Earlier this week Natural New Age Mum asked if I would share a photograph of inside my fridge and write a blog post to go along with it as part of a blog hop – see the links below to snoop inside other bloggers’ refrigerators.
After saying yes, I went to my fridge to check some used-by dates only to discover (shock horror!) jars of olives and sun-dried tomatoes that had been there a little longer than the ‘two weeks after opening’ recommendation. I emptied the contents and washed the jars and immediately upcycled them into a decoupaged and jeweled hanging candle holders (not really, they’re still sitting next to the sink waiting to be washed, but indulge me for a moment).
The second thing I did was scrape away a blob of unidentified syrup-looking gloop that could outdo superglue for adhesiveness and had found its way onto the second shelf. I am sure your fridge has nothing like this in it! While I was there I grabbed a cloth and wiped down all the shelves and trays so that I could pretend my fridge is always sparkling clean.
The third thing I did was turn my house upside down trying to find a decent camera. I found three digital cameras and a box for a fourth, but could not find a ‘complete set’ consisting of camera, battery, memory stick and cable. This may have something to do with the tiny army who occupy our house who like to open drawers … and a mother (who me?) who should take better care of important property. So, I had to use my iPhone to take the pics of my fridge.
You thought I was kidding.
Now for the fun part. I’ll share a few photographs and explain what is in them. I make most of my family’s food from scratch and I follow many traditional food preparation and preservation methods. My father refers to my kitchen as demon-possessed because there are always a hundred jars and utensils and pots and appliances, and no matter how many loads of dishes you wash, there is always more. These are the realities of a real-food kitchen and I’ll take it any day.
Here’s the distance shot -
And now here are some close-ups of the different shelves.
Top shelf
Top shelf: At this time of year I try to keep a ready-to-go salad made in the fridge that I can nibble on or add to a meal at any time. This one has red cabbage and leeks and baby spinach.
I also like to have a salad dressing available. This one has macadamia oil, freshly-pressed orange juice, apple cider vinegar, fresh ginger and probably some other ingredients that I can’t recall.
There are always sprouts and micro-greens in our house, either soaking, sprouting, growing or in the fridge and ready to consume. My two-year old loves these ones – lentil sprouts.
Raw milk yoghurt. I make this from raw (unpastuerised and unhomogenised) organic milk. I make a batch every 1-2 weeks.
Second shelf
Second shelf: There is a lettuce, half an avocado and some leeks on the left. On the right is a heap of dehydrated fruit that I have made, including bananas, apples and mulberries. If I dehydrate them to a crisp then I store them in the pantry, but in warmer weather and when they are still a bit squishy I keep them in the fridge.
I make these little probiotic jellies for my children using water kefir, fresh orange juice, raw honey and grass-fed gelatin. They think they are getting a treat. I know they are getting a treat-ment.
Shelf three
Third shelf: Not much to see here. Some papaya, watermelon (with seeds!) and pumpkin. The eggs are certified organic, local and free-range. Our current house block is not large enough to legally keep chickens (we only get tiny eggs from our tiny quail), but we hope before too long that we’ll have our own eggs.
Shelf four
Fourth shelf: More vegetables, specifically a couple of bunches of kale. On the right are some Fido jars containing various ferments. I love lacto-fermenting and I am sure that one of the reasons I rarely get sick is because I eat probiotic-rich fermented foods. There are two varieties of sauerkraut, some kimchi, red onions, carrot and ginger.
Fifth Shelf and Vege Drawer
Fifth shelf and vege drawer: More seasonal organic produce. There’s carrots, squash, eggplant, chard, silverbeet, beetroot, corn, baby spinach, salad greens, cabbage, cucumbers and zucchini.
Dairy tray
Dairy tray: butter, cheese, feta cheese. I’ve been shown how to make feta by my mother but I am still buying it at the moment. Hopefully within a year or two we will have our own jersey cow and I will be making all our own dairy products. I prefer raw milk butter when I can get it, both for consuming and for making ghee. This tray also has some ginger and some medjool dates, which only make their way into the fridge during warm weather.
Side door tray 1
Side door tray one: Fermented fruit paste, some of Informed Papa’s natural treatments (I have no idea what they are) and pectin for making jam.
Side door tray 2
Side door tray two: bottles and jars. There’s some organic tomato paste, homemade tomato sauce (I make about six months supply at a time and am panicking because this is my last jar and I have limited tomatoes in the garden and am having trouble sourcing bulk organic tomatoes at the moment, even though I run an organic bulk buying group - eek!), some resting water kefir grains, jams (I am aware of the irony that I have pectin on the shelf above my store-bought jams), some iron tonic and a jar of whey strained from my homemade raw yoghurt.
Side door tray 3
Side door tray three: Every week or so I grind a mixture of seeds together (hemp, sesame, sunflower, pepitas, flax). I sprinkle this on anything and everything. I also add it to many baked goods. Annnnnd some more vegetables are there on the right.
Side door tray 4
Side door tray four: Two types of fermented cod liver oil (one liquid and one paste), some liquid colloidal minerals which I try to take every day but actually only remember to once or twice a week, and bone broth. I make bone broth every fortnight and as well as drinking it straight, I use it in many meals.
Side door tray 5
Side door tray five: And finally we have the bottom shelf. Here you’ll find water kefir and raw milk which is local and organic (unhomogenised and unpasteurised). It is labeled and sold as bath milk as it is illegal in Australia for a seller to claim you can drink raw milk, so there is a ‘not for human consumption’ sticker on it. There is usually a carton of rice milk on this shelf too, which Informed Papa drinks. I have tried making him every type of nut/seed/rice milk/mylk I can think of and he still prefers the shop-bought variety. Even the smell of it makes me gag.
So that’s it! That’s what’s in my fridge on any typical day. If you’re looking for the chocolate, it’s in the pantry. I have two pantries. Here’s a sneak peak inside one of them. And if you would like to see inside the other one, I will need at least three hours -and preferably three days- notice please!
Inside my pantry
Thank you Natural New Age Mum for inviting me to be part of this. I hope everyone enjoys fridge-hopping!
(I am having trouble getting the blog hop links to display on this page, despite having a paid site… To see the other participants in this blog hop click the link below and check out their awesome blogs – and fridges!)
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Filed under: Food, Homemade, Radical Homemaking Tagged: fermented foods, fridge, homemade, kimchi, lacto-fermented foods, milk, raw, rice milk, sauerkraut
