Topic: Sell by dates and Leeks

[DolphinGarden]

Hi all,
hope you can help me, all you veggie growers an' all.

How far up a leek is it okay to eat. How much into the green bit is it good to go?

And sell by dates of tesco oranges and onions?  The waste bag was unusually heavy during the week, and puzzled me, aswell as the disappearing garlic and onions when I went to prepare dinner.  So the next day I checked the rubbish, yeah I know I know I have too much time on my hands...and there were several oranges in the net, plus a couple of onions that I rescued, half on one I ate tonight.  Haven't died yet.
But the oranges, surely they've come all the way from Valencia via a big port like Rotterdam to Dublin.

And another thing, bell peppers that come from Holland and on sale here in tesco for 1euro each, 1.08 for a yellow one, is PURE rip off.

don't forget about the leeks.
ta much

Ciaran

ps I'm usually very nice, instead of checking the rubbish the OH threw out, honest......

[tim]

Most writers say use only the white bit. They are obviously leek growers who want to make their fortune. Absolute 'cod'!!

If you buy untrimmed leeks, they are very expensive because of the weight of the green stuff. But bought or grown, use all you can - unless you are that fussy about the colour scheme!

What I do is trim off the really spreading leaves, then ring cut two or three times to take off the really dark (& probably rather tough & bitter) leaves. To clean soil out, just make a small cut from tip toward the heart & fan the leaves out a bit under the tap. This one didn't even need that. = Tim

[Lady Cosmos]

Last week I was in UK, north Devon and I saw  in a small veg shop leek for sale Eng p 1.79 >:( >:(.  At home it is eurocent 0,29 ???
May be it has something to do that people in the Netherlands eat lots and lots of fruit and vegs??? People eat lots of leek.
I was very grateful that I can eat so many vegs from my garden.

Preparing leeks I take off the thin outside leaves and cut and wash till the hard dark green leaves.
But those dark green leaves of leek are excelent as a base of flavoured veg stock. :P :P. I hardly throw anything away of a leek.

[Wicker]

Never understood why leeks are so overpriced as they are easy to grow and have a very long season and chopped they freeze well. Also never understood why so many people seem to use them simply in soups when really they can be added to almost any casserole/quiche/au gratin and the green especially is excellent in a stir fry...

[philcooper]

Ciaran,

First congratulations to Tim on his excellent use of graphics (a picture painting a thousand words (but using slightly more bytes  ;D)

There was an interesting item on the BBC2 food programme earlier this week about how far food travels to get to the supermarket shelf. Even the "locally produced" Tesco items will have been to the distribution centre possibly tens of mils away and back again to get on the shelves.

On sell by dates - oranges are picked under ripe to allow for the long journey - if they look ok and a sample taste ok then you should be ok.

Onions do not last long in warm supermarkets so the sell by date isn't too long after they are displayed (even though if keep in a cool dark place they could keep for months) again if they are firm without obvious signs of damage they should be ok

Phil

[Mrs Ava]

I use the whole leek, the same as I use a whole spring onion.  If you do want more white, earth them up.  I like the green of a leek fried in plenty of butter and plonked on some hot 'proper' well buttered toast!  I even used some of the leaves from my regular onions on the plot when I wanted to make up some veggie stock.  Waste not want not country lass at heart see...or is it just tight as a whatsits doodar?!?

And if the veggie is looking a touch limp and not as fresh as I might like to eat, then again, make up a batch of stock to bung in the freezer.  I put it in a large tuperware liquid container thingy and just keep adding to it, altho the way we get through veg it doeesn't happen often.

[cleo]

Leeks are like pigs-the only part one cannot eat is the squeak.  As to peppers-umm-single ones are a total rip off in supermarkets but mixed bags of ones that do not conform to the `correct` size are not bad

Stephan

[Muddy_Boots]

Hi Dolphin,

Like Emma,

Tops are good for stock but also yummy for soups as well.  I can't remember discarding any part of a leek, except through being too lazy to make soup or stock at the time!

Like most veggies, all parts are good for something.  Beetroot leaves are good for salad if you like a little bitterness mixed in with the sweet!

Have fun! :)

[DolphinGarden]

Ahhh,

thank you all for that. I've been throwing a lot of green leek away. I only started eating them in recent years...HATED, absolutely hated onions when I was young. Love them now and garlic which I started to eat in 1994 or so, scallions/spring onions, leeks etc etc. Lived in America for a few years and came home with different taste buds. My sister still thinks I don't like onions!!!

My onions here are stored in cool dark place, firm.
Mrs. is from Japan and if I've said once I've said a thousand times, don't store fruit and veggies in plastic bags. In one ear and out the other. The amount of food I've thrown out/composted is unbelieveable.


Lidl and Aldi have been in Ireland a couple of years, opening new shops all the time.  OH have until today, referred to them as "that cheap place you go". A Japanese work colleague shops there so I think OH is starting to see the light.

Was in Catalonia two years ago last month and the peppers were nearly a foot long. Spanish friend's father is a farmer, and saw her mother bring a bucket of peppers in from the village veg plot. 1 euro, I think she said for the bucket!!!Mad.  They were huge.
Peppers in Lidl today were about E3.69kg, packet of three.

On a tangent, an Irish food chain here provides a junior hacksaw and allows you to cut the stems off broccolli, to save weight. I have on occasion, stolen a bag of stalks to compost!Presumably they could be boiled and blended down for soups...

usually use leeks in stir fries, if I remembered I'd use'em in quiches too...

Will look at next week's tv guide to see if that food prog is repeated with signing 2am to 6am some night...

News also here that Ikea want to open a store in the island of Ireland. Politicos here crying, we need the jobs, bring it to Dublin, even though it's 8-10 times the max size planners allow for retail outlets.  Afraid to lose it to Belfast.  But I think the long term cost could be much worse in allowing them in.  Was it on bbc's Watchdog prog last week that Tesco finally moved into a small coastal village after 10yrs of trying and within a couple of months two butchers and a fruit and veg shop went belly up!  Woe the corner shops!

Thank you all again
Ciaran  will try green bits in soups....

[Derekthefox]

grrr, did this posting earlier and crashed the whole site!

just adding my tuppence worth - all of the leeks are edible, but I cut off the raggy edges, leaving about 3 inches of green leaf.

On the peppers, I try and buy the 'manky' ones in the market, might be bruised or split, but they are so cheap . . .

I always ignore sell buy dates, having grown up with green spots on the bread and cheese with a blue skin. There are always several good days left after the sell buy date has expired, unless they are strawberries, which always seem to be mouldy before I get them home . . .

[tim]

Leeks - I do so agree with the several cries of 'eat it all'. I should, of course, have said that our very green, loose bits do go into stock or soup. But elsewhere they make timing morer difficult.

Another use for the rest is Cauliflower & Leek cheese. = Tim

Picking up Lady C's note below - don't forget to mix wholemeal breadcrumbs with the grated cheese topping!

[Lady Cosmos]

Yes, with grated Gruyere cheese and a lot of garlic ;D ;D ;D

[budgiebreeder]

I cook my leeks for a few minutes whole in the microwave and then wrap them in ham.Pour over white sauce and place inthe oven until tender.Feel guilty now these should be going in R4all.

[windygale]

Hi Everybody, One of the reasons for the E.H.O putting Sell Buy Dates on foods are to stop Farmers, Retail stores sell very OLD product as NEW, we as the public want Young - Good tasting & Good looking foods, and by having the date system this help keep a good balance, because our climate dose not allow us to grow all our food all year around we buy in foods from other places over the world, a lot of foods are placed in chillers for transit and some times stored for very long times at warehouses before being sent to the shops, depending on the product, Fresh or Tined the Sell buy dates differs,hope this helps
windy

[Mrs Ava]

Wandering away from leeks but up to the mention of brocolli stems, I adore broc stems almost more than the head of the broc!  Steamed until tender, to me it is sweet and flavoursome, dare I say as yummy as asparagus....in it's own way.  But then I LURVE all parts of nearly all veggies...just can't seem to get to grips with jeruslalem 'chokes....

[tim]

You dare, indeed! = Tim

[Sarah-b]

Hi DG – yes: eat all of your leeks and ignore sell-by-dates. I like all the little tit-bits of info you pass on about what goes on in Ireland – it really is very interesting to hear about what goes on over there. So near, but yet so far…
And Emma  - think I may have mentioned this somewhere before, but have you tried cooking the J-chokes and making a puree and adding this to a soufle? Very palatable!

SB

[aquilegia]

I've stopped buying veggies from the supermarket. There's a farm shop near me where veggies are about half the price they are in sainsburys. Peppers in sainburys now cost 79p each. In the farm shop I usually get four or five for that price! I can fill my rack sack with veg for about £5-£6 (depending on what I get) but in sainsburys that would cost £10-£15.

I ignore sell by dates usually (apart from on milk) and just use my nose.

And I use as much of the leek as possible - although have to carefully wash the green bit to wash the soil out.