BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Home Cooking Time to Organize Your Fridge

Now that you've re-organized your pantry, it's time to tackle the refrigerator. Not a favorite job of mine, either, yet quite necessary to keep your foods fresh and your fridge smelling sweet and clean. I find it best to just plunge in and do the whole thing in one go.

Time to Organize Your Fridge

I'm so glad I read the article "Time to Organize Your Fridge" before I began preparing our dinner this evening! Without your reminder that all sorts of leftovers can be used in soup, it probably wouldn't have even crossed my mind as an option for the bits and pieces in my fridge! Leftover roasted beets, carrots and beet greens are not traditional soup ingredients, but they were quickly chopped into bite sized pieces, then added to organic chicken broth (a staple in my pantry) along with the remains of the rice pilaf from yesterday. Five minutes to prepare, about 10 minutes of simmering on the stovetop, and then I seasoned the broth with some salt and pepper. The result: an wonderfully flavorful and beautiful ruby red soup to serve tonight! What a shame it would have been to simply rewarm or throw those leftovers away! Thanks for the inspiration!

Good to hear how you used up leftovers for a yummy-sounding soup! Isn't it amazing what new dishes we can come up with by trying out new combinations of ingredients? I invite you to try adding unexpected herbs and spices to your soups, too–experiment!

Enjoy your feast!

I wish I could jump in and do it all. I have to take a shelf at a time, lol.

But, you're right. Pantry first.

But from there, I realized the fridge...

I never do anything in order. Why? Have no idea. But I chose the middle round thingy in the middle.

And just today I showed my husband (I'm proud of the little things, lol, but seriously). He's like, "God I'm glad you did that, I was scared to look under the top two layers. Did you find anything scary?"

I said, "NooOOooo...it's not THAT bad, just a few expiration dates and for me I decided to do what's best. It took me an hour, but I laid the packages out (in the fridge) and put the open ones on top and the "furry ones" in the garbage"

Whatever works for you, Karen! Glad you're getting your kitchen back under control, doesn't that feel good? Enjoy the cleaner spaces!