Incidentally, they love food so much that they act like that practically anytime someone feeds them, but it sure made me look like I’d been withholding food, especially since I had just been joking with my girlfriends about how empty my fridge was. 🙂
But moving on to the actual organization—
A couple of months ago I bought two deep fridge bins from Crate & Barrel with the plan of moving my fresh fruits and vegetables out of their depressing spot at the bottom of the fridge. Even if produce drawers are intended to keep produce fresh, they also ensure that produce stays out of sight. And if you’re like me, you might just forget to feed them to your family unless they’re staring you in the face every time you open the fridge.
So I moved produce up, as pictured, and I assigned dairy products (mainly cheese & eggs) to the lower right drawer and meat / poultry products (lunchmeat, bacon, marinating chicken breasts, etc.) to the lower left drawer.
Free space is occupied by rotating items like leftovers or casseroles (which I actually rarely make).
Then at the end of the week, it looks more like this:
The only good thing about an empty fridge is that is is easy to wipe down before filling up again!
Is your refrigerator organization working for you? (I wish I could see into yours!)
And now the boys and I are off to the grocery store so that they will start liking me again!
Very good point about the produce. I seem to always waste some of it because it's out of sight. I'll have to look into those bins! Thanks!
Wow — wiping down the fridge. Now there's a novel idea. I agree that out-of-sight produce tends to get neglected.
I'm going to admit that my fridge almost always looks like a disaster. I feel like it is full to the brim of dressings, sauces, and other various bottles. I think I need to make peace with throwing those things out if I'm not going to use them up. I do love that idea of putting the produce front and center. I'm going to try it!
Also, do you like that pesto from Costco?
Yeah, the side of my fridge has plenty of those bottles too (the perils of liking to cook, I guess!), but I've been trying to pare down. I do like the Costco pesto, but I've only used it once so far, and I doubt I'm as discerning as you when it comes to good pesto! 🙂
Good thoughts on the produce bins. I'm still marveling at how clean the inside of your fridge is. Incidentally, does the outside of your fridge house dozens of magnets displaying fingerpaint art and permission slips? Maybe that's in a different blog post… 🙂
I want to show you what's in MY fridge and what's in MY car. Oh, and my purse too! Is it possible to post a picture to this reply?! I've got a great little bag in my car with 2 coloring books, a small pad of construction paper, crayons, scissors and a glue stick. It comes in handy at PTO meetings, the doctor's office, Talia's volleyball games…
I would LOVE you to post about your fridge or car or purse! Feel free to email me pics and you can do a guest post! Or post them on your (defunct?) blog and post a link here! I KNOW you've got some good ideas! The little bag of crafts supplies is perfect, especially as my kids get older.
Don't worry, it's not always so clean. This simple new idea of moving produce up seems to have given me an extra burst of energy when it comes to the fridge. I'm going to just ride this wave as long as possible… 🙂