Cleaning out the frig

I once bought one . . . it didn't fit into the slot. That frig was still under warranty at the time . . . it went through three compressors, the first two under warranty so they cost nothing. I paid $200 for the last and left the frig with the house when I moved.

Anyway, I asked the repairman about brushing the coils and told him that my vacuum didn't fit and neither did the brush. He smiled and said that no one's vacuum fits . . . neither do most brushes. It's a rip off, he added.

This frig is from 1999 and it, too, is in poor health. It is also shimmed up to the max. In my 100+ year old house, none of the floors are level but the kitchen, which I think is a circa 1920 addition, is the worst.

When I moved here, the movers put in all the furniture while I finished up things and waited for my new car. I walked into the kitchen to see my china cabinet at such a severe angle that the doors would not close! First thing I did, was paint the kitchen, then I shimmed up the cabinet.

This kitchen is not well arranged. The frig should be where the cabinet is . . . steps away from the dining room door but not far from the stove. It is now in an alcove that should be storage space.

Plus it is a side-by-side frig with a tiny freezer and it has a water and ice dispenser, which I would never have. Can not afford to replace it.

how about taking a can of compressed air and blast away at the coils? The cans of air come with that long skinny attachment tube that can fit anywhere.

Might make a mess while you're doing it, but when the dust settles, you can sweep it up.

I gave up on cooking large batches of stuff.

There's always something on sale when I go to the store.
I'll freeze cooked foods that will make another meal for the 2 of us, like navy beans, or a pork loin, but I don't freeze uncooked food.

Whatever's in my freezer, like frozen vegetables, or cooked food I can prepare a meal around, get's rotated quickly.

In my fridge, I don't let lots of different stuff accumulate, that wastes money.

For me, it doesn't make sense to buy some exotic ingredient for something I'm only going to prepare once in a blue moon.
I'd rather go out once when I have a craving for some fancy thing, and pay $20 for it, then have $40 worth of stuff in my refridgerator, that will go bad before I get to use it twice.
Sometimes home cooking for everything can be a false economy.
I've never pulled everything out of my freezer and looked at it, cutting off freezer burn, etc. That's wasting a lot of my time, and effort which is worth more than the dollar I save by cutting off ruined pieces of frozen food. I'd probably end up cutting myself anyway.
I don't mean this as an insult to you POM, just thinking about doing that sounds pretty nasty, time consuming, and penny wise, pound foolish.

Maybe you would be better off figuring out which restaurants in your area offer buy one, get one specials. Then, when you leave one of your long distance jobs, you could call ahead for a take away order. You'd get 2 nice meals for the price on one. Probably at a lesser price than if you had to buy all the ingredients and make it yourself.

Just a thought.

Actually, it is less expensive to run a freezer that is full than a freezer that is partially full.

I have too little time to shop more than once a week. I never pay more than $4/pound for meat, off the bone, and I use sales to stock up. Although I generally make my own stock, a sale on canned soup can be a boon, just as a sale on whole tomatoes in those combination packages is. When Cabot cheese goes on sale, I generally buy 10 8-ounce packages. A pound of cheese is generally offered at less than a half pound block. Any less than 5 pounds purchased means that I will run out before the next regular sale. King Arthur flour sometimes goes on sale at a supermarket near one of my jobs at about 30% less than the cost of buying it from KA itself.

Any restaurant costs more than purchasing and cooking my own food. Even the popular three courses for $20 is more expensive than cooking my own. As my son lives with me, dinner would cost $40. I might go to the store and feed the two humans and the three cats for under $100/week plus a trip to the bakery for bread and a local farm for milk and eggs. I detest the taste of take away by the time it reaches home. It is generally soggy as well. Finally, a lot of restaurant food just isn't that good. Why should I pay more money for food that might not taste as good as the food I cook?

As far as time is concerned, eating at a restaurant seldom saves time. I had to grab something about a week ago and called a burger place. I was delayed in getting there, so that 25 minutes passed between my call and my arrival. I expected my food to be at the cash register. It was not. There were two customers ahead of me when I arrived, I paid then waited another 12 minutes for my order.

The sandwich steaks were in the frig too long. Cutting off the freezer burn took about a minute. It would have been a false economy to have thrown them away. The point of this thread is supposed to be that some delicious things can happen when one looks at left overs.

We'll see, and thank you.. will let you know tomorrow.

I am not presently able to toss a fridge around. I figure the coils have some corgi hair or heater dust. We'll see.

Chai, you live a luxe life, not that that is a bad thing. But you don't understand some of us. Some of us can't do that twenty dollars, or have the refrigerator food go bad.

"I'd rather go out once when I have a craving for some fancy thing, and pay $20 for it, then have $40 worth of stuff in my refridgerator, that will go bad before I get to use it twice.
Sometimes home cooking for everything can be a false economy.
I've never pulled everything out of my freezer and looked at it, cutting off freezer burn, etc. That's wasting a l"

I hear what you're saying POM.

I threw that $20 figure out there at random. Meaning for an extra special meal, like (being facetious here) if I wanted quail eggs and peacock liver.

If you don't like restaurant food 1/2 to an hour after it's cooked, and reheated at home, that's valid.
Me, I'm not that fussy.
Not saying that to compare us, or to indicate one way is better than the other.

I just don't notice if there's a hint too much tarragon (I don't even know what that tastes like) or if there's not quite enough saffron or something (I don't know what that tastes like either. I'm sure I've had both, just never scrutinized it). I'm just as happy with a peanut butter and jelly sammich.

If I'm going to get a take-away, I don't buy something that's going to get soggy, or gain some other unattractive trait. But if I have a BOGO coupon where I can get 2 pot roast dinners for the price of one, and I drive past that restaurant on the way home, for me, that's a no brainer. For what? 7 bucks I get 2 dinners and someones lunch for the next day. Pot roast tastes better the next day.

What's in my freezer right now?
Well, it IS fairly full POM, just with stuff that gets rotated quickly, so never has to get tossed or get chunks cut off.

Lesse, without looking.....I got a couple of pork loins I'd cooked (bought on sale), because I know they freeze well. Some baby back ribs (again on sale) I made a shitload of about 2 months back. They are ready to thaw and eat. Some (raw) venison. The vension came back with Wally from when he went to Illnois last month. His BIL hunts for all his meat (a bow hunter), and he killed and processed (himself) 20 deer last year.
Other than that, frozen veggies, a couple of shrimp scampi (bought with a coupone) ready to prepare meals (which I add pasta to), a couple of bags of frozen basa fish. That's about it, and it comfortably fills the freezer. I don't think anything stays in my freezer more than 3 months, max.

Some weeks I don't even have to go to the store. I just don't make a big deal of waiting for sales, because as I said, somethings always on sale. Maybe I'll do a quick run in for bread, or fruit or vegetables.

Plain Old Me, I guess I'm just plain old plain when it comes to what I'm satisfied eating. Big priority for me is that it's healthy and nutritious.

Anyway, that's what I meant by false economy. If I can get cooked meals where I don't have do the labor of cooking, heating up the kitchen, cleaning up, (all of which uses electric or gas energy) and I can get it as a two-fer or at a good price, I'm gonna do it.
Leaves me more time to play the stock market, which is more profitable for me.

osso....I live the light of luxe? Gimme a break.
There's things I don't spend any money on, like booze or fancy snacky items or a fancy schmancy spice or tidbits. So, I have the extra buck or two to spend on what I want.

A long time ago, when the two kids in their 30s were toddlers, my ex gave me some extra money when he was on a business trip. We were going to do the Make Way for Ducklings walk that week anyway, so the money was handy.

We went to Denny's, a chain that I had not previously visited and never visited again. The meal was awful. The kids meal came with soda, not milk or juice. Mine was totally unsatisfying. After the Duckling walk, we went to a cafe-and-bookstore on Newbury Street. It was elegant. They seated us on the balcony although the hostess had signaled me with raised eyebrows that this was not a place for small kids. I ordered two plowman's lunches, which was a popular lunch at the time, featuring cheese, crudities, gerkins, mustard and a baguette. The kids split one and had orange juice with their meal. I ate one by myself with coffee. The second lunch was more nutritious and cost less. It was also tastier.

I have a standard meal that I use to test a restaurant: fish and chips. When my youngest was (perhaps) in middle school, he wanted me to take him to Chili's because a classmate had told him about it. I thought his ribs were cut far to close to the bone . . . there was no meat there. I ordered fish and chips as that is generally a meal that can't be messed up. It was awful.

I had an interesting discussion with a woman who is a retired lawyer who actually had to travel the circuit which meant fast food. She said that all the meals were meat and starch without vegetables. I took the bus in March to Syracuse to visit my grandkids (I thought there might be a late snow storm), which meant that I was stuck with fast food. The Greyhound cafeteria and McDonald's. There is no safe fast food. The fish sandwich at Greyhound was deep fried but still partially frozen. It was a combo of raw and greasily overcooked, like mushy sushi and burnt breading. The salad at McD's was black around the edges, the cheese was dried out and the chicken tasted bad.

I went to a nice restaurant with another adjunct to celebrate the last day of classes to a restaurant with a reputation. We sat at the bar where a less expensive menu is offered. All entrees were $8-12. So, I ordered a lobster roll and the clam chowder which was only $1.50 rather than $3.50.

The chowder was too thick although some of the potatoes were raw. There was little flavor to it. I never eat wonder bread type breads and I knew that a lobster roll means a hot dog bun. It is hard to spoil lobster and this was fine although it could have used a little more mayo.

While we ate, we watched the bar chef make up wasabi. He put water into a bucket and then added the contents of plastic bag of wasabi powder. Every few minutes, he rotated the bucket. All we could think of was that saying about how no one should watch sausage or laws being made.

There are restaurants I love. I like good bar food. Because I am a clumsy fryer, I like a good meal at a diner. But, I want a meal to be worth what I pay for it and the only way that is going to happen is to go to restaurants I trust where the food is consistent . . . but . . . if I can do that once a month, that is exceptional.. .or I can fix it myself.

Yes, I discover many things during empty my fridge, like pizza pieces, beer bottles, almost empty cheese cans etc.

Yes that's a natural thing. While cleaning the fridge there are many things I find many things.