I’m finally back at blogging, after a week and a half of organizing and preparing for some new, exciting projects! Even though it is awesome to be working on the field, I love writing here. And obviously bloody missed it!
Now I’m home, and I’m preparing everything for the new school year. And what’s the best way to do it? Organizing! Yesterday I took the daunting task of cleaning the fridge and I’m going to show you how I organized it.
Clean the fridge
The first thing to do is toss away expired condiments and produce. After that, wipe clean all the shelves and you are ready to start. If you want a natural way to do it look into my blog post: 8 Things to do when you come home from vacation. Now, where should everything go?
How to organize based on temperature
Professional kitchens are great for us to understand how food must be refrigerated. They place the products on the fridge, based on what temperature they will be cooked.
Top shelves: Ready-to-eat food should go on the upper shelves, where temperature is lower. You can store yogurt, cheese, butter, pickled products, jams and drinks here.
Lower shelves: Things that need higher temperature to be cooked should go in these. This is the part with less temperature variations, so it is the perfect place for eggs, milk and raw meat or fish. The last two should be stored on sealed glass containers. I always buy my fish in the day I consume it, and you should too!
Crisper drawers: Best place for your vegetables and fruits because of the humidity. If you have two separate drawers, keep one for fruit and the other for vegetables. If not, keep them in separate containers inside the crisper. Wrap herbs in a damp paper towel to extend their life.
The door: This is the warmest place in the fridge, so only put condiments and drinks on the door.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can label everything and put stickers on every shelf with the name of what should go to each place. That might be a cool option if you have kids and want them to place things back on the right space.
I have a small fridge, because there’s only two of us here. But if you have a bigger fridge and family, you can still apply those rules and have an organized and clean refrigerator.
This really helps me to know exactly how much food I have and what I need to buy. Since I did this, I toss way less food in the trash and consequently waste less money. The next step for me is meal planning, so I just buy exactly what I need.
