Make your fridge be nice to you.

I did it – for the first time since moving last summer, I cleaned my fridge from top to bottom. I deem that confession revealing enough that a ‘Before’ picture is unnecessary.  Ha. This is what it looked like After. So sparkly that one should wear sunglasses when fetching a glass of milk. I also rearranged the shelves  for optimum storage, and chose designated shelves for certain items. This fridge was new-to-us last summer, and I had not yet rearranged a thing. If you have not done so, I encourage you to analyze your fridge usage and try a new shelf arrangement. It has really cut down on frustration for me this week! I can go to the fridge and take something out with one hand, instead of juggling and shifting. I can tell Jeremy right where something is in the fridge, because – at least on the door – everything has an assigned spot. Very helpful. Make your fridge be nice to you. The Spring Cleaning Challenge over at Nourishing Gourmet was just what I needed.

1. Fresh, Whole milk from the nearest dairy farm.
2. Home canned pear-grape juice made last summer. Turned out a bit tart. I use it for taking medicine. 🙂
3. Fresh batch of Homemade Whey. I use this mostly for when I soak my bread and batters overnight, but it has lots of nutritional uses. I make usually turn 1/2 gallon of milk into this and #5 once a month.
4. Yancy’s Fancy Cheese curds – this pregnant mommy’s favorite protein snack. Lovely with homemade wheat thins.
5. Homemade Cream Cheese – a byproduct of #3. Used succesfully in cream cheese frosting on a carrot cake yesterday – HOORAY! 🙂
6. Beet Kvass. My friend and mentor-in-all-things-nourishing made this for me. A true friend. I really, really, need to start drinking it every day. It’s not something I’m naturally fond of, but it’s so good for me, so I need to make it habit. (There’s another quart of it behind the whey – I really need to get drinking that stuff. Great source of iron for this pregnant momma. 
7. Dough for Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day – recipe here. This was yummy, %100 whole wheat bread – one of my better attempts so far in the area of whole wheat, soaked bread. And stinkin’ easy.Pardon my slang.
8. This week’s salad dressing – Homemade Poppy Seed. Recipe coming soon.
Left of #8 – forgot to give it a number – my Kombucha Mushroom, waiting patiently for the next time I make a batch. 
9. Half and half, skimmed off the top of a gallon of fresh milk (see #1). This is where buying our milk fresh, whole, and un-homogenized (at $2 a gallon) really starts to save us money. You can make it into so many things! I save a couple dollars a week not having to buy half-and-half, not to mention the yogurt, cream cheese, whey, creamy soups and ICE CREAM I make every week. Oh yum. Oh, so much money saved.
10. I saved the best for last. Why, you ask, does she have her deodorant in the fridge?????

I’ll tell you all about it in my next post….:)