Yes, stock and broth freeze about as well as anything in the kitchen, and I would go as far as to say the freezer is the whole point of making stock in the first place. A chicken carcass and a few tired vegetables become litres of the stuff, far more than any one meal needs, and frozen in sensible portions it turns into the base of risottos, soups, gravies and sauces for weeks afterwards. Homemade stock keeps for three to four days in the fridge and around three to four months in the freezer at its best. The one part worth getting right is cooling it down quickly and safely before it goes in, so let me start there and then get to the portioning tricks that save the most bother. ...

Yes, you can freeze hummus, and it comes out far better than most people expect. I buy the big tubs when they are on offer, and I make my own in batches that are always too big for one sitting, so the freezer is the only reason either of those habits makes sense. Hummus keeps for around three months in the freezer and stays safe well beyond that. The only thing to know in advance is that it separates a little as it thaws, which looks worse than it is and takes about thirty seconds to put right. Here is exactly how I do it. ...

You decided to bake, opened the recipe, and the very first line says “softened butter” while yours is a cold brick straight from the fridge. I have been there more times than I will admit. The good news is you can soften butter properly in anywhere from two to fifteen minutes depending on the method, and none of them involves the microwave melting one corner into a greasy puddle while the middle stays solid. ...

Yes, you can freeze peppers, and here is the bit that saves you a job: sweet peppers are one of the few vegetables you do not need to blanch first. No pan of boiling water, no ice bath, no timing it to the second. You deseed them, slice or dice them, freeze them in a single layer, then tip them into a bag. That is the whole method. I do it every time peppers are three for a pound and I have bought with my eyes rather than my meal plan. ...

Yes, you can reheat cooked pasta, and it is perfectly safe as long as you have stored it sensibly: cooled quickly, kept no more than 2 days in the fridge, and reheated once until it is piping hot. The part people do not expect is that pasta plays by the same rules as rice. The same bacteria that gives reheated rice its scary reputation can grow on cooked pasta too, and it is leaving the pasta sitting out at room temperature, not the reheating itself, that causes the trouble. ...

Yes, you can reheat cooked chicken, and you can eat it hot or cold. The idea that chicken is somehow special and must never be warmed up again is one of those kitchen myths that has stuck around far longer than it deserves. What matters is not the chicken itself but how it was treated between the first cooking and the second: how fast it cooled, how long it sat in the fridge, and how hot it gets when you reheat it. Get those three right and last night’s roast is a perfectly safe lunch. ...

Once the pack is open, tofu keeps about 3 to 5 days in the fridge, and only if you store it properly: drained, sitting in fresh water in a sealed tub, with the water changed every single day. Unopened, it lasts until the use-by date printed on the pack, whether that is a chilled block or a long-life carton. Those are the numbers I work to, and the daily water change is the part almost everyone skips. Tofu is a fresh, high-protein food that sits in water, which is exactly the kind of thing bacteria like, so it pays to treat it with a bit of respect rather than leaving the opened block swimming in its own cloudy juice for a week. ...

Yes, you can freeze ginger, and honestly it is the way I keep it now. A knob goes straight into the freezer whole, and I grate off what a recipe needs while it is still rock hard. Frozen ginger lasts for months instead of the week or two you get in the fridge, it grates finer than fresh, and I have stopped finding those sad, wrinkled, faintly mouldy stubs at the back of the drawer. If you buy ginger, use a thumb-sized piece, then watch the rest slowly give up, this one habit fixes it. ...

Yes, you can freeze avocado, and if you have a bowl of them ripening all at once it is far better than watching them go brown and soft on the side. But be clear about what you are getting back. Freezing breaks down the cell structure that makes a ripe avocado firm and creamy, so what thaws is softer, looser and a bit watery. That is fine, in fact ideal, for anything you were going to mash or blend anyway. It is no good at all for a tidy fan of slices on toast. So freeze it with the end use in mind: smoothies, guacamole, dips, dressings and baby food, yes; a photogenic slice, no. ...

A wrapped shop loaf keeps about 3 to 5 days at room temperature. A crusty bakery loaf or something you have baked yourself, with no preservatives in it, is really at its best for 2 to 3 days and stale by day four. Those are the honest numbers, and the single most useful thing I can tell you is where not to put it: the fridge. Bread goes stale faster in the fridge than it does sitting on the worktop, which is the opposite of what most people assume. So the choice is simple. Eat it in a few days at room temperature, or freeze it. The fridge is the one place a loaf should never go. ...