"you can store root ginger in the freezer and grate from frozen" !

[IkeaSnake]

It says on this recipe card did oyu know that?
i haev lost count of how many I have binned

No need even to peel it first. It's brilliant.
Microplane graters work best for this but any will do the job.

you all KNEW adn were laughing at me behind my back

Yes, we all clubbed together and decided it was one of the many things we weren't going to share with you ...

I am always binning the bloody stuff then never have any when I really need it. I had to send DH out for some at the last minute yesterday.

Must remember this. Damn you feeble brain, REMEMBER THIS!

you see Butterball you were OUT of the loop

Oh God it's a relief to be able to laugh at you out loud about your ginger ingnorance!

I am gingerly ignorant

I've always been an outsider.

Mwah ha haaaaaaaaaa.

sob

it doesn't work though

it goes all woody and difficult to peel IMO

oh fgs sweetfall
you WOUlD be one to moan

what the f does that mean

I didn't know that. But we get through ginger by the ton so it never gets the chance to go wrinkly.

I have another ginger tip to share though: When you need to peel and grate some, peel a bit of finger while still attached to the hand, then you have the hand to hold on to while grating the (now peeled) finger.

But I don't want to grate my finger. It will hurt!

And it works even better if you put cling film over the grater first.

lou03? How does that work? surely you just get bits of grated plastic in your ginger.

(and I didn't know this either, but I have lazy ginger in a jar, so don't need to know)

Yes, I knew this. You can also freeze chillis and chop them frozen. There's very little you can't freeze - if in doubt, I freeze it anyway. I am Ms Smug of Smugland.

Not so JackBauer - the cling film sticks to the grater, you grate your ginger, and the sharp teeth pierce the clingfilm, allowing it through. When you have finished, you lift the cling film off, and any remaining ginger falls off into your pile.

Works well for zesting lemons, etc., too.

you are fiendishly clever women, any other tips you have been hoarding all this time

i knew about the chillis

Oooooh! The theory holds, I shall try it tomorrow as I have lemons to zest....

From an old Masterchef series- if you have a very knobbly bit of ginger, peel it with a teaspoon. It works really well and there's much less waste.

Another good one (especially for people like me who detest celery but who like to use it in soups and stocks etc) is:

if you buy celery and it always goes off before you get round to using it up, use what you want, then chop it and bag it up in bags of 1 stick each. It freezes really well so when you're next making stock or soup you can put it in from frozen.

Also freeze chicken carcasses when you're pissed after Sunday lunch disinclined to make stock there and then, so when you have some free time just get two or three frozen carcasses out the freezer, add your water, frozen celery, bay leaf etc - voila, lovely chicken stock for your next risotto.