Cleaning Your Refrigerator

How often do you clean your refrigerator?

That beautiful gleaming appliance in your kitchen that nourishes all who open it’s doors (I have a thing for food). It needs tender loving care but how often do you give it that?

I like to call the refrigerator the Land of Waste and Plenty!

Waste because it’s where leftovers go to die and food spoils before we can get to it.

Plenty because there is sooo much in there if we just used it wisely.

Do you feel like a lot of food goes to waste in your refrigerator? I do. Even my mother, the queen of frugality, jokes about the amount of food that goes to waste in her fridge. She is always buying a good deal but she’s only one person so when she buys 10 pounds of potatoes guess what?!

Yeah.

She ends up throwing it out.

At least I’m buying for three but I’m no better. I am my mother’s daughter.

Lately she has been emptying her refrigerator into mine. She sends me home with bags full of produce she’s just bought. While that’s very generous and nice it comes at unexpected times and in turn overflows my refrigerator so I’m back at ground zero with the mess.

It drives my husband crazy. He gets on me a bit about being more thoughtful about what goes into the refrigerator, keeping track of it, and using it up even when it’s not for dinner that night. But in reviewing how our refrigertor gets into such a state we found he is partly to blame also. He buys things we don’t need or even eat simply because he’s been shopping on an empty stomach. Or he’ll get seconds at dinner and become to full to finish them. Then he piles the whole mess in a storage container insisting he’ll eat it later….not! Even our daughter is guilty of contributing with bits and pieces cut up fruit she likes to put in the fridge for later, or never, eating.

Now I’m not perfect but here are some things I “try” to do to keep on top of the refrigerator spoils.

I lose track of produce the most. Each night when making dinner I try to take note of what’s in the fridge. If there’s an abundance of something and I KNOW I won’t be getting to it anytime soon I try to preserve it in some way.

Here are some things I like to try to keep track of

Celery – Chop, blanch, freeze

Mangoes – Slice and freeze

Fresh Ginger – Freeze

Carrots – Slice, blanch, freeze

Potatoes – Lately I’ve been growing ones that sprouted in the garden

Milk – If it’s only a day or so past the pull date I’ll bake something with it. I try to keep a homemade baking mix on hand so that helps.

Yogurt – Make frozen yogurt or yogurt pops

Bread – I make bread crumbs

Parsley – Freeze in ice cube trays for later use.

That’s all that I can think of off the top of my head. What do you do with the excess in your fridge?

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