And I bought one of them! I often take it on vacation and everyone loves it and uses it!
So interesting. We had the opposite happen. We emptied our French Door fridge before our new side by side was delivered, and we had tons of empty space in the new fridge. We like the side by side better because we actually do not lose as much in it…more shelves, but each is smaller.
It helps that we also have a small upright freezer!
To each his own, I guess.
My DH is very good about eating what he buys but he often buys way too much and expects me to help. It’s ok if it’s something I want or feel like eating…
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I’m with you. When we needed to replace our old fridge (French door, bottom freezer) we went a side by side because we kept losing stuff in the cavernous bottom freezer. It’s much easier to find stuff for me in the side by side.
I helped a friend fridge shop a couple of months ago and she got a great fridge with one of those drawers for jars or cans. Love that.
Great topic. With the new year I’m resetting my mind to focus on eating and using up what I’ve bought. I’ve made meals from my pantry and vegetable drawer when I think I don’t have anything for dinner. Vegetable based soups are a great way to use older vegetables.
I bought that fruit/ vegetable organizer and found it didn’t work for us. I need to find where I put it and see if my daughter might like it for the grandkids.
I have a side by side and I find things can lost in the vegetable bin because with my knees I don’t have the mobility to get down low and really look what I have.
I’m not good at menu planning. I find recipes that sound interesting and I’ll buy ingredients and then decide to use them for something else. Or I’ll buy vegetables that we like without a plan. Another wasteful habit I have is going to Trader Joe’s and buying fresh ingredients without a plan. Same sometimes happens at Costco.
One great item I’ve started to have on hand is the frozen broccoli from Costco. It tastes good and no more wasted fresh.
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DH does most of the cooking now. He keeps frozen spinach and garlic cloves in the house all the time. He says they are in tons of recipes. We have extra food storage in our lower level. We also keep a stock of stocks, broths, various beans, which also seem to needed often.
We love having a freezer where we can sort of stock up on lots of things when they are on sale.
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We have a side-by-side at our house and a much-preferred French-door-over-freezer unit at the cabin. We would happily replace the side-by-side at the house, but it’s built-in. However, like @vwlizard, both fridges are systematically organized with food bins to make the best use of space in each. We definitely can fit a magnitude more in the French door unit.
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We have three bins in our fridge. Lunch. Salad. Eat me first.
Lunch includes all fixings for a sandwich minus the bread. it includes lunch meats, cheese, common condiments. Go to bin to make a sandwich–pull it out and and go for it.
Salad has got boiled eggs, mushrooms, diced onions, bacon bits etc that you’d throw on a salad.
Eat me first is leftovers (unless tossed into the lunch bin.)-- the left over taco shell, the end of the prepared salad, meat that doesn’t go on a sandwich. Works great. Lots less waste.
An amazing amount of foods freeze great. So I buy the big packages from warehouse store but divide them up into smaller units and freeze. Most cheeses freeze well (mozz, provolone), cooked chicken (roasted chickens) freeze great for lunches.
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A couple of thoughts related to this thread
If you don’t buy it, you don’t eat it. When our kids left for college, we stopped buying some of the junk we bought mostly for them. Then about 18 months ago my husband’s brother needed multiple bypasses (and he appeared very health, exercised regularly, etc.). Found out it’s mostly hereditary, and my husband really needed to change his diet. He stopped buying pretzels, saltines, and potato rolls for example, and started buying and eating apples, grapes, and mandarins oranges or whatever the small ones are called, and Dave’s Killer bread in small slices. Another thing we have done is buy bulk Alaska salmon at Costco. It took awhile to convince my husband it’s as good as the (“previously frozen”) stuff we by from the seafood section, but now we have “freezer salmon” midweek, instead of something less healthy.
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How do you track what is in the freezer? We have the French door fridge with the lower compartment for the freezer. The freezer has 2 sliding trays but the bulk of the storage is just a large box. Today I was putting some baby back ribs in so I took everything out since they’d go better at the bottom. I realized I had forgotten some of the things in the freezer. Any tips for keeping track you’ve found that work for you?
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Stackable container bins. There are many videos what will show you different ways to organize for the types of food you freeze.
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I used to keep a white board of what was in my basement fridge. Now Imwould just keep it on my phone if I wanted a running
My kitchen reset has more to do with equipment than food. I want to reduce the amount of plastics and forever chemicals so am starting to replace some things I use all the time. So far I’ve bought 2 different brands of plastic free dishwasher pods, ordered a wood cutting board, ordered a plastic free coffeemaker and ordered a carbon steel pan to replace the small nonstick skillet I use for eggs. And I’ve ordered a glass splatter cover for food in the microwave. I’m surprised that the cutting board, coffeemaker and skillet all have wait times up to 60 days.
Next I’m going to research the best way to have a good supply of filtered water in the kitchen. I have a water cooler in the garage and get 5 gallon bottles of spring water delivered. It’s a lot of plastic so there has to be a better system that doesn’t involve cutting a hole in the counter for a dedicated reverse osmosis water dispenser.
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There is a gazillion of maple, made in the US cutting boards on Amazon that can be delivered in 2 days. While I would not order a titanium cutting board from Amazon because there are many fakes, I’d be OK with a wooden one because maple wood is so common in North America.
I don’t have any issues with using a plastic splatter shield in microwave because it doesn’t touch the food and it doesn’t get heated from within by microwaves.
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One word: Hestan. Made in Italy titanium cookware.
Could you share the brand of the plastic free coffee maker?
I have just always used a paper towel to cover food in the microwave. Works great. If I need to heat up something that needs to stay moist (like rice) I wet the paper towel first. (FWIW, I have a subscription and buy my toilet paper and paper towels from Who Gives A Crap which is a great organization dedicated to providing toilets and improving sanitation in areas that need it. )
I use cast iron instead of non-stick. It’s great and so easy to care for and will last literally hundreds of years. One of my pans was my grandmother’s. I also have some newer Lodge pans and they work well too.
I have many wooden cutting boards, but I really like the Epicurean paper board ones we have because they can go in the dishwasher. Highly recommend them. I have been using one for about 20 years and it’s still holding up great. Have bought two more since then with no problem either. Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, and other brick and mortar stores carry them and you can order direct from Epicurean too: Cutting Boards by Epicurean | USA Made . We also have wood cutting boards and I like them, but my problem with them is specific to my house/family. Other people use them and then leave them for me to wash. So I like the Epicurean ones that have the benefits of wood, but can go in the dishwasher so I don’t get resentful of my family.
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I’m going to try an Epicurean board. Thanks!
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Just an FYI - they are plastic.
Epicurean cutting boards are not plastic. They are paperboard.
“ Epicurean’s focus is for its cutting boards and kitchen tools to be durable, long-lasting products one can depend on for years to come, for any job in any kitchen, big or small.
Epicurean’s paper composite material is:
NSF Certified
GreenGuard Certified”