The Chef Within

The other day I noticed that I had two containers in the fridge with very little food in them.  One was a container with a homemade blueberry ketchup and the other was a bowl with a few roasted peppers that I had been using up for several days, but still not through. 

It occurred to me that I should transfer the items to smaller containers for two reasons: 

The inside of the containers were looking a little shabby and I knew that if I put the contents in smaller containers I would extend their shelf life by cutting down on the amount of oxygen present under the lid.  It is the presence of oxygen that leads to spoilage.

So I did just that.

And even went a  step further with the blueberry ketchup by placing a piece of plastic wrap over the top to drastically reduce the presence of oxygen.  Both containers were closed with their lids.  With that change I felt confident that I would find the opportunity to use up both items before they might go bad.

This is a great principle to remember when storing any food.  Try to wrap things as airtight as possible to maximize shelf life.  Dairy especially will benefit from this practice as shown in this earlier post.