— Lisa Balivet

The one thing that comes to mind when using canned vegetables is to, uh, just note the content. Uh, you take a look at the ingredient list, and very often there's some salt added. You know, you might, uh, of course find something that's low sodium, and there's usually some sort of a preservative added. And my approach is to you discard that liquid and even rinse the item just to minimize the uptake of those, uh, chemical preservatives that are added. I think, uh, that, I'll take a little tangent here by saying that, um, you know, I think that there's probably not much research, certainly not enough research done on the effects of that long term on our public health and individual health. But, uh, I think it's probably best to avoid by rinsing, uh, these preservatives off of these canned foods, you know, the consumption of these, um, the, these chemical compounds. Okay? So that's one, that's one suggestion that I have in terms of handling canned foods. Otherwise, you know, feel free to use canned foods and, and frozen vegetables, uh, in any way that you might've used the, the fresh version, you know, noting that these two items are fairly high in moisture content. So, you know, if you are saing a mixture, that your texture is gonna be a little bit different, right? When you, when you freeze and then thaw a product, right? The water expands the cell membranes rupture. When it thaws, the structure is a little bit softer as a result, and it also releases some water. And so you're gonna get a little more of this mushy sort of a texture. Uh, and if you can deal with that, or, you know, otherwise find a, a, a workaround by not making certain things and focusing on things where that's not an issue. Soups and stews, uh, casserole, fillings, you know, these are obvious places where no problem exists. Uh, and then of course, a little bit of experimentation on your part to just test again, what it is that you will tolerate in terms of texture, right? Where you might be expecting a, a fairly dry texture, how wet will be, okay. You know, how moist will be okay for you and your audience. Okay? So a little bit, bit of testing on your part, I think can, uh, go a long way to creating some crib notes for your own kitchen.