Illnesses and disorders are also rare occurrences when feeding an Arowana this type of food. However, one must remember to take off the tough shell protecting the cricket when feeding it to an Arowana when it is still in its infantile stage so that stomach problems may be circumvented. Making sure that the cricket is farm bred is also important due to the fact that a wild cricket may have been already sprayed with insecticide, thus making it quite dangerous for the health of your Arowana. The measure of the cricket should also be suitable to the size of the Arowana it will be fed to. As Arowana food, freezing a cricket may also be done to promote an untroubled meal.

Additionally, making a cricket consume vegetables with vitamin A, such as carrots and squash, could also be done before the bug is given to the Arowana so that there could be a transmission of sustenance. Arowanas benefit from vitamin A in such a way that its color receives a boost, especially in cases of red Arowanas.

In conclusion, there are many benefits to using a cricket as Arowana food. However, one must always keep in mind that in feeding an Arowana, variety is always needed so that alimentary deficit may be prevented.

Arowana Food: Cockroaches

Another Arowana food that could be easily found everywhere is cockroaches. This insect has the same value as crickets when it comes to feeding your pet Arowana. However, one should always keep in mind the dangers of letting an Arowana eat a dead cockroach. A reason behind this is the fact that it is unsanitary. Also, it may have died due to pesticide, thus making it unhealthy for your pet to eat. Therefore, always choose farm bred cockroaches if you’re going to feed them to your Arowana.

As previously stated, cockroaches are just like crickets when it comes to feeding your pet Arowana. This type of Arowana food has the same nutritional value as crickets do and just like the latter, cockroaches could also be given nutritional supplements containing vitamin A so that when it is their turn to be eaten by the Arowana, the sustenance is passed on. It is good to feed the cockroaches with squash, carrots and other vegetables containing vitamin A before they are fed to the Arowana because the said vitamin causes an Arowana’s color to improve. On another note, just like crickets, the size of the cockroaches you feed your Arowana should also be proportional to the length of your Arowana. Lastly, because they are just the same as crickets, you could also freeze them before letting your Arowana eat them, and it is also advisable to quarantine them for a couple of days before feeding them to your Arowana to ensure that they are free of any ailments.

So if you plan on using cockroaches as your Arowana food of choice, keep in mind the information found on this article and you’ll surely be trouble free in the health department of your pet Arowana. However, you should also always remember that diversity should always be present in your Arowana’s diet to keep it healthy at all times. Hang on to these reminders and your Arowana will surely live a long life.

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Source by Robert Khaw

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Have you tried storing basil for the winter in a milk carton? This is just one of three good methods to store basil that are revealed below.

With the threat of frost, all garden basil must be harvested and then hopefully stored to be enjoyed during the cold months to come. Since basil has a high water content is cannot be dried like many other herbs as it will turn black and lose flavor. It will also turn black if chopped or bruised and exposed to air. Fortunately freezing basil works great.

Before describing the freezing methods, let’s digress briefly. If you are growing basil yourself, then hopefully you have been harvesting and pruning all season. Pruning makes the plants fuller and keeps them from going to seed which diminishes the leaf flavors. You can store basil keeping it fresh for up to two weeks by placing the branches in a vase and keeping them on the counter out of the sun.

So let’s get back to how to freeze basil. The first step for all three methods is to clean & dry the basil. First remove all leaves from the stems. If you are going to try out the second freezing method, then you will probably want to leave some of the buds intact. The stems should be discarded. Rinse the leaves thoroughly taking care not to bruise them. Finally you want to remove excess water from the leaves by using a salad spinner or laying them out on towels to dry.

The first and most common way to freeze basil is basically the start of a pesto sauce. You chop or puree the basil leaves with olive oil and a bit of salt in a food processor. Coating the basil pieces with oil protects them from air so they can maintain their color & flavor. Pour the puree into small air tight containers and add some extra olive oil on top. After defrosting the puree, re-process adding your favorite pesto ingredients.

The second method takes a little more time, but is still an easy way to freeze basil. This method keeps whole individual leaves or plant buds intact to use as garnish. Put prepared leaves & buds on trays in the freezer for about one to two hours. Once they are frozen, put them into air tight containers. Do not over crowd them; otherwise they will lose their shape. After defrosting for use, you can julienne the leaves or use them whole as garnish on pasta dishes or soups.

Now how about that milk carton? This third method is the easiest. Simply pack the leaves into a cleaned out milk carton with the top cut down. Seal the top closed. Use quart sized cartons & then put the sealed carton inside a Ziploc baggy to make it air tight. When you want to use the basil for cooking, cut off a slice of the carton & re-store the remainder as it was. The frozen leaves are great to use in sauces.

Hopefully you will try one (or all) of these easy ways to freeze basil. By taking time to store basil in the fall, you can enjoy the fresh basil flavors throughout the year. Happy cooking!

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Source by Alex Newmon

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Did you know that your child can get food poisoning from food that has come in contact with the interior of her lunch box?

To avoid food borne odors and possible food poisoning it’s important that lunch bags or boxes are routinely cleaned.

Ideally a kid lunch box should be wiped with a damp cloth which a little antibacterial soap has been added. The kid lunch box should be then rinsed and dried thoroughly. If your child’s lunch box can withstand regular washing and rinsing it should be done daily and left to drip dry. Never zip up or replace the lid on a kid lunch box that is not thoroughly dry.

Counter surfaces where prep work is done should be cleaned prior to bringing out any of your ingredients or wrap/container supplies. Likewise, your hands and any utensils should be thoroughly washed.

To protect your child from the threat of food poisoning consider freezing sandwiches ahead of time or packing a frozen/partially frozen drink or ice pack in your kid lunch box. Most school lunches are left to sit at room temperature for about four hours. Frozen sandwiches even in insulated bags will thaw during this time giving your child a fresh sandwich by lunch.

Sandwich freshness is maintained when you use fresh ingredients and you prepare and freeze quantities for no more than two weeks.

It’s important however that sandwich fillings are carefully selected as not all ingredients can be safely frozen. Good fillings include deli meats, cooked poultry and roast beef, low fat cheese, peanut butter (and jam) etc. Do not freeze eggs or sandwiches such as tuna or salmon with mayonnaise.

Sandwiches should be wrapped securely in plastic or sealed in plastic bags without excess air. To be sure that your sandwiches are used within the freshest time frame place all similar sandwiches back into the original bread bag and label with a best before date.

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Source by Sherrie Le Masurier

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Of all the pieces of technology in your kitchen, none has more utility than the trusted fridge. It not only stores all of your foods, beverages, and produce, but it keeps them safe to eat and lengthens their time before spoilage. Not only that, but if you decide to store foods for a substantial period of time, the freezer can store food for years. With all this utility it is easy to see why having any failures in this useful appliance can be seen as a massive inconvenience. One that can cost in time, money wasted, and repair costs. Fortunately, there are some maintenance tips you can use to make sure your fridge stays in top working order. Here are 5 maintenance tricks that can help you avoid a costly refrigerator repair.

1. Use it!

This may seem like a no-brainer, but fridges work best when they have food mass inside to keep cool. Once food is brought up to its proper temperature for storage it acts like a cooling element itself, creating synergy and helping the unit to continue functioning and cooling other items inside the fridge. Units that a sparsely stocked will work harder maintaining proper temps.

2. Set the thermostat

A fridge should be set somewhere around 37 degrees and 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The goal is to have food chilled just enough so that bacteria cannot grow, yet warm enough so foods do not freeze unnecessarily. Sometimes a thermostat will be set above freezing however certain areas will still freeze soft foods with high water content. Be careful to adjust the temps so food does not get damaged.

3. Inspect the door seals

All the cool air that the unit works so hard to create needs to stay inside the unit! Make sure you check the door seals for breaks and leaks. Also, any damage to seals may make it harder for the door to shut causing cool air to spill out throughout the day or night. This could lead to food spoilage or sickness if you consume food unknowingly.

4. Clean condenser coils

A fridge has coils? Most do. In the back. If you haven’t inspected your unit in awhile, it may be useful to pull it away from the wall and inspect the back. You want to clean off any dust or debris from the unit and make sure all venting is clear of dust as well.

5. Keep the door shut

This also seems like a no brainer. However, sometimes people hold the door open and begin and end a conversation without realizing they are letting out all the cold air. Also, if the power goes out, make sure to quickly retrieve items in the unit and shut the door as quickly as possible.

Use these tips to keep your unit working at its best!

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Source by Christopher Rivera

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Food processing is a way or technique implemented to convert raw food stuff into well-cooked and well preserved eatables for both the humans and the animals. All these methods are used by food processing industry to give out processed or preserved foods for our daily consumption. Best quality harvested, slaughtered and butchered and clean constituents are used by food processing industry to manufacture very nutritious and easy to cook food products. Following are some techniques and methods used to convert food into processed or preserved food.

Preservation process: this includes heating or boiling to destroy micro-organisms, oxidation, toxic inhibition, dehydration or drying, osmotic inhibition, freezing, a sort of cold pasteurization which destroys pathogens and various combinations of all these methods.

Drying: this is probably the most ancient method used by humans to preserve or process their food. Drying reduces the water content in the product and lack of water delays the bacterial growth very much. Drying is the most common technique to preserve or process cereal grains like wheat, maize, oats, rice, barley, grams and rye etc.

Smoking: many foods such as meat, fish and others are processed, preserved and flavored by the use of smoke mostly in big smoke houses. This process is very simple as the combination of smoke to preserved food without actually cooking it and the aroma of hydro-carbons generated from the smoke processes the food and makes it even tastier to eat.

Freezing: probably, it is the most common technique used in modern world to preserve or process the food both on commercial and domestic basis. This freezing is conducted in big cold storages which can stockpile huge amount of food stuffs which can be further used in some natural emergencies. A very big range of products can be frozen to preserve and process which includes some which do not need freezing when are in their natural condition. For example potato chips and potato wafers requires freezing whereas a potato does not.

Vacuum packs: in this method, food is packed in airtight bags and bottles in a vacuum area. This method is used in processing the food as the air-tight environment doesn’t provide oxygen needed by germs especially bacteria to survive. This then, prevents food from getting rotted. This method is very commonly used for preserving processed nuts.

Salting: the method of salting is used in food processing as it sucks out the moisture from the food. This is done through the process of osmosis. Meat is the best example of the food processed by salting as nitrates are used very frequently to treat meat.

Sugaring: the method of using sugar to preserve or process food is very frequent where it comes to preserve fruits. In this method fruits such as apples, peaches and plums are cooked with sugar until they are crystallized and then it is stored dry. Now days, sugar is also used in combination of alcohol to make some branded alcohol and spirits.

Pickling: in this method of preserving or processing food, food is cooked in chemicals and materials which destroy micro-organisms. This is very strictly kept in mind that these chemicals or materials are fit to eat for humans. Normally, these include brine, vinegar, ethanol, vegetable oil and many other types of oils. Pickling is very commonly seen in vegetables such as cabbage and peppers. Corned beef and eggs are the non vegetarian eatables that are pickled.

These are some very common methods of preserving or processing food. These all will work only when processing and preserving is done under very strict rules and regulation set by the governments.

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Source by Dagur Jonsson

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Freeze drying is also popularly known as lyophilization. In freeze drying food items are frozen at first and then places into a vacuum chamber to get rid of all the moisture. Once all the moisture is removed from the food items they are then vacuum packed into airtight containers. This process requires complex modern equipments and so cannot be done at home by individuals.

There are numerous advantages of using freeze drying. Let us explore them one by one. Freeze drying preserves all the flavor and necessary vitamins in the food item as there is no heat damage to final product. Yeast and bacteria cannot survive on freeze dried food and so it is perfectly safe to consume it. It is very light in weight and easy to carry and therefore is very famous among astronauts, hikers or campers. It does not cause shrinkage or toughening of the dried food. The food product’s taste and smell remains unchanged. Also it has a long shelf life so can be easily stored for long period of time. It is very easy to rehydrate the food items; you just need to add water to it and they regain their normal texture. On the downside, the equipments needed in this process are expensive and so the freeze dried food items are in-turn expensive. More space is needed to store the food item since it remains full size.

As you can see, the advantages of freeze dried food far outweigh the negatives. Since the taste and smell of the food is maintained in this process it is the best method to store food products over a period of time.

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Source by Mike Finn

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I want to cook soups and freeze them in canning jars and have ordered a product online that will vacuum seal these jars for me. I have never canned but I found online that there are canning jars that I can freeze in. I know that I must leave space in the jar for expansion. Do I wait until the soup is cooled off before putting it into the jars? Must I purchase these jars online only? Would the canning jars that they sell at Ace, etc. not be advisable for freezing?

All standard canning jars (Ball and Kerr) can safely be placed in the freezer. Jars take up a lot of freezer space and are somewhat dangerous because they can and do break easily. Cleaning glass out of a freezer would be about the last thing on my list of things to do.

A better method for freezing soup (and many other foods) is to quick-freeze it in user-friendly amounts first. I use 1-cup plastic containers for soup so that I can use 1 for one serving (nice for lunch for one), or I can pull out more if I need more servings. After they are frozen I pop them out of the plastic containers and stack them and seal them with my FoodSaver in a bag. They fit better in the freezer. You can do the same thing in inexpensive 1-quart plastic freezer containers if you need larger amounts than 1-serving sizes.

You should probably check the manufacturers instructions about vacuum-sealing soup before it’s frozen, or after; and whether that can/should be done in a jar. Call the toll-free number for more information. I always use regular canning jars to put my freezer jam in. Into the freezer,and I have never had one break on me.

The package says not to reuse the seals. Do you reuse them or throw them out after each use? You shouldn’t reuse the lids when they are used for home canning. They can be used over and over for vacuum sealing. I’ve kept my dry-goods like beans, seeds, grains, pasta, etc. in wide-mouthed canning jars of all sizes and have used the lids over and over. Eventually the sealing compound can get old and brittle and not hold a seal, in which case it gets tossed and replaced. I also soften the sealing compound on the lids in warm water before using them the first time on a vacuum-sealed jar.

Have you ever used the plastic lids? Do you know if they can be vacuum sealed as well as reused as needed? I only wish the plastic lids could be vacuum sealed – that would indeed be wonderful!!! I use those plastic lids all the time, but just for non-vacuum sealed items.

I freeze all extra homemade soup in regular canning jars, but I make sure to only fill them 2/3 full so the contents don’t expand and break the glass. If you’re careful, you shouldn’t have a problem. Make sure that if you’re placing hot food into the jars, to submerge the jars in hot water first so that they won’t break while filling. I allow my soups to cool or refrigerate over night before putting in the freezer.

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Source by Victor Epand

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If your fridge keeps freezing over no matter what setting that you have it on, you’ll need to figure out what the problem is before you can fix it. Fortunately, there are just a couple of things that can cause this problem with fridge freezers, so it shouldn’t take long too narrow down what needs replacement. This is the case no matter what brand you have, whether it is a Whirpool fridge freezer or a Smeg fridge freezer.

The first thing you need to check is your refrigerator’s thermometer. If this is not functioning correctly, it can cause foods to freeze at the lowest setting. You’ll need to take out the thermometer in order to test it. It can be located in different parts of your refrigerator depending on the brand and the model, so check your manual if you still have it. One of the most common spots for it to be found is under the floor at the bottom, but it may also be in the freezer section at the back. Shelves or the floor panel may need to be taken out in order to reach the thermometer. If you find that this is the problem, it should be easy to find a replacement.

If your thermometer is in working order, you may have a faulty door damper that is causing the fridge to freeze over. This isn’t in all models of fridge freezers and is more common in side by side brands. The door damper is a sliding or swinging door that opens and shuts when the temperature settings are adjusted or the door is opened. This door damper problem can be caused by a motor or a broken thermostat.

Finally, your food freezing issues might be caused by a failed cold control. It is simple to check if this is the problem. You’ll need to first put your temperature settings to the middle. If you have two different control switches, they should both be set this way. Then fill three plastic cups with water. Set one on the top shelf, one on the middle, and one on the bottom. Leave them undisturbed for a day. When you check on them twenty-four hours later, they should still have water in them. If they have frozen, the refrigerator problem may be a broken cold control.

After you have determined what is causing your fridge to freeze even at the lowest setting, you can then decide how to repair it. If it is a thermometer problem you may want to replace it on your own. For the more difficult problems you may need to use a professional repair person unless you have experience with home repairs.

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Source by Charlie C Dean