Showing posts with label grocery shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grocery shopping. Show all posts

Friday, 5 October 2012

What should go where in our fridges?

 
So we have all seen the very impressive fridge storage and organisation floating around. I myself am happy with how my fridge storage looks, however I’m always wondering if we are correctly storing our food. What should go where in our fridges??
 

So today I decided to educate myself with the help of pinterest and thought I’d share with you what I learnt.
Here is what I found:




  I learnt that:

1.         Dairy products such as milk, cream, yogurt and other dairy products are best stored on the upper shelves of the refrigerator where the temperature is the most constant, so they'll keep longer.



Fail #1: I’ve always stored my milk on the fridge door!
Will have to see if I can rectify this in my small fridge

2.         Eggs are happiest in their cartons on a shelf.

Nooo.. One feature I love the most in our refrigerator is the egg storage compartment that urge you to put your eggs on the inside of the door. Guess that’s fail #2, I’ll have to stay strong and not give in -- the door is the warmest part of the refrigerator so the eggs are on the move!
 
 
Eggs in the door! Fail #2 sham on me!

3.         Cheese should be wrapped in cheese paper for storage, but waxed paper or parchment paper will also do the trick. Before storing, scrape the surface with a non-serrated knife to remove any excess oil that may have “sweat out” at room temperature. Each cheese should be wrapped separately and marked with the name and date of purchase. Avoid plastic wrap at all costs as the cheese can absorb the flavors and chemicals from the plastic.
 

Fail #3 Wow I’m really not doing well here! I always pop our cheese straight into a Tupperware container and store it at the top of our fridge. Next time I’ll know what to do!
 

4.         Mushrooms you buy at the grocery store are best left in their original packaging. Once you open it, wrap the whole package in plastic wrap. Wild mushrooms are best kept in a paper bag in your refrigerator’s crisper drawer.

 

5.         Never store fruit & veg together as ethylene-producing fruits are sure to make vegetables decompose prematurely. All vegetables are best stored in perforated plastic bags in your refrigerator’s crisper drawer. Fruit, with the exception of melons, citrus, and bananas, should be stored in the refrigerator in a separate drawer from the vegetables. Do not wash your fruit until you are ready to eat it; the excess water quickens decomposition.
 
Good news I use to throw them all in together in my crisper draw
however after getting my Fridgesmart Tupperware containers
I can happily say I’m no longer an offender.

Fruit and veg now get their very own container in accordance to the air that they require. 
Who knew fruit and veg breath?
(Find out more info here)

6          Meat is best stored in the bottom of the refrigerator where it is coldest. Removing the retail packaging and re wrapping the meat in foil can extend its shelf life, but you should try to consume refrigerated meat within 4 days of purchase.


I've removed our crisper draw in order to
store raw meat in the bottom of our fridge.
OK I knew this one but thought I’d share the info anyway. Raw meat should be stored at the bottom of the fridge to also prevent drips from contaminating food below.

So there we have it. Hopefully you learnt something new just as I did. I’ll still live by the basic rule of 'when in doubt, throw it out' however with this information hopefully I can now confidently stock the fridge, reduce our waste and saving us money by know what should go where in our fridge.

 
YKylie
 

Sunday, 30 September 2012

Home Organising System 1 - grocery plan


Well it’s the first day of October and whilst it might just be the start of another month, for this household it means the start of a few new home organisation systems that were going to start.

There are 4 main systems that I’ll be putting into practice : A new grocery shopping plan, a toy box-a-day system, a laundry schedule and a cleaning schedule.

I’ll share with you in detail over the next couple of days the systems were putting into practice in order to have a cleaner more practical home. At the end of the month I’ll let you know the result, what worked what needed tweaking and if I’ve scraped any.

First up A new grocery shopping  plan

As our local farmers market occurs each Monday so it makes sense for me to meal plan and head out to grab the fresh local fruit and veg that are better priced than what you find in the grocery store.

 
I’ll then head to our local butcher then finish up at Safeway to grab anything else. It makes for a long trip with two kids to lug around however I’m sure it will be worth it. Nothing beats fresh local fruit and veg!

Once home I then prep all our food taking the time to go through the fruit and vegies and pre-wash and chop any that I can before put them away.

colourbox.com
 
Pre-cutting all our veg then placing it into my Tupperware containers makes should make it easier each night at dinner rush time. I like the idea of just being able to go to the fridge and grab out any that you need to use with dinner!!!

 
I’m hoping this system will saves us a lot of time and money. Hopefully by having it pre-cut I’ll be more likely to use it all up and thus the amount that I throw away will decrease.

 Less waste = saved $$

Do you precut your fruit and vegie? How has it worked out for you?

Would love to hear you tips or ideas on making dinner time easier so please feel free to share

 
YKylie