Knowledge Base > Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
This event was on
Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern
Join Chef Char Nolan in her virtual office as she welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to ask anything – from cooking techniques to cou… Read More.
Question:
What do you think about using vinegar & baking soda in a mix to wash vegetables in the sink? What ratio would you suggest? Soak for 5 min or longer?
— Diane Dankert
Answer:
First of all, I think that everybody needs to have a flat bottom hole like this. This is, uh, I think you, this stainless steel and, um, you're gonna fill it with, it's gonna be a one to three ratio. So I would use three cups of water and one cup of white distilled vinegar. If I wanted to increase the volume, then I would double that same amount, and I would let them soak for maybe five minutes, and then I would lift them out and rinse them thoroughly under cold water, and then I would dry them. So if I have, let's say a head of romaine lettuce, I'm going to then take all of the leaves off of the core or the stem, and then I'm going to dry them and I'm going to store them in a container that might be lined with a linen cloth or something like that. But the nice thing about using this is that you'll be able to put a lot of vegetables in here without filling up your entire sink. And then the most amazing thing about it is that you will be able to see, um, all of the, uh, dirt, for lack of a better word, that might be in the vegetables that you want to have. And on a sidebar, you know, sometimes I find myself, um, intrigued by watching cooking videos by people who really don't know how to cook. And the other day, this woman was using kitchen cheers to cut, uh, green onions or scallions, and the rubber band was still on, and she was, she was talking like she was a, a food network TV personality. And then she was cutting and cutting and cutting, and the rubber bands made it into her whatever she was making, but she didn't even wash anything. So it is really important to wash and dry all of our fruits and vegetables. Uh, one other note, uh, strawberries for example, or blueberries after you wash them and they are dried on the counter, padded dry with a, you know, terrycloth or kitchen towel, uh, you can put them into a mason jar and they will keep for two or three weeks. So that's probably another good way to save food money and get the best for your dollar on food. Wonderful question. We should all be cleaning our vegetables.
