Saturday, November 14, 2009

Refrigerator space


I only wish my refrigerator was this tidy. Unfortunately, I come from a long line of refrigerator penicillin manufacturers. By that I mean that as long as there has been a contraption resembling an icebox in the homes of my family members, we have been pushing things to the back, hidden for months and letting them grow mold that completely obscures whatever the item once was. It's like the refrigerator version of kudzu. Now while this is great when you are scrambling last minute for a science fair project, it's not particularly appealing visually or gastronomically. And so I've taken to freezing things just before they attain that glossy, iridescent, greenish color that warns of botulism, trichinosis, e-coli, salmonella, or any of the other biggies in the potential food poisoning pantheon. Freezing works. Just ask my friends how long I've been serving up bits of ham leftover from Easter without any of them getting sick, although come to think of it, I don't think they eat what I bring to our gatherings anymore. Hmmm. For their benefit, let me repeat that with emphasis: Freezing works!

But I find myself in a dilemma right now as concerns my refrigerator and I don't think it's one that can be solved by freezing. You see, Thanksgiving is coming up and that means an inordinate amount of "stuff" that must all be crammed willy nilly into the fridge. But there isn't room. I've already tossed the buckets of vegetarian chili that none of us loved much, but will eat at some point because I'm too cheap to throw it out, into the freezer. And after today, the leftovers of the homemade spaghetti sauce, which is darned good if I do say so myself, will be likewise banished to the freezer to be recovered at a later date. And the few other leftovers in there will be offered up as dinner tomorrow night, nevermind that the kids likely didn't love them the first time, which does tend to leave an inordinate amount of leftovers to work through. And so with luck those won't be hogging vital space needed for the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, Cope's dried corn casserole, and whatever other bizarre side dish I decide we just *have* to try out this Thanksgiving. Maybe I'll make up a mess of collards to add a little southern to our generally Pennsylvania Dutch dishes.

But back to the point here. Even with all leftovers cleared out, there's still not enough room in the fridge. And the reason is that I have a refrigerator jammed full of condiments and things I bought in order to make a dish calling for less than the entire bottle or jar of something. Some of these dishes were good and that's why I always have an opened jar of chili sauce in my fridge. Some were okay but didn't wow me enough to want to try and search through my thousands of recipes to figure out exactly which one used the marinated dried tomato slices. And others were just plain gross and so I need something else to make to use up their ingredients, like the thai chili garlic paste. So I thought I'd post a list of some of the ingredients I have had for far too long (might even have moved them here from Michigan, if that isn't too pitiful and cheap to admit) and see if any of you have any wonderful ideas how I can use them in the next week or so and clear up a bit of room for the excessive Thanksgiving feast. Even just clearing out the doors of the fridge will mean I can stash the ever present stuff in there, leaving the body of the big metal box open. Here's what I have to work with:

green curry
teriyaki sauce
szechuan stir fry sauce
lemon curd
hoisin sauce
capers
marinated dried tomato slices
thai chili garlic paste
whole cranberry sauce (which must be used simply because it's old otherwise I'd just save it for Thanksgiving and frankly, I don't like the whole berry stuff anyway; give me the jellied, over-loaded with sugar, can-shaped glob any day of the week and twice on Sunday)
samosa dipping sauce

That's probably enough for now but if you're successful in helping me rid the fridge of these, I might have more ingredients to list next time (and I'll eat a thawed slice of last Easter's ham in your honor).

Other, more appealing posts on food and cooking can be found at Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking post if you need to cleanse your palate after reading this one. ;-) This week Beth's on cookies, which totally trumps my moldy refrigerator woes.

10 comments:

  1. Love this post! Have you been in my kitchen?? I was just thinking how I had to do a major clean up before the holiday.

    The first three you can use (separately) in vegetable dishes or stir-fries.

    Lemon curd: make scones or biscuits and serve it like jelly. Buy or make sponge cake or angel food cake -- cut in half horizontally, spread on curd, but cake back together and serve.

    Hoisin sauce is a bit too salty for my taste.

    Capers -- anything Italian, tuna salad, chicken salad. I love capers.

    I'm not a huge fan of marinated dried toms. Drain, chop, mix with cream cheese, serve on crackers.

    Chili paste -- any bean dish.

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have the condiment problem. Here's something for the hoisin sauce:
    http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/worms-and-eyeballs-recipe/index.html

    My kids made it for kids cook night this week, and it was great. You maybe could use szechuan stir fry sauce instead of tamari, (and don't buy tamari if you don't have it -- use soy sauce).

    ReplyDelete
  3. My fridge is a mystery to me! It goes against every part of my personality. My entire house is neat as a pin...but I can't ever seem to keep my fridge under control!!! Good to know I'm not the only one...

    ReplyDelete
  4. This was a laugh-out-loud-funny post. We must share the same genes! My fridge is loaded with all sorts of condiments too. I just got up and looked and I have six salad dressings plus mayonnaise and three kinds of mustard. My solution? I just bite the bullet every once in a while (maybe once a year) and purge the whole thing. Well, except for the stuff that's really good like the salad dressings, the mustard, the capers, the lemon juice and so on. Sorry, I'm no help at all.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Teriyaki doesn't need to be refrigerated so stick it in your cupboard
    Lemon curd makes an awesome tart filling
    capers also don't need to be fridged. But are yummy on pizza.
    Hoisin sauce -- any stirfry along with szechuan stir fry sauce.
    Green curry: ugh. Chuck.
    whole cranberry sauce: put in crockpot with lump of pork

    And now you've officially been in the South long enough to go and get that second fridge that lives in the garage for "overflow"...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Teriyaki doesn't need to be refrigerated so stick it in your cupboard
    Lemon curd makes an awesome tart filling
    capers also don't need to be fridged. But are yummy on pizza.
    Hoisin sauce -- any stirfry along with szechuan stir fry sauce.
    Green curry: ugh. Chuck.
    whole cranberry sauce: put in crockpot with lump of pork

    And now you've officially been in the South long enough to go and get that second fridge that lives in the garage for "overflow"...

    ReplyDelete
  7. someone should come up with the idea of selling condiments in little 1-2 serving sizes. just enough for making one recipe, without having that bottle around fforever.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Some of those things can be frozen too. Freeze them in icecube trays and then they will be in the right serving size as well.
    I'd freeze the:
    green curry
    teriyaki sauce
    szechuan stir fry sauce
    hoisin sauce
    thai chili garlic paste

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have a great shrimp stir-fry recipe to use some of the hoisin sauce. It's super fast & easy (because you used frozen vegetables too). Just let me know if you'd like to have it.

    Debbie
    tatamagouche AT netbundle DOT ca

    ReplyDelete
  10. Simple Shrimp Stir Fry: prep time 5 min; total time 26 min (according to Kraft)

    1 lb (500 g) frozen peeled uncooked shrimp (I usually use the cooked shrimp that goes on sale for $5 bag)
    2 tsp cornstarch
    3 cups frozen stir-fry vegetables
    2 tsp oil
    1 Tbsp grated ginger root
    one quarter cup Zesty Italian dressing (I've substituted various kinds of oil-based dressings (eg. sundried tomato & basil) with equal success)
    2 Tbsp hoisin sauce

    Toss shrimp with cornstarch in large bowl; let stand 10 min. Place vegetables in strainer; rinse under hot water 30 sec or until vegetables are thawed. Drain.

    Heat oil in large skillet on med-high heat. Add shrimp & ginger; stir-fry 8 min or until shrimp are thawed and pink. Add vegetables, dressing & hoisin sauce; cook 2 min or until heated through, stirring frequently.

    Serve on cooked angel hair pasta or rice.

    P.S. You can use basically the same recipe for chicken, substituting garlic for the ginger & Catalina dressing for the Italian type. Still uses hoisin sauce.

    We eat variations of these frequently and actually have to put hoisin sauce on my shopping list fairly regularly!

    ReplyDelete

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