A Nifty Cooking Tip

A few weeks back, I made a new Greek bean soup recipe--well, new to me. It's a yummy keeper. You can get the recipe here. I love it because it is made from stuff I always have in my pantry and fridge, and it's even better the next day or after. The beans just keep getting silkier and the stock thicker. It's almost hard to believe that it's not just vegetarian, it's vegan!

The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, which is typically found in little cans that hold between 8 and 10 tablespoons. Past experience has taught me that keeping the opened tomato paste can in the fridge usually results in a nasty, black-edged mess that I only discover two months later. So I tossed the remaining paste into the stock box in my freezer.

But a friend gave me a great tip. Next time you only use a few tablespoons, she said, plop the rest in 2-tablespoon blobs on a piece of plastic wrap:

Space the blobs a few inches apart:

Flip one side of the wrap, then the other side, over the little piles of tomato paste:

Twist the wrap between each blob:

You get these perfect little balls of paste:

Add a twist tie to each end of the "necklace," and pop it in the freezer.

When you next need just 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, just untwist, pop out one blob, and put the rest back in the freezer.

Nifty!