Adventures in Veggie Land

Last week, I decided to switch it up a bit and head down to Harris Teeter for my produce. I usually only shop at HT during super double/triple coupon weeks, and never for produce. I felt like I was walking into a new world...Goodbye, wilted greens and hello fresh local produce and giant organic selection!! They even have a "reduced for quick sale" section where I found some GREAT deals on apples and oranges, and there were a few big bags of limes for a dollar! It's a little out my way to shop there every week, but after that trip I'm going to have a hard time going back to Safeway.

When I got home, I took Sunny Anderson's advice to heart and decided to prep all my produce as soon as I got in the door. I got a lot of stuff...and it was a lot of work. But wow, was it worth it! When my blood sugar is low and I head to the kitchen, apparently it's too much work for me to wash and cut an apple or green pepper or carrot or whatever. I realize how pathetic that sounds, but it's true. When I open the refrigerator now and see a bag of veggies all cut and ready to snack on, I take them out and eat them, often passing up the cookies on the counter or tortilla chips in the cupboard. (Ok, ok, sometimes I eat them AFTER the veggies. The point is I'm eating the veggies!!) It has most definitely saved me a ton of time to get all my cleaning and chopping done at once, and I love that I'm not pulling out my cutting board every single day! That gets SO old.

While I'm on the subject of cleaning and prepping veggies, I've been doing a little research on the best way to be doing the cleaning. My mom has been telling me to fill a big bowl with water and vinegar and let them soak, and then to rinse them off with water. I know you should ALWAYS listen to your mom, but even she tells me I should use Google before calling her :) I found an article on the NPR web site detailing some research on the best way to clean your produce, and sure enough, vinegar is the winner! Mom, you've been doing it exactly right. Imagine that...

I leave you with a shot of a few of my beautiful veggies in their vinegar bath.



I'm curious, how do you all clean your veggies? Any other methods out there I don't know about? I recently watched an episode of Taboo where some freegans washed their produce in a bleach solution, but I personally can't see myself feeding Ava food with possible chemical residue...