Restocking The Fridge

I’ve never really been afraid of storms.  Growing up we’d get the occasional hurricane or nor’easter, and my parents did a great job of making them seem exciting instead of scary.  I still remember watching Hurricane Gloria when I was 4 or 5 years old but I don’t recall any fear.

But the weather we’ve been having lately?  The chaotic nature of it? Yup, that scares me.  Climate change is real, friends.  We luckily happened to be out of town last weekend when the severe storm known as a derecho swept through the DC area knocking out power for days.  Our fridge and freezers all defrosted so we had quite mess to clean up when we got home.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my multiple tweets about losing 3.5 months of frozen breast milk.  Ask any breastfeeding mom {especially one that’s a working mom} and she’ll tell you that losing her stash is basically her worst nightmare.  Jeromy had to throw it all away—I was sobbing and couldn’t do it myself. 

While the breast milk cannot be replaced, all of the other food needed to be.  So we took this opportunity to completely clean out the fridge and freezers, scrub them down then restock them.  I have a terrible habit of overbuying groceries, so cleaning out the fridge was a great exercise to see what we use all the time and what we don’t really need to restock. 

 

As you can see, there were a couple of things that are hydroscopic that we did not throw out.  Otherwise, everything was thrown out.  After a trip to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, our fridge looked like this:

So what’s in the fridge? Let’s break it down.

Beer {we don’t always have this on hand, but it is the summer. And it is refreshing!}, farmer’s market eggs, organic blueberries, So Delicious coconut milk creamer {I like it better than Coffeemate!} and breast milk.

The dairy shelf! 1% organic milk, parmesan cheese, fresh mozzarella, organic whole milk yogurt {for Caroline}, 0% Greek yogurt and 0% vanilla Greek yogurt.  Obviously, things were moving around a bit as I was in the process of taking these pictures .

This shelf is where I always store leftovers, grilled vegetables are in the container in the back.  Flour tortillas, organic strawberries and organic baby spinach.  I also keep my pump in the bowl in the fridge between pumping sessions over the weekend.

Sliced turkey, sliced hams, sliced cheddar cheese, log of goat cheese, block of feta, flaxseed meal and Immaculate Cookie Co. chocolate chip cookies {for those times you just want one cookie, you know?}.

Produce drawer! These contents are the ones that change most often and depending on the menu for the week.  Needless to say, we like to have a lot of fresh produce on hand at any given time.

And somehow I didn’t take a picture of the meat drawer! In it, I have organic chicken breasts, chicken and apple sausage, 2 packages of bacon, a London broil, ground white turkey meat and a sirloin steak.  The sirloin steak and white turkey meat will be used in meals this week, the rest will go in the freezer.

The door always, always, always gets overcrowded with condiments.  I love how minimal our collection is right now and I’m hoping we can keep it this way.

Top shelf: butter, Earth Balance and Dixie’s wet food.

Second shelf: maple syrup, almond butter, organic applesauce, parmesan cheese {moved!} and Caroline’s teething rings.

Third shelf: Cola syrup, dijon mustard, yellow mustard, whole grain mustard, fig spread, peach preserves and sriracha.

Fourth shelf: soy sauce, tomatillo salsa, tomato salsa, mayo, bbq sauce, chocolate sauce and organic ketchup.

Bottom shelf: Soda Stream bottles of soda water and orange juice.

Now let’s take a look at the freezer. 

The freezer always becomes a big jumbled mess, so I’m hoping this opportunity will help me keep it organized.

Whoops! I’m missing a picture of the top shelf.  On it, I have sprouted grain bread and sprouted grain English muffins.  The second shelf has Caroline’s frozen foods—Dr. Praeger’s Littles Broccoli and Potato Cakes, Organic Mini Waffles, Jolie’s Raviolis and whole bean coffee.

I keep a lot of frozen veggies on hand for those nights that we need a quick side dish.  Here I have edamame, organic broccoli florets, organic peas, organic chopped spinach and organic green beans.

The bottom drawer holds our tequila, vodka and frozen fruit for smoothies.  Let me rephrase, the tequila and vodka are not for smoothies. Though maybe they should be…anyways. What’s missing from this picture is the bag of frozen bananas I keep on hand as well. Every few weeks I buy extra bananas, peel them, cut in half and store them in a freezer bag in the freezer.

Finally, we have two Amy’s burritos that I keep on hand for those days that I don’t have time to make lunch, I can grab one and go and some butter.

My hope is that I can keep my fridge and freezers {didn’t even show you the other one!} as orderly as they are today.  I’ll check back in after six months to see how it’s going!

What was the worst thing you’ve lost in a power outage?

Tagged as: stocking up