Most of us, at some point in time, have purchased celery – and if not used immediately, found it limp in the bottom of the fridge.
I pick up our CSA on Wednesdays, and unless if I have celery on my mind Thursday or Friday, by the time I want to use it for dinner on Monday or Tuesday it’s usually limp and looks quite sad.
I’m not a huge fan of throwing away perfectly good food … but sometimes the celery is a huge bunch. I find that celery from our CSA is much nicer looking and fresher tasting than celery at the store.. not to mention they don’t use pesticides so I feel great about eating it.
Our kids usually take a few pieces for lunch, but it’s no match for such a huge, huge bunch.
Celery tends to go limp due to loss of water – it needs to be hydrated. When you don’t hydrate for a few days, it’ll show you it’s thirsty in the form of a wilted bunch.
So if you find your celery has wilted and is limp in your fridge, try to resist the urge to toss – you really don’t need to waste that bunch.
Celery makes such great additions to Potato Salad. Even soup – but usually when making potato salad you only need a little bit – do not waste the rest! Put it to use in soup .. it is so terribly easy.
Pull it out of the fridge, and chop off the end — just like the picture, above. Then, pull out a wide mouth Mason Jar or two, and fill up with water.
Stick the ends of the stalks in the water and let sit on the counter – your celery will rehydrate itself within 45 minutes – 1 hour (sometimes it can take overnight – depending on how limp your celery is).
(Note: Don’t toss the end that you cut either… you can regrow that in a simple jar or bowl of water.)