Today’s project is something I wanted to do in October. I didn’t, but I can’t remember why. It might have been because I forgot, or it might have been because this isn’t a project with show stopping results. When you are doing one project after another, a pretty “after” is a lot like a pat on the back. This project, organizing potatoes and onions, is a lot like your mother leaning over and picking the lint off your shoulder. Annoying, but helpful.
To the left of our sink is a lazy-Susan cabinet where we keep our casserole dishes and the potatoes and onions. Right now, the potatoes and onions sit in plastic mixing bowls (sometimes in their plastic store bags, sometimes not) and slowly rot from abandon. My mom has always stored these cellar vegetables in two separate baskets in her pantry and, to her credit, rarely has a problem with rot. Of course, potatoes and onions wouldn’t dare defy her will by getting soft or sprouting greens. And, if they did, heaven knows my immigrant mother wouldn’t let a little thing like decomposition stop her from making dinner. No food goes to waste. Ever. Slice off the mold! That sprout is good luck! Quit being a baby!
I don’t have the space to store my vegetables in a basket in the pantry, but I realized shortly after our kitchen remodel in 2007 that I could store them in small baskets in the lazy Susan cabinet. It’s 2012 now, so, you know. Tick-tock! (Hunger Games)
I pulled everything out and vacuumed out the cabinet. I didn’t put anything in the donate pile. I use everything here, perhaps infrequently. I’m not really a casserole person, yet I seem to have several. Honestly, the French white Corningware dishes were a wedding present for an acquaintance whose wedding we missed at the last minute. I tried for a while to meet up with her, but our schedules never connected and when we would bump into each other on the street, it’s not like I had the dishes in my purse. She later divorced. I use them now to store leftovers from dinner.
I dream of a plastic-free kitchen. In fact, I emptied out my tupperware drawer today intent on cleaning it out. I changed my mind at the last minute. I didn’t have everything I need to replace the plastic and I felt rushed, like I was doing the project for all the wrong reasons.
I’ve been housebound for a week now, and today was no different. Nicholas has the stomach flu and Mikey is recuperating from the flu I had last week. They’re doing fine, but I couldn’t leave the house for baskets. In the end, I think that was a good thing. I’ve put this project off for 5 years, and searching for the perfect basket sounds like something I would do to procrastinate. I found this old fashioned picnic-like basket in the garage and used it to toss in all my potatoes and onions.
I panicked a bit about mixing the potatoes and onions and even researched it on Google. The jury is still out on whether I did it for curiosity or to extend this project to six years instead of five. My gut says procrastinate, because in the 12 years I have mixed potatoes and onions like a pimp I never once pondered the ramifications of this crime against nature. In case you are curious, research says no, you should not store potatoes and onions together because the chemicals they release hasten hasten spoilage in the other. Research also says 99.9% of homeowners who don’t have underground cellars or large pantries store their potatoes and onions together because life is too short to worry about root vegetables.
All together now: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
In researching storing potatoes and onions, I did find these storage canisters, which are all the rage on sites like ChowHound, The Kitchn, and popular remodel websites. They’re cute, but large and expensive. I would consider buying them if I wasn’t so averse to items cluttering up my counter. I only have a few precious feet to work, and having large ceramic crocks (pretty though they may be) monopolize my work area would drive me batty.
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Drat. The link to the crockery only goes to an international shipping page for me, so I am left ondering hat on earth could be that fashionable to store potatoes and onions.
I keep mine separate. Onions in an open basket by the stove and the potatoes in a corner cupboard. We use about an onion a day, so it probably wouldn’t be a big deal to store them closer to one another. My mother would be the opposite of yours, however. I remember bags after bags of mush or great tentacled beasts being tossed during my childhood. I dearly hope everyone is well soon and that you can get out of the house.
Spring is officially here — so hopefully all the crud and germs around your house will find their way out very soon!
I store my taters and onions separately some of the time, but it’s a question of how many of them I have. I usually keep mine in the fridge, especially in the summer, because they sprout like crazy otherwise. But I have no qualms about eating a potato with legs or that is kinda crinkled. In mashed potatoes, you don’t notice the difference. Onions that have sprouted, well, there you really only want to eat the outer part, cause the sprout never is quite the same for cooking. Waste not, want not. ;)
Here is a link to the image. It’s like the second and third image, but instead of words they have line drawings of potatoes, onions, garlic. :)
https://www.google.com/search?q=chefs+catalog+potato+storage&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=gLU&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=WYBrT8WyOILZiAKXnfAl&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CF0Q_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=701
Believe it or not, I did not fall asleep during this post. I found it fascinating, and that is talent, my friend. Potatoes and onions are fascinating! Of course I have the same dilemma – no cellar for my root vegetables. But, because of our diet (onions don’t agree with our tummies so I use them infrequently) and where we live (the South – my husband grew up eating rice, not potatoes) I don’t buy either in bulk. However, I grew up in the Midwest, where potatoes were almost a daily fact of life. My mother kept ours in a basket on the floor of the pantry, which was under the stairs. Oh how I covet that amount of space now! My boys like potatoes, so even though they aren’t my husband’s fave, I’m sneaking them in more and more. I usually keep them in a basket on the counter, but like you – counter space is an issue. I’m inspired now to find a better solution so that when I buy potatoes they don’t go to waste. Thanks :)
That’s funny you say that about onions. Garlic do something similar to me. They make me burp/hiccough!
My potatoes always seem to sprout before I can get to them, but my mother (who grew up on a farm) would always just break or cut off the sprouts and use them anyway. When I read somewhere that Americans threw away up to 20% of the food they buy I resolved to do the same. I don’t think one can taste the difference between a brand new and old-age potato anyway!
The only reason I toss out food (and I do it regularly, sadly) is because I’m afraid of food poisoning!
“This project, organizing potatoes and onions, is a lot like your mother leaning over and picking the lint off your shoulder. Annoying, but helpful.” I LOVE this!!! As in truly laughing out loud. Genius writing! I have a friend who will pick the lint off my shoulder and then say “Now you’re perfect.” :) (She’s also the friend who is good enough to tell me I have spinach in my teeth.)
I too would like to get rid of all my plastic – except small ones that go in Rachel’s lunch. Glass would be too heavy but at least the (safe) plastic containers mean no disposable baggies. If you research that and come up with the perfect ones will you share so we can benefit from your work? I live in Florida so everything has to be super airtight or it gets stale from the humidity or buggy from, well, the bugs.
Oh – no blog so no pictures but I took 11 good-sized bags of “stuff” to the Hospice thrift shop this week and have another dozen bags of clothes to go to the high school’s “clothes closet” (a small storage facility) for families in need at the school. I feel so much better about getting clothes directly into the hands of families who need them.
I plan on having a garage sale after Easter…if I can hold out. The garage is such an abominable mess that I just want to pile everything into the car and head straight for Goodwill!
You crack me up. This may have not been an exciting project, but it had me rolling. I, too, had a lovely casserole set that I RECEIVED for my wedding but I just couldn’t see keeping it. So I returned it for thirty silver pieces.
I would have returned the casserole pieces, but I had that stupid set sitting on my washing machine in the laundry room for a year!
Has being quarantined in your house for over a week has brought out even more of the hilarious in you? That was a great post. Onions and potatoes, who’s of thunk? Mine are separate, but equal. Neither have a ‘forever’ spot in the kitchen, and are sometimes on the shelf under the island, sometimes in the cold storage room (when it isn’t full of unfinished projects), and sometimes on the shelf next to the sink…poor nomadic veggies. I always use them up. Cut the green off. Gouge out their eyes. When I was a kid, we’d just put them back into the ground if we weren’t going to use them, wish there was some ground outside my kitchen window to place these things – guess I could use the window box, pansies and potatoes…maybe it will be all the rage ;)
I forgot to mention in the post that I put the onions in a brown bag in the basket. I’m sure that does a gigantic NOTHING for the rotting situation, but it made me feel like I was doing something. ;)
I’m trying to remove all the plastic tupperware from our kitchen and getting glass containers to store things instead.
I didn’t know there was some rule against storing onions and potatoes together. Oops.
Also, I finished the books. Now I can get on with the rest of my life. ;)
I’m still thinking about those books! I need to call you so we can analyze and tear apart.
I have a very small pantry but I still separate my potatoes and onions. That reminds me, I need to clean out the pantry …
One day I am going to have to tear apart my pantry and cupboards and do some major reorganizing. That’s the only draw back to doing the project piecemeal…but at least at the end I will have a better idea of how much room I truly need.
#1 rule for preventing potatoes from getting moldy/rotten so quickly: get them out of that plastic bag and into a paper bag or box (or directly into that basket would work too). They need to be dry. Plastic holds in moisture, despite the misleading “air holes” the bag has.
Actually, #1 is not be lazy, which I can be. ;) I’m hoping now that I have the basket I won’t be so bothered to take them out of the bag!
I’m with @Carla. My pantry, though I’m very grateful to have it, is a terrible mess right now. I keep my onions and potatoes in separate baskets on the same shelf. Is that enough separation?
I also have a disdain for plastic. And that’s coming from an ex-Tupperware consultant! I saw a documentary on BPA’s and got rid of it all. I do keep the occasional cottage cheese and yogurt container, but if they accidentally end up getting washed in the dishwasher, I throw them out. I keep most of my leftovers in jars or those square glass refrigerator containers that were so popular in the 50’s.
I need to do a better job about keeping all the jelly jars. They’re small and perfect to hold little things, like nuts.
Very helpful post, actually! But reading all these comments, I’m feeling like a bad housewife, because I only rarely keep potatoes and onions on hand. We usually have a red onion floating around in the fridge, for salads. But now I’m getting a basket for my infrequent potato purchases…because we always leave them in the plastic bags, inside the pantry.
And I hope your family feels ALL better, and soon.
Don’t feel like a bad wife! We always seem to have potatoes, but I rarely cook them! They aren’t my favorite. Onions somehow always seem to make it into whatever I’m cooking. They’re Mikey’s favorite, if you can believe it!!
I love these posts, especially the concept of living in intentional home. Hope to play along soon! LOTS of ideas on my project list. :)
Thanks, Suzanne! Can’t wait to see what you’ve got cooking. :)
Slightly off topic, but I don’t keep potatoes in our house regularly. This feels a little like a crime against housekeeping. Growing up, you couldn’t necessarily count on a fully stocked fridge, but there were always, ALWAYS potatoes and onions. It was comforting, but somehow ours always seem to go soft and get tossed out.
I don’t think I’m in the minority when I say that I love your projects even when they don’t have a crazy after photo. I like seeing little corners.
We got mostly glass tupperware (they do have plastic snap on lids, so they aren’t plastic free) for our wedding and I can’t see how we lived with the plastic for so long. No leaking and the glass just gets so much cleaner than the plastic. Never going back.
Thanks, Rachel! :) We always had potatoes and onions growing up and, like I said, even they were soft we ate them. O_o
I know the tupperware you’re talking about, and I WANT it. Honestly, I toss out the plastic containers more often than not. I have kind of a thing about germs and food poisoning, and if I let something spoil in tupperware I am convinced the germs leach into the plastic and can’t get out. It makes no sense, and isn’t really possible if you’re cleaning the tupperware at high temperatures, but I can’t convince my mind otherwise.
I honestly wasn’t weird about it until I got the glass ones! Now our old plastic containers gross me out. I just hadn’t realized how sparkly clean the glass gets compared to plastic, which seems to absorb things. I’m okay with the plastic lids because the food doesn’t touch them most of the time anyways, and I don’t heat them in the microwave. I do appreciate that they snap on because I can toss my lunch in my bag without worrying about it.
Ours are the Martha Stewart ones from Macy’s. I’ll probably watch for a sale and get a few more in case they stop making them.
A plastic free kitchen….another dream we share! Hubby takes his lunch to work each day and insists on a sandwich in a plastic tub. But recently I inherited my m.i.l.’s Corningware and have been using it for leftovers. Not sure if he is noticing his plastic options diminishing!
My mom, to this day, doesn’t own tupperware. She has never used plastic in her kitchen. Or paper plates or plastic utensils! Only recently she started buying gladware stuff to put food in for us to take home when we visit. She doesn’t expect (or want) us to return it.
Hilarious Jules!
Can I foster a stereotype for moment? Being of Irish-American descent we go through no less than a couple hundred pounds of potatoes in the winter season alone. I hang my onions and put my potatoes in the cellar way-the cool, dark steps down to the basement. I may get some roots growing, but they never languish enough to get soft.
I remember my sisters lazy susan cabinet. When I was younger I spun it for all it’s worth just to spin things off : )
I hope Mikey and Nico never get that idea! With the weight of all those casserole dishes, the lazy Susan would turn into a weapon of mass destruction! :D
Off topic: Love your vintage pyrex! The patterns you have are very pretty! I have way too much vintage pyrex in all sorts of colors/patterns, shapes and sizes from years of buying it on the cheap at thrift stores. Now it’s more expensive and hard to find except actual antique stores.
Yes, I’ve had to slow down on my purchasing, too! There is one more piece that you don’t see (it was in the ‘fridge) and that one is my absolute favorite bowl. It’s the PERFECT size for making cakes. I love it. It’s not that pretty, though. Just plain ol’ brown with a floral design.
Is that why my potatoes always get soft? They are friendly with onions? I love your pyrex collection! One of ours was a popcorn casualty last week. It was my grandmothers, and I miss it already. Those little ones with the flat glass lids are the best tupperware replacement ever. {Modern Thrifter recently mentioned on twitter that she uses those just so that she won’t be tempted to throw a whole container of gross food away! Totally true.}
Off to find a basket…
The ones with the lids are impossible to find! The Mister saw those in a thrift shop a couple of years ago and thought of me. They are one of my favorite gifts from him! He’s not really one to do stuff like that. He’s more of a steadfast and loyal guy, not so much flowers and romance.
Crap, now I want those canisters you linked.
Hello everyone,
First things first . 1) get a good thermometer and place it down at the crispy drawer in your fridge.Lower the temp in your fridge to 3 degrees above freezing at the bottom.If you put the thermometer at the top of the fridge .the bottom will be well below freezing and you do not want that .Put your potatoes in a store plastic bag and twist it so it gets some where tight, so air can not get to it .frost free fridge will take all the moisture out of the potato . 2) do the same thing with your onions and put them in the crispy draw along side the other draw .You will be amazed at how long these will last without rotting ,or growing roots .Months. If you do not have space in the fridge for the onions. Some onions that you buy ,will come in a bag with a lot of holes in it .Take one onion and put it in the bag and then put a tie wrap just above the onion.do the same to the next one and so on .You will end up with something that looks like a stocking with separated onions in it .As long as the onions do not touch each other they will be fine .Hang it from the ceiling on a hook. When you need an onion , take one out . I save all my onion bags for this reason .Most of the time I put them in a store plastic bag and stick them in the fridge in the drawer at the bottom. I have been doing this for 5 years and I have never lost a potatoe or an onion . Try it , you might like it .
wnight