Clean out the Fridge Day!

About every other Sunday I spend time cleaning out the fridge. There are many reasons for this. One is to clean out the leftovers from the last week (or week before if a Sunday is missed). Two, it’s to find any missing food items I may have forgot about. And finally, the biggest reason is to keep the fridge neat, tidy and organized. A messy fridge is a hindrance to the eating experience. It’s frustrating to look into the fridge and not know where things are at, if you are out of them, or what you need to get.

For example, One Sunday I cleaned out the fridge and noticed we had, scattered in various places throughout the fridge, three different containers of parmesan cheese. Why in the world would anyone need three containers of parmesan cheese at one time in their fridge?

Thus, a fridge audit can be a very beneficial experience.

(Note - my preferred method of music while doing this is listening to the 70’s channel on the Music Choice channel on cable. Some of the groovy tunes are a perfect fit for cleaning the fridge with the windows open and a nice breeze blowing in. Another note: while doing this I am eating a piece of leftover pizza, and drinking a diet coke. Little Food Gal is chugging some chocolate milk, and Food Gal is out and about getting more food items to put in fridge.)

What else did I find? Here are some items:

* Root beer flavored yogurt - expiration date June 18 - tossed
* Yoplait Light strawberry yogurt container - not with yogurt, but with au jus from roast beef au jus sandwiches earlier in the week - tossed
* Leftover corn in a plastic container; more leftover corn blended in another container, for little food gal - tossed
* Applesauce
* a bottle of wine
* potato salad (week old, contemplating tossing)
* In the bottom crisper: Diet coke and seven Voyageur extra pale ale beers
* In the middle crisper: tomatoes, broccoli, romaine lettuce, a tangerine, green apple (whatever happened to Green Apple Quick Step?), and celery.
* Eggs
* In the top drawer (this appears to be the junk drawer of the fridge, as many items I am not sure I want to keep appear here): Gorgonzola cheese (it‘s not my favorite cheese, but try saying it ten times fast, certainly more difficult than saying Colby ten times fast), two different bags of baby carrots that look they should be tossed; quarter stick of deer sausage, some deli salami that had “sell by 5/24/08“ on it; four pieces of bologna with white spots on one side; half an onion; two pound bag of deli roast beef, with about less than a pound left (still good); provolone cheese; block of sharp cheddar cheese; two flour tortilla’s; a plastic bag of colby/jack cheese slices with no cheese in the package; two limes; a half a block of sharp cheddar cheese; some shredded Mexican style cheese; another package of flour tortillas.
* Next shelf - this is at eye level, where most things get “shoved” with no consideration for the consequences of placing these items here: a small cup of chocolate milk; a Tupperware container with one petit cut no-name steak in it; a container of spaghettio’s; a container of leftover baked beans; a small container of store bought “big yummy caramel turtle brownies." Note: That is what the store labeled it, I would never use the word “yummy” and neither should any other male - ever; Jello, spaghetti noodles, spaghetti sauce, olives, a baked potato all by itself, tucked back in the corner.
* Top shelf: Quite the array of items here - mushroom caps, cream cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, leftover spaghetti in a blender bowl for LFG, Hershey’s syrup, Amoxicillin for LFG; salsa, grey poupon, cherry’s, garden relish, asian inspired grilling paste, homemade tartar sauce, blueberries, two more jars of salsa

Overall, it wasn’t too bad since there was a recent fridge cleaning. I also cleared the top of the fridge and found some multi-grain wraps that I never knew we had, tossed out some bags of chips that were nearly empty and all broken, and, I also cleaned the freezer, but that’s a whole other story.

Cleaning the fridge is a good thing to do, and produces good results. And most of all you can look in the fridge, get right to it and know what you have or don’t have. When there is eating to be done you don’t want to have to waste time looking through the fridge. The bottom line: Dominate control of your fridge, don’t let the fridge control you.

Happy eating!