Storing Food and Organising the Fridges

Of late my household organising has totally gone to pot and I am aiming to try and restore  peace, sanity and organisation to the household especially where the fridges are concerned.  Possibly because I have not done as much as I usually do but with having the storage items in the house and lots of other tasks on top of that it has made it difficult to get things sorted and I am now making a concerted effort in order to reclaim said chaos.

I am hoping that when the floorboards go down in the loft that a lot of the angst, and not being able to find things will square up a lot of the issues I currently have by removing stuff out of the dining room where the fridges are stored.  Notably in the first instance all the Christmas decorations (and there are a lot of them) are to have their permanent home in the loft as it is stuff that only comes out once a year. 

The fridges need stripping out and cleaning in any event which is all part and parcel of the kitchen deep clean.

The Pantry will also be stripped out as part of the deep clean and under the stairs will also be stripped out and cleaned.  These are my main storage areas for storing food in this house.  

However in the shed I also have three freezers; two upright freezers and a deep chest freezer.  These are empty at the moment and will need their spring clean and then I can start squirrelling away meat and food to get us through to next year.  

There are also two wine coolers one of which is intended to be a charcuterie cave (have not got there yet but something I am going to be looking further into). I hope to do some home made charcuterie sometime in September.

As food is getting expensive and as I am trying to put up what I can across several different ways of preserving, I have been looking more into better methods of actually storing fresh food in the fridge to get the maximum shelf life out of it.   I came across this video on You Tube recently which I think is very helpful and which some of the ideas I intend to use.

https://youtu.be/NRQsM3lpdWE

I use a lot of celery, carrots and onions as a base for starting off my cooking so it makes sense to get the most out of the ingredients that I am buying.  I also use odds and ends of vegetables for making my own stir fry mixes and I make my own stock both vegetable and chicken stock in my slow cooker.  Means I can get a nice rich stock and not have to nurse the cooker and be able to get on with other stuff.

I have on a separate project sown an awful lot of seeds and am hoping that I get a bit of a winter vegetable garden this year - not parsnips I was too late for the sowing but I have near enough sown everything else and am hoping that I get something even if I have to freeze what I grow.  We like our food in this house.

I intend to go for a walk with Missy sometime later this week as the blackberries are starting to blacken and I want to have some bramble and apple jelly and also bramble jam, and some blackberry liqueur.  I also hope to be able to freeze some as well. Nothing nicer than wild bramble and apples turned into a simple tasty pudding like Tarte Tatin, sponge, pie with lots of custard or cream.

As I have mentioned before I believe that there are some Rowan berries to be had this year as well.  I did not manage to get any Rowan berries last year so I intend to make some this year.

I also have plans to make some piccalilli and bottled pears in syrup,  Lemon marmalade, lemon and ginger marmalade as well as lots of other useful bits and bobs but until the storage is clean there will be no point in doing this as it needs to be able to go into the relevant storage area.  I am also looking forward to Victoria plums as I have bottled plums, chutney, plum jelly, plum jam, plum and apple jam, and some plum membrillo.

I also have some rhubarb that needs cutting and turning into syrup and pudding mix for the freezer. OH is partial to a crumble. I am hoping OH is going to help me get sorted here as we really do need to do a deep clean of the shed as well.  Then I can get some more wine on the go as that can be left in there to work out of the way and we should have some drinkables ready for Christmas.  I am doing what I can in that regard already. I also have in mind to do several batches of orange, lemon and grapefruit wine.  I also intend to bottle some grapefruit.

Fingers crossed and toes plaited.  Lots and lots to do as usual. so potentially cleaning all week as well as doing stuff in the garden as well. Once the kitchen is clean the preserving can take place which is likely to be slotted in where I have  a small run of time and I want to get the Canner on the go.  So lots and lots to do and plenty of plans as well.

Catch you all later.

Pattypan

x