Veg prep

t33

I always prep veg just before using for freshness etc.but I've got an event pileup and friends lunch situation where I'm cutting corners and prepping as much the night before.  Can I cut and immerse in water overnight carrots onions parsnips sweet potato without messing with flavour and texture for roasting?  I'm avoiding potatoes as i know from previous experience they taste odd after water Immersion. 
Thanks 

twopenny

Don't know if it will work for you but I do veg prep in the morning for the evening.

I chop all and put on a china plate then cover with cling film.
There's no heating during the day and they stay fine and fresh.
I think if you do them the evening before like this, in a china bowl? Cover and refrigerate they should be fine.

Brie

You could minimise the prep a bit by sticking to peeling but not chopping.  But frankly doing it all the night before should be fine.  When I have excess I prep veg and dump it in a bag in the freezer to take out ready to go at short notice.  Works a treat.  

maman

I do this frequently. 

Root veg I put in water overnight and then fresh water when I'm ready to cook. 

Green veg, cauliflower I prepare and put into a plastic bag in the fridge. 

Things like prepared cauliflower and broccoli are often in the fridge for 3-4 days with no ill effects. 

-taff

If you have silicone bags, put them in there and in the fridge, or freezer bags [ wash and reuse obviously] but I wouldn't put onions in water, they'll end up less strong, unless you don't mind that. Carrots will be find peeled and chopped and in the fridge in something covered, it's only really potatoes that go a funny colour if left out, but you could peel and leave whole in water.

London_1

Good morning chums,
                                     For years when I was short of both time and money and had to return to work after having my children (circa 1970s), when the mortgage rate hit 16.5%) I always spent Sunday morning peeling and prepping my spuds.
I put them in water in my long green lidded tuppaware box (which I still have ) and just changed the water daily and my box of spuds saved me a lot of time after work when standing peeling potatoes wasn't my idea of a fun time I'd rather see my two little girls and find out what sort of day they had had.

I also had a lidded box with peeled and diced or sliced carrots in water in the fridge, Sunday mornings were always me sitting at the kitchen table prepping my veg, listening to The Archers on the wireless with a nice cup of coffee.
I'd also do my menu for the week, and sort out what I had and could use up for the coming week.after an hour of prepping I'd make a batch of pastry up and portion it up and freeze if necessary so if I decided to have say a minced beef pie during the coming week for dinner , before I went to work in the morning I'd get a portion out and it would be in the fridge defrosting along with a portion of minced beef from the freezer so at night when I came home the pastry would be ready to roll out and the mince I'd cook ready to go into the pie with some of the carrots chucked in and with some diced onion to cook along with the mince and gravy

 I could get the spuds on afterwards to cook and mash in time to go with some green veg and pie all done and sorted within an hour and ready to eat around 6.30.pm

 I am quite an organised person and when time is not your friend because of working you have to be. The board in  the kitchen on the wall was divided on one side with the coming weeks menus and on the other with my shopping list of things I was running short of or needed.The food shopping was usually done first thing on Saturday morning and home and put away by 10.00 am. leaving the rest of Saturday free for my husband and the children to go out or decide what we were doing.

Now my children are now grown up  , my eldest DD does something similar, although her two children have grown and flown. But she works full time at a pretty stressy job so her and her husband like to get out as much as possible at the weekends. She too is pretty organised

I now live with my youngest DD and her husband, and I still prep the veg, but obviously not as much  as I had to and it still goes in my long green lidded tuppaware box in the fridge, so there is always peeled spuds ready for use during the week. My DD say when I shuffle off she might stick me in the tuppaware as I have used it for everthing over the years and its indestructable

She's convince tuppaware would survive a nuclear attack

Either DD, who no longer works, or her husband (as he loves cooking ) make the dinner at night, but I do help out by prepping, and freezing bits and the occasional shopping

 I get all the cleaning stuff soap powder loo rolls cleaning materials etc and they go food shopping either on a saturday morning or her husband will go after work on the way home on a Wednesday as he passes a supermarket. It works for us as it has for me for the past 60 odd years

JackieO xx

CapricornLass

If you intend roasting the parsnips, then you can peel them and get them ready for roasting, then put them in a plastic bag, add two Tbsp of oil, put a Klippit at the top of the bag, and then toss the parsnips in the oil so that they are covered.  Store in the fridge over night.  Carrots are peeled and chopped, put in a plastic bag, a dampened sheet of kitchen roll placed over the top of them, and then Klippit the bag and store overnight.  I've chopped onions and stored them in a plastic bag overnight too.

I tend to peel potatoes on the day when I need them

JIL

I often just put whole potatoes in the oven if I'm doing a roast, like jacket potatoes. Then I just "peel off the skins" and quarter and make roasted potatoes or scoop out and make mash.  Easily heated up if need be and a great flavour.

Saw a great way to do carrots, peeled and left whole. Popped into a tin foil parcel, dotted with butter and baked for 40 mins.  I tried them and loved them. 

t33

Thanks for all the good suggestions, will experiment.
Oh and like the carrots in foil baking idea.

freyasmum

Funnily enough we, just this evening, had carrots and parsnips that we had prepped on Friday. 

They were peeled and cut and immersed in cold, salted water and refrigerated. Tonight, they were dried off, sprayed with a little oil, salt and pepper and then into the oven. They were delicious. Refresh the water/salt every few days.

I do have to say that I also do peel and hold potatoes in salted water and don't noticed any difference in taste/texture. 

You can peel onions but don't have to keep them in water.

Swede is also fine to hold in water. 

Like Jackie, mine go in watertight tupperware.