How long do the things lasts in the fridge?

[cdepalmer]

I made several of the recipes in Alissa's book and was wondering how long they will last. There is so much fettuccini alfredo left and now it is a week old. I thought it would be ok since it is mostly nuts. I hate to throw it out but I was getting tired of it after a few days. What is your guys expetise?
Thanks,
Cindy

[Shivananda]

I made several of the recipes in Alissa's book and was wondering how long they will last. There is so much fettuccini alfredo left and now it is a week old. I thought it would be ok since it is mostly nuts. I hate to throw it out but I was getting tired of it after a few days. What is your guys expetise?
Thanks,
Cindy

If you are talking about the finished dish with the sauce tossed in with the pasta, my guess is that it's probably not good any longer. I'd figure 3-5 days for that, if it is well covered and your refrigerator is cold. As the saying goes "When in doubt throw it out."

The sauce by itself, however, is probably good for a couple of weeks, and freezes pretty well since it is mostly nuts and little water. That's why when I make it, I only make the amount of "pasta" I intend to eat right away, sauce that, and refrigerate what's left.

Also I find that the fine angel hair cut of the saladacco or Joyce Chen cutter spoils faster than the thicker pasta made by the Spirooli or a mandolin, or the thicker slice of a peeler.

This is all in keeping with what I have learned about general principles of prepared food keeping properties:

The drier it is, the longer it will last; the wetter it is, the more fragile it is. (Dehydrators were initially developed to preserve summer food for winter storage by drying it out. Once thoroughly dry it can be stored on a shelf indefinitely.)

The coarser the food particles are the longer it will last; the finer it is chopped the more fragile it is. (Big chunks of pineapple stay good longer than finely chopped raw pineapple sauce)

The more acid or salty the food is the longer it will last; the sweeter or more neutral it is the more fragile it is. (Both acid and salt were key means of preserving food before freezing was invented. The Russian deli near me has big barrels of raw pickles for sale, unrefrigerated, no problem. The salt brine keeps them safe.)

The colder the food is stored the longer it will last; the warmer it is stored the more fragile it is. (Food frozen at 40 below lasts longer than food frozen at 0, and even cooked soup at a restaurant starts to break down and go bad after sitting too many hours in a hot water bath, even though it is kept too hot for microbial growth to happen.)

The less air that gets to the food the longer it will last; the more exposure to air the more fragile it is. (Which is why even frozen food can get "burned" by not being wrapped properly. And that's why I press plastic wrap down on top of food to squish out the air, rather than stretch it tight over the top of the container like they do on TV.)

So while the finished dish you refereed to might be good for a week or less, depending on how finely shredded the noodles are and how wet the sauce is and how cold you've kept it and how much air you squooshed out of the container, the sauce alone is generally good for abut twice as long, and the ground nuts alone would last about 4 times as long. But when tightly covered they all last longer than they do uncovered. etc.

I think this is important to know, because most of us have years of experience with processed foods that have lots of preservatives in them to keep them edible longer, and eating all raw, all live, means our food is far more perishible. So we have to educate ourselves.

[rawpriestess]

There are a couple of things I do,

1. make all you want and freeze the leftovers

2. have a raw feast and invite your friends, raw or SAD

I have also come up with a couple other things you can do.

if you are talking specifically about the fettucini alfredo in Alissa's book, you can take and between your fingers, kind of squeegie off the noodles, and you can save the sauce,

I've also just blapped it all up in the blender, noodles and all, and frozen it, and then put the "new" sauce on top of new noodles and eaten it, it's great.

so, there are a couple of ideas for you.

[cdepalmer]

So the sauce does freeze well. I thougth about using only what I needed I just wasn't sure what it would taste like after freezing. Are most of the things in her book ok to feeze. Like the marinara? or any sauces that have nuts. I am the only person in the house eating raw and they make so much. Also what about the oil salad dressing' s I keep them on my counter for a few days because the oil gets thick.

Can you tell me my mom bought a spiral slicer for me and it only has two settings. Are they all like this? How do they work and how do you set it to make the ravioli?
Cindy

[cdepalmer]

rawpriestess for you

[cdepalmer]

Thanks for the advice
Cindy

[Shivananda]

Hi Cdepalmer,

The knob on the side can be turned one way to lift the comb blade up for shredding, and the other way turns it down for plain slicing. Up gives you angel hair pasta, or lovely garnish, and down gives you paper thin slices.

Trim your vegetable to fit comfortably, and center it over the pivot pin. Press down to locate it, put the pusher/crank unit over it and press down firmly while turning the crank smoothly.

The slicing blade gives you a big long corkscrew curl of paper thin vegetable.

Tear off a piece that is a little more than a 360 turn, so the ends overlap, smooth down on your work surface, and voila, one round rawvioli wrapper.

Put some filling in the middle, fold the wrapper over and pinch it closed, and you've got a rawvioli.

[cdepalmer]

Thanks you are brilliant.
Cindy

[misslinda]

WOSERS, I was about to search this info BUT good golly it's all here---what a wealth of information. Thanks Shiva dada! :)

[JinxieKat]

For those of us that don't have a good madolin slicer or a spiral thing-a-mahoosie a potato pealer works very well for making rawvioli wrappers!


Jinx