APPLES
For freshness and quality store your apples in the fridge. Keeping them in the fridge in a loosely tied plastic bag will help stop them shrivelling up. Add to the fruit bowl to bring to room temperature before eating.
There's always one bad apple that spoils the barrel, so keep an eye on your fruit. Separate out fruit which is ripening more quickly than the others.If apples have bruised areas, simply cut off, and grate the remaining apple into salads or cut into wedges and give to children as a snack.
If you've got a glut of cooking apples, cut them into quarters, core and peel them. To prevent apples turning brown while you're peeling them, squeeze the juice of half a lemon into a bowl of water and drop the pieces of apple into it. Drain, quickly pack the apples in freezer bags or plastic containers and freeze them. To use, put the frozen fruit in a pan with some sugar, add a very small amount of water and cook as normal.
Peel and chop the apples, and place in a saucepan with a little water, lemon juice and castor sugar (maybe some cinnamon too). Cook gently for about 15 mins, stirring regularly. Then whisk or blend smooth. It's lovely with pork but can also be a dessert with cream (fool) or ice-cream.When making jam add one or two apples to the mixture, the pectin in apples helps the jam to set.
AVOCADO
If you buy avocados hard, ripen them on your kitchen windowsill. They're ready when they 'just give' as you squeeze them, their texture should feel like butter at room temperature. To speed up the ripening process you can put them into a paper bag (or dark drawer) with a banana.
Fruit, especially bananas, produce ethylene gas naturally as they ripen. Ethylene residues on the bananas will help the avocado or other fruit to ripen quickly.Blend over-ripe avocado flesh down with milk, yogurt and a touch of maple syrup or sugar for a lovely green, smooth- tasting smooothie.
Lemon juice helps to stop cut avocados turning brown. Also, if you pop the avocado stone into a bowl of guacamole or salsa, this will keep the dip fresh and green for at least 2 hours; remove stone before serving! Ripe avocado can be spread onto toast instead of butter!
Keep the half avocado with the stone still in place and put on a dish/plate in the fridge. You should be able to use the avocado the following day without it going off.
You can freeze Avocado here is how...
Wash the avocado, skin still on.
Cut the fruit in half, and peel.
If you are opting to keep them as halves, put them in a Ziploc bag and freeze.
If you're pureeing, either mash the avocados with a fork or in a food processor with a little bit of lime or lemon. Store in a resealable bag and freeze.
BACON
Separate a large pack of bacon into slices before freezing. Put them between a layer of grease proof paper if you want to keep them individual slices. Then, you can just defrost what you need at a later date.
Once a packet is opened, follow the on-pack instructions about how to store it and when to use it up by.
BANANAS
Bananas will go black in the fridge! So instead, just keep them somewhere nice and cool. Always keep bananas separate from other fruits unless you want the other fruit to ripen quickly.
Peel and freeze bananas to use later in smoothies, banana bread or cake or add to ice cream.
Use them in curry dishes or mashed up for a quick sandwich filling. Store away from other fruits. They make them over-ripen.
BEANSPROUTS
Keep submerged in water in a container and refrigerate. They keep for at least a week and don't go slimy. Change the water daily. Freeze them in an airtight container. Add to stir-fries or soups. This works perfectly.
BICARBONATE OF SODA
To keep the fridge smelling sweet, put half a tub of bi-carbonate of soda that's past its 'best before date in the fridge.
BISCUITS
Store biscuits in an airtight container. Most sweet biscuits can be frozen.
BREAD
Only store your bread and rolls in the fridge if the weather is really hot, but don't forget to bring them out of the fridge about an hour before you use them so they soften up again.
But best practice is not to store bread in the fridge. It will actually go stale quicker in there! Keep it in a bread bin or cupboard, in the original packaging.
Never eat bread once mould is present.
Freeze old bread for bread & butter pudding. Or freeze the bread crumbs for stuffing or to top a pasta bake or fish pie.
Freshen up stale bread by putting it in the microwave for 10 seconds.
Once a loaf is opened, fold the wrapper under the loaf or re-tie it with the 'best before' tag. For rolls use a food clip to reseal the pack.
Keep the end crust in place on top of the loaf slices to keep the next slice fresh.
To make it easier to separate bread slices after freezing, bang your fresh loaf on a work surface before you put it in the freezer.