The Refrigerator Challenge

Although I've always loved to cook, you may have noticed that lately it's taken on a whole new zeal for me as I am constantly making new things for the Recipe Shoebox. As part of this new zeal I've also developed a whole system for finding and organizing my recipes. It's one of the small sections of my life I actually consider organized.

Unfortunately organizing my recipes has not rubbed off on the state of my refrigerator. I consider that my refrigerator is merely a symptom of the rest of my life--cluttered and disorganized. At any given moment I probably have at least two open bottles of ketchup, the mostly empty dredges of several bags of shredded cheese, and some long forgotten yogurts that have gotten stuck in the back.

Occasionally I get a bug to clean it out (or bribe some unsuspecting relative to do it for me), but for the most part I am content in the state of my refrigerator. Ask me for the feta cheese or the tomatillos and within 11.4 seconds I can pull it out for you. You may end up with some dried cheese chunks on your foot in the process, but at least they're cheese chunks that have lived a long and happy life on the shelves of our fridge.

A couple of weeks ago after dropping another $200 at the grocery store and barely being able to squeeze it all into my fridge I decided that I needed some professional refrigerator assistance. I looked in the phone book for Refrigerator Assistants and came up empty, then several days later I came across this entry on my friend Ashby's blog about how she endeavored on a "Eat-What-We've-Got-Challenge". Her mission was to not go to the store (or to a restaurant) for an entire week and just make do with what she already had in the house.

It was just the inspiration I needed. That same day I took an inventory of my fridge (YIKES!) and started making a new menu based on the ingredients I already had in the house. No last minute trips for a couple of ingredients....NO STORES AT ALL! I had some random fruits and vegetables, a little cheese, some assorted dairy products, and my food storage. It was set to be culinary creativity at its best...

To be continued....