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Well, does the cool temp in the fridge -- 38F or so -- prevent utensil bacteria from contaminating the mayo, etc.?
The cold temp would keep the bacteria from multiplying, I think. We use the squeeze Mayo, so I don't have to worry about contamination from utensils. With pickles or olives, which we refrigerate, I imagine the brine kills everything.
I keep some things in the fridge most people wouldnt.
Bread - we dont eat it fast enough and it gets moldy fast if I dont
Tomatoes - I like them cold if they are on a sandwich or in a salad.
Onions - same as tomatoes
Ketchup/Mustard - I prefer the flavor when it is cold as well
Jams/Jellies - see ketchup/mustard
Salad dressing - see ketchup/mustard
I know none of those things NEED to be refrigerated (except bread in my case) but I just like the taste better when they are cold.
The various apartments I lived in before I bought my first house didn't have them either.
My first house had one....but it was a very shallow series of shelves built into the kitchen wall. I've seen medicine cabinets deeper than that pantry.
My current house has a pantry, and a good sized one--not walk in, but coat closet size, which is pretty big. My sister and I have lived here for two years now, and it took us some time, but we've gradually gotten used to using it for more things, and not necessarily putting all items in the fridge.
As a rule, I try to avoid refrigeration whenever possible. And I avoid the freezer almost entirely. What frustrates me is American supermarkets selling everything in large portions. I am a single person and I never use what I buy right away, so much of it either gets tossed or winds up in the back of the freezer. And defrosted food of course never tastes as good as fresh.
You can get just about everything in small sizes from milk to canned goods, tomatoe paste to brownie mix.
Nothing like downsizing to one kitchen fridge and one beer fridge. SO almost evicted the daffodil bulbs. The kitchen fridge is counter depth for looks not to mention something sticking out would be a bruise magnet for me.
Fruit, veggies, salad, juice, milk, eggs, cheese, some condiments. An occasional leftover. This pantry is not a walk in but shelves are 3 1/2 feet deep, spaced for cans, mason jars and stackable plastic to 14 feet. Spices are in racks covering both doors. Water/juice is in milk crates at the bottom and the infamous 40 pound bag of rice.
The cold temp would keep the bacteria from multiplying, I think. We use the squeeze Mayo, so I don't have to worry about contamination from utensils. With pickles or olives, which we refrigerate, I imagine the brine kills everything.
We also buy the squeeze mustards.
Yes. Whatever gets in there isn't going to rapidly multiply below 40 degrees.
(putting it here instead of in House because one of the decisions in the end is to eat it)
How well do we know our pantries? Of what is in there and how long it has been around?
In the apartments, it was a long closet, floor to ceiling, in one wall of the entry way to the kitchen. Lots of room, but things very quickly got buried in the back. In the rental house, it was under stairway where it was narrower so slightly easier to see things, but probably less room.
Here in the ranch house, it is a wide closet behind french doors.
This morning, I decided to make pancakes and was looking for some open flour. I have plastic coffee bins of all kinds, but I was find more cans that had been in there forever, chicken gumbo best by 2015, than the flour (eventually did). Found things, like a jar of lumpfish caviar, which made me feel like the dead oceanographer who stocked NR-1 with all sorts of exotics.....that they found many years after his demise.
So how well do we know our pantries? How often do we organize them? Is it a seasonal thing, once in a year, or "Wow.....I guess it is time."?
(putting it here instead of in House because one of the decisions in the end is to eat it)
How well do we know our pantries? Of what is in there and how long it has been around?
In the apartments, it was a long closet, floor to ceiling, in one wall of the entry way to the kitchen. Lots of room, but things very quickly got buried in the back. In the rental house, it was under stairway where it was narrower so slightly easier to see things, but probably less room.
Here in the ranch house, it is a wide closet behind french doors.
This morning, I decided to make pancakes and was looking for some open flour. I have plastic coffee bins of all kinds, but I was find more cans that had been in there forever, chicken gumbo best by 2015, than the flour (eventually did). Found things, like a jar of lumpfish caviar, which made me feel like the dead oceanographer who stocked NR-1 with all sorts of exotics.....that they found many years after his demise.
So how well do we know our pantries? How often do we organize them? Is it a seasonal thing, once in a year, or "Wow.....I guess it is time."?
Just did some review and tossing out this AM. But it happens just when I think of it or when the shelves are too full...that means something is usually out of date.
Just did some review and tossing out this AM. But it happens just when I think of it or when the shelves are too full...that means something is usually out of date.
Right now, they aren't too full around here because they got seriously jumbled at the last camping trip in Spring. I went through, grabbed all the spices I thought would be useful, grabbed other supplies from peanut butter to olive oil. Then when I got back, things eventually got back on the shelf....in jumbled order.
One thing I noticed today were supplies from a previous way of eating. I haven't eaten canned gumbo since the apartments, maybe the rental house. I guess in moving from reality to my fantasy (of the ranch), things just shifted. That makes sense in a way since at the ranch, I have a chest freezer, and have much the greater capacity to have types of frozen fish around (even if it is chicken gumbo), and I am more cooking from that.
However, so those poor gumbos did not die in vain, I should inventory those cans and add the older to my current diet.
One of the major storage points, say an 8th or a 12th of the pantry, is what I call my out of work supply which is essentially oodles and oodles of canned spaghetti. Back around 2011, I was introduced to Chef B'orardi (and the like), I never knew about it before, and it being so cheap, I bought up massive amounts........before I found out what was in it. After I did, I shied away it, kept it around as the out of work supply (well, that's insurance, once you have it, you don't need it). As said, however, I should inventory it and then, like the US submarine in WWII which is loaded with supplies for the garrison that then fell, have to eat my way through it.
Which comes down to another point of my pantry where I want it to be stuffed to the gills, be it because just in case I get snowed in or other reason of not being able to get to the grocery store. Admittedly, I am not the most efficient when it comes to use of space in the pantry.
I adore croutons. Use them at the bottom of a bowl of pasta, in salads, with stews. When I come home from the store, say with 15-20 bags, I just find their place by throwing them on the top shelf of the pantry, wherever they may fall, such on the top of my head. In the rental house under the stairs, there was a hook, and I put them there in a mesh bag. Now that there is more room, I guess I buy them more out of control.
So there lies another question of does the pantry entertain some like how I see my video library. That is, "Pantry, I'm HUN-GRY! How can you feed me today?"
Now, I don't approach my pantry like that (it is paraphrasing Ming from 1980 Flash Gordon) for by the time I get home, I usually know what I want to eat.......but maybe I should, so I know more of what is in there.
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The pantry
