The One About Refrigerators

Amber: Monica.

Tia: Monica

Amber: Welcome to Hey Monica, the podcast that helps you drop the perfectionism to make space for what really matters in your home, in your food, and in your life. I'm Amber, a weight inclusive licensed nutritionist and founder of Whole You Nutrition and Meal Planning Collective

Tia: And I'm Tia, a professional home organizer and founder of Room For Serenity. On today's show, we are talking about refrigerators. Last week it was freezers, so it just makes sense to talk about fridges. But first, confessions. Amber, do you wanna kick us off?

Amber: Okay, this is a fridge related confession/update. So in our clutter culture episode, we were talking about there was this correlation between the amount of stuff that people have refrigerator and kind of the amount of stuff they have in the rest of their house. And I feel like I very smugly said, "I only have one magnet on my refrigerator," which I thought was true at the time. But then later, I was looking at my refrigerator, and I was like, "Wait, there's not just one magnet on my refrigerator. There are six." And I know this sounds silly because they're like clustered at the top. I dropped a picture into our notes so Tia can see my refrigerator.

Amber: It is still mostly a blank space,

Tia: Yes

Amber: but I want, I wanted to be honest. I wanted to be truthful. So there are six magnets on the front of my refrigerator and then magnet shelves on the side with some plants

Tia: dare you? How dare you

Amber: Yeah, you can you can roast me on social media if you wanna use this picture.

Tia: Actually, we should do a side by side because if you look at my fridge, it is just got- it's got kids art and magnets and notes about different Um, yeah. You have a much more orderly looking fridge face, front than I do

Amber: Do you think it is also just a reflection of, like, the differences in our lives too? have young children. You have, I think you said there were nieces and nephews up

Tia: Yeah. Yeah.

Amber: I don't have children. My brother also does not have children, so it's like I don't have the same sort of like kid art or

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: displaying on a regular basis. So

Tia: I,

Amber: just part

Tia: Yeah. before kids, I think I had maybe six to 12 magnets just from different places that I lived or, like, with little funny phrases that I thought were Um, but they were always on the side of the, my fridge, not on the front, so the front always looked so nice and clean and whatever. But yeah, with kids um, can I say what my confession is?

Amber: I would love to hear what your confession is,

Tia: Okay. So I believe maybe in an upcoming episode we might be talking about paper organization, and when Amber brought that up as a possible topic, I was like, "Dude, I've got this fabulous five-category paper organization system that I love sharing with my I I feel like a little bit of an imposter because I give this out to my clients, but I haven't fully implemented it for myself yet. it. I've got, like, one basket for all of my mail and receipts and things that I have not yet dealt with and I need to go that's my action category, and then, um, I won't go into the other categories right now 'cause we will talk about that in a future episode, but I haven't put the rest of my stuff into those other four categories, and I think that once I do, where I put my paper will be so much easier and in your home, and I'm so excited to chat about it in our next episode or a future episode, whenever it lands.

Amber: I think it is the next episode on our plan, at least as it stands today. I'm I, I think all of us have paper clutter. I don't know, maybe I default have some systems, I'm, I'm excited to

Tia: Okay, so I say all of this just to say I have a system. I have not implemented the system yet, and I'm very much looking forward to it. So that's my, that's my confession. So yeah, let's talk about today's topic

Amber: Yeah, absolutely. Actually, before we talk about today's topic, I just wanna say one of the things that I love about doing this podcast is that when we share these confessions, they do inspire me to go and make little changes with things, to kind of like check on things in my life. So the podcast has become almost an accountability buddy

Tia: Yes,

Amber: many ways,

Tia: it totally has. Yeah

Amber: end, I can see behind Tia. It is a work in progress, but the chalkboard Christmas tree is no more. It is now a primed wall

Tia: is. It's, it's not totally done being painted yet, but I have… Yeah mm-hmm. I'm getting rid of… And you know what? It is because this podcast, it hadn't totally, if I hadn't made it a public comment that this is something that I don't like and I wish I had gotten rid of a lot, like it wouldn't have happened already. So yeah, it kind of is like an account of It's

Amber: Okay, so yes, today's today's topic, refrigerators. week we really focused on-- We talked about freezers, but we really focused on the sort of like extra deep freeze,

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: whether it's a reach-in or a freestanding freezer. And I recognize that not all of our listeners have the space, the budget, or the desire for that amount and style of food storage. Uh, but I'm guessing most slash maybe all of our listeners have a refrigerator

Tia: Yeah. Yeah,

Amber: they are

Tia: I would

Amber: I'm hoping today's episode will help everyone, whereas last week's was a little bit more specific to those

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: freezers.

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: Tia, what is the fridge situation like Tell me about your fridge.

Tia: have a French door fridge with a freezer drawer that pulls out in the bottom, um, it has the standard, like, water And, ice cube dispenser in one of the doors. I would say we, we could use a little bit more We, we have a rough, kind of a rough organized area, like, the dairy definitely area, like, in one area. Our produce and veggies goes in a separate area. Our meats and cheeses goes in… So I guess loosely we have some organization. I think we could probably do a little bit better on maybe decluttering some of our salsas or some of our condiments or things like that and, and also with our are actually… like, can we actually eat this right now?

Tia: I, don't think so. So maybe if we label it a little better, 'cause I… have never put, like, this was the date that we put this in the fridge. I… But knowing myself, I'm not that detailed I would- probably wouldn't stay on top of that. I don't know. What about

Amber: Yeah. We have a relatively small refrigerator. I think I might have mentioned it even in the freezer episode, because there's a freezer on the bottom, and it has four drawers in the freezer, and they don't hold a lot of stuff, which is part of the reason that we got an extra freezer.

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: the refrigerator is also relatively small. Um, it just has one door. It's only only counter depth, so it's not a big, deep refrigerator. And I think the biggest challenge is getting everything we buy from Costco to fit in a small refrigerator, or I also do freelance recipe development, so if I have a big recipe project and need to get a bunch of groceries,

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: there is a lot of, uh, shuffling and creative storage.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: I know where everything is in the refrigerator, but I don't think it sense to anyone else. Like, I just know from, like, a space perspective

Tia: Yes.

Amber: need to go 'cause of, like, bottle sizes Um, but it's not necessarily super clear. Which I think is thing that is maybe important to point out. It doesn't necessarily need to make sense to anyone else, as long as it makes sense to you and the creating systems and, and that Uh, and when my partner moved in, we actually added extra small, like, beverage refrigerator under our coffee setup, because we just didn't have enough room. We just needed a bit more space.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: keep, like, milk, um, sparkling water, coffee creamers, I- the big jug of maple Costco. Like, some of those things are in there. And then there's just a little bit of extra space, so there's a, a bit of overflow, and there's that I will, of tuck in there if we, if we need to have, a little bit more room.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: And then I think in terms of storage, I mentioned, I believe this was in our first that I like to use clear storage So both a mix of, like, the glass ones with the snap-on lids, and then also just mason jars, because I think being able to see everything makes a big difference. Uh, when I was a kid… I might have even mentioned this in the first episode. I mean, that was like six weeks ago. Who can remember these things? but when I was a kid, my grandma would save all kinds of containers. Like, if food came in something, she would save that container. So you never knew when you pulled something out if it was actually a tub of Cool Whip or if leftover spaghetti, like, until you opened

Tia: had the same thing going on in our house, and I don't know if it was my mom grandma, 'cause they both… My grandma lived with us for quite a bit. But same thing, the Cool Whip who- what if, if it. was a container, we kept it we reused it. Usually it would have, like, some, like, Scotch tape on top with something written on top of it, but just looking at it, you would never know.

Amber: Uh, and I think that's where my love of a clear glass container came from, although I do appreciate the thrifty nature of saving things and reusing them for other purposes. I just can't there with, uh, food packaging in that same way.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: debate whether those packages are truly in a way that makes them reusable in a safe way,

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: if they are just shedding excessive microplastics because they're not meant to be kept around and washed and reused. So

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: Everyone can make their own choices, but I'm loving a clear glass Um, so Tia, what do you think is important to keep in mind, whether we're currently doing it or not, are there some things that you about keeping… like, making your fridge functional? And not just necessarily organized, but just, like, what do we need to think about

Tia: Mm-hmm. Yeah

Amber: about our refrigerator? flashing back to all of my, like, restaurant years and all of the, like, food safe, safe serve,

Tia: Hmm.

Amber: which I think there… we'll talk about some

Tia: Yeah

Amber: like, what people do in a restaurant to store food and what you do at home aren't a one-to-one comparison. So what are some of the

Tia: Yeah. I think a lot of people might already do this just naturally anyway, but I think a good practice is before you go grocery shopping, actually do a clean sweep from, in, in your fridge, not only to see what you currently have, but also to get rid of the things that are going bad so that you can make space for the new stuff that's coming in, and then you don't have to guess like, "Was this the new thing of cheese or the old like "Which one do we do first?" the really unpleasant experience of coming back from the grocery store and not having space for So, so

Amber: I've been there.

Tia: cleaning out your fridge first before you go good idea. And then as soon as you come back from grocery shopping, giving yourself at least like a half an hour maybe, depends on how large your family is or how much you purchase for groceries, but give yourself a buffer of time after you come back to wash your produce

Amber: Yeah, we'll talk more about

Tia: We will talk more about that 'cause Amber and I have different ideas I, I am somebody who uses the soda and wa- water because I've seen studies where it re- it eliminates about 99% of the and pestifi- pesticides and all that stuff, So I use the baking soda and water rinse for my blueberries, my raspberries, my strawberries, my my like, uh, bell peppers, like any of that kind of stuff, and I immediately do that because if I don't do it immediately, I have experienced, at least in our family, that our produce goes bad faster if it's not washed right away.

And here's the thing: I don't wash it and then immediately put it into a container. I wash it, rinse it, and then I have those containers that have kinda like the drainage system already built into them, so it's like two separate containers. drain… What do you call it? It's like a colander, but it's not a colander. A l- yeah. And they're all different sizes. So I've got the smaller, little rectangular ones for like the raspberries, and then like a medium size for the blueberries, and a larger one for the strawberries, et cetera. That way, after I've rinsed it and I put it into the container, there's this like tiny little amount at the bottom between the drip tray and the actual storage container that holds the water, so it's not sitting in water and going gross and moldy faster.

And here's the thing: for us and our family, that works very well. I find that even with raspberries, when I wash them right away, they last at least a week, if not more. However, I will give a caveat that our kids love, love, love, love raspberries, so we probably don't even have raspberries all that long before they're consumed. So I will say that, and maybe it's not the best yeah, giving yourself some buffer to at least wash your produce, clean it, and put it into the fridge before it gets in there because especially with… I find with cucumbers that are… Like, if you buy the cucumbers that are already shrink-wrapped in plastic, they tend to get real bad and real nasty if you don't take that plastic off, give them a nice clean, and they need to breathe.

And here's the thing: Your cucumbers need to breathe. So I don't know. What do you think, Amber? You've got… It sounds like you've got some thoughts on this.

Amber: yeah, I have literally not one time washed produce when I got home from the grocery store. Not a single time in

Tia: but then

Amber: done that.

Tia: when you, but then when you get the craving for like, "I would love some blueberries on my yogurt," then what do you do? You like, you stop and

Amber: some in my hand and I rinse them off and I throw them on my yogurt.

Amber: Or I put them in a little bowl and I rinse them with water and drain the water out, and then

Tia: Gosh.

Amber: long

Tia: are, are they organic?

Amber: I don't care

Tia: Oh My gosh. for me here. this is why I care so much. My had, like, bone marrow cancer had, like, very strict um, with this natural remedy that She was doing canned. Nothing canned, nothing frozen, everything fresh, da, da, da. and, like, no pesticides and all… So we were very extremely conscious of eating clean, eating organic, And like, making sure that we didn't have anything with to this… And that was 10 years ago. So to this day, whenever I purchase something that's not organic, I feel a little guilty. Like, why am I putting this in my body? And then if I do purchase something organic, I still go the extra level to really clean it well before I-- And of course, starving, and I'll just rinse it off and eat it, sure.

Tia: But then in the back of my mind, I'm like, "I shouldn't have done that." Like, you didn't clean your produce well enough. So there's the whole gamut, but that's kind of the backstory where I'm coming from.

Amber: No, totally understand that, and I appreciate that people have different views on this. Part of my is sprayed on the fruits and… Like, the

Tia: Hmm.

Amber: you get from eating produce outweighs has been sprayed on the produce. in addition, organic doesn't mean chemical-free, it just means the chemicals come from a different place. Like, they

Tia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amber: farming too, they're just different, and I don't know that we really know if they're better for us or not. So I just don't

Tia: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm

Amber: especially recently, like price point makes a huge difference, and I'm

Tia: It really does.

Amber: much to buy organic blueberries.

Tia: know

Amber: happily buy just the regular non-organic blueberries, because I'd rather eat them than not.

Tia: Yeah, that's a really good point. Mm-hmm

Amber: I really don't use organic as a point of differentiation anymore. I will say that has changed over the course of my life. There was a time when I was much more organic, but I also feel like it was a time that I was also much more disordered in my thinking around food, and, um, the whole clean eating thing, and I think it, it got to an extreme, and it's just, it's not good for me to be that focused on it, and I'd

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: buy food and eat

Tia: Yeah

Amber: and I tend to store the produce often in the containers that it comes in, because I feel like there's a reason they were designed the way that they were designed,

Tia: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Amber: you know, in terms of like protecting the food through travel and keeping it as fresh as possible while it's at I just like leave it in that. Plus, we tend to go through produce pretty quickly,

Tia: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Amber: it's not necessarily a huge concern. I mean, do we have things that go bad every once in a while? Sure. I've definitely had the like half a cucumber that's like a squishy, watery mess

Tia: Yes.

Amber: the refrigerator. um, I'm pretty aware of what we have and making a point of using it up, and I just cannot be bothered to wash it

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: I get home.

Tia: You know what I really love about our podcast is that you and I are, like, on the opposite end of the spectrum on so many things. I love it because It's like the there's al- I feel like our audience will always have one of us to relate to because we're so different

Amber: At the end of the day, we're both living and like getting through life, so it not just one one do things.

Tia: Exactly. Yeah.

Amber: that.

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: Um, okay, so one thing, we talked about this with freezers. You had brought it up when we were talking about freezers last week, that there are different temperature or freezer unit. So can you kind of walk through with refrigerators,

Tia: Yeah

Amber: think about and like what that means we should keep in certain areas or maybe not keep in other areas?

Tia: Yeah. So let's start from the top. Uh, the upper shelves are-- the warmest and most consistent are-- that's a really great space to put your ready-to-eat foods, your leftovers, um, your berries, your drinks, your herbs, anything is like you just take it straight out and eat it. Okay? Then your lower shelves are the coldest shelves. Those are for the foods that are a little bit more temperature sensitive, like dairy, eggs, raw meat, seafood. You definitely want to keep those in a very cool environment, so the lower shelves are the best for those. and then for the raw meats, those should really be on the bottom-most shelf, if at all possible, with a rimmed tray or container so that if anything does drip, 'cause they do sometimes, you don't, you're not stuck in this mess of it dripping down onto your produce or dripping down onto your eggs or milk or whatever.

Tia: It's contained, and all you need to do is clean that rimmed tray or container. Or maybe if it's just one drawer that is only for meats and it's the bottom-most drawer, then all you have to do is clean out that drawer, right? So that's, that's a hot tip. Then let's talk about the door 'cause I think a lot of people forget about the fact that the door might have some different temperature considerations. So that's the warmest, and it's subject to the most fluctuation, which isn't surprising 'cause it's the thing that we open, and it's exposed to our warm air in our house,

Amber: Yeah.

Tia: most often.

Amber: the compressor vents and that sort of are in the refrigerator kind of like circulating the air. Those tend to be on the back or maybe on the side, but they're like farthest away from the door.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: my mind because if you ever see advertisements for refrigerators, there are eggs and in the door. Like, that is what manufacturer, like they design the door, especially in the newer fridges, to hold like a gallon of milk. quickly-

Tia: I've totally done that. Yeah, I've totally done that before. I've kept milk in the door of the fridge before 'cause that's been the most convenient space Actually, no. Growing up, we had eggs in the door of the fridge, We did, 'cause there was a specific egg space in the fridge, in the door. So

Amber: Sometimes a little

Tia: not a great idea. So if you're doing that, it might be a better idea to put those eggs and milk in kind of the lower colder shelving areas of your fridge, not So the door would be better for like condiments, sauces, high acidic stuff Yeah. it's where things are just gonna spoil the fastest. and then we've got our crisper drawers, I wish, I wish we had an audience right now, and I wish I could say, like, "Raise your hand if you actually use the crisper drawer for what it's meant to be used for." Because I think there's been definitely moments where we've got the most random stuff in our crisper drawer, and it's nothing to do with produce, just because it's more convenient to put it there than elsewhere.

Tia: But let me just talk from a temperature perspective why the crisper drawer So is, um, high humidity, so it's really good for your leafy greens, herbs, and veggies. So if you're shopping, if you're grocery shopping, they're… it's usually in an area where it's like a refrigerated shelf area, and it's got the misters coming up on the top. So it's keeping them humid. They like the humidity. Um, so the drawer is best for can you chat…

Amber: Yeah, I

Tia: yeah, go ahead

Amber: there are often-- refrigerator isn't this fancy, but there are often little levers at the front of the crisper drawers that open or close them, and so when the vent is closed, that's the highest humidity, and when it's open, it's lower so, like, the greens you were just talking about are great in that high there.

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: But if you have it open, that's where, like, apples or pears, avocados, like, those things that emit that help with ripening, having that vent open means that they'll stay fresh longer because those gases are able to they're not just like… You know how

Tia: This is…

Amber: something quickly, you,

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: it in a bag with

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: Like, if you need your bananas to ripen faster or your avocado to ripen faster, peaches or nectarines or whatever, the recommendation is to put them in a brown paper bag with an apple,

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: and you close that up, and it's because apples release so much of that ethylene gas, and it helps to ripen other fruits and veggies. So allowing that gas to escape can help keep things, fresher longer pr- and prevent them from getting, like, overripe. So take a look at your refrigerator and see if you have those little vents, and depending you're putting in there, like, you might wanna open or close them.

Tia: Can I just say I've never even noticed. I don't know if we have vents on fridge doors. Like, I need to go check afterwards, after we're done recording this episode. I

Amber: in a

Tia: wanna see

Amber: what your humidity vents are set at for your produce drawers.

Tia: so curious because I didn't know about this until we put together the So this is, this is really That'll happen

Amber: had mentioned that your crisper drawers aren't necessarily always used for produce. So what kinds of things find their way into crisper drawers in your house, or how do you find that

Tia: so my stepson really loves to have the Lunchable boxes for school. So the Lunchable boxes surprisingly fit really nicely in our crisper it, the, it makes it so that those boxes are out of the way of all of the other categories in our fridge. because if we put them in any other shelf, it would mess up that categorization system of where we typically put those other things in our fridge. So they end up in the the drawers, we've got like two crisper drawers. I'm sure-- they're for different kinds of things, but we've got two drawers.

Amber: vents and you

Tia: I'm sure-- I gotta figure this out now. Um, and so one of them we end up using for those boxes of the Lunchables, and then on the other side is where we put our fruits and vegetables. And then underneath all of that is where we have like this longer, narrower drawer that we put our meats and cheeses in.

Amber: Uh, I do often talk to clients that if they're trying to eat more fruits and vegetables, taking them out of the drawer and putting them on a shelf where they're actually visible can be really a helpful reminder that, oh, I'm wanting to eat more of these things, and putting things like cheese that you're not going to forget to eat because you like it.

Tia: And crave it.

Amber: because you'll look for, you'll look for that.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: might not look for the blueberries or whatever

Tia: Yeah, absolutely. Mm-hmm. Um, so should we talk about out of sight, out of mind? Can we chat about that?

Amber: Yeah. I mean, I think this goes back to what we were saying about the containers earlier. Like, I love to use a glass container for storage because then I remember what's there and it's

Tia: Yeah

Amber: to use it. And I think the other thing that goes along with this, and you sort of hinted at this earlier, the idea of checking through your before you go shopping and kind of knowing what's in there and so you can rotate through your stock. This is such a restaurant term, but I think most people have heard it before. It's FIFO, so first in, first out. So the idea that if you have a partial package of something and you buy a new package of it, you should use up the partial package or the older package first before you open up the new Um, so I do it's a combination of, like, putting the things you need to use first, like in the front of the fridge, and the stuff that can be used later behind it, because

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: that's just the way most gonna grab,

Tia: Yeah

Amber: first version of cheddar cheese that we see,

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: whether it's the new package or not. So if we can just set it up that way where that is the one that's right in front or on top or whatever, it's just a lot easier. Um, I don't have space in my fridge. Like I said, I have a pretty small fridge, so I know some people like to divide, like if they're, um, doing meal planning, they have a bin where, like, most of the stuff for that meal is kind tucked in and they can just, like, pull out a bin and it's like, "This is everything I need to make dinner on Tuesday."

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: love that if you have the space and the bandwidth and that's a system that works for you.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: just don't have the space. If I had the space, I don't know if I would do it or not. But it's a good thing to consider because I do love the idea of having everything easy to get out. I think it makes it easier not, like, hunting around. My version this for meal prepping is, like, anything that doesn't need to be refrigerated, I will put on the table earlier in the day. if like, the tortillas will be the, um, taco seasoning will be pulled out, whatever beans or olives or whatever it is we might be using, like, those things will all ready. Or if we're cooking rice, like, I'll take the rice out of the pantry and put it on the table

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: just as, like, a visual reminder. And it feels easier for some reason to have made those steps earlier in the

Tia: Yeah. Yeah.

Amber: it. So I think you can think about the fridge, too, like kind of grouping that stuff

Tia: Can I, can I interject something?

Amber: do

Tia: you're gonna be really… You're gonna be so impressed with me because I am not somebody that went to culinary school. You are. But I have learned what mise en place means.

Amber: I love it I love

Tia: It's the French term for, like everything in its place. and I think typ- and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you did, you put out all of the ingredients in their place first. So if you're gonna be cooking something that has tortillas and beans and rice and da, da, da, da, like you have everything all there, and then when you are prepping to get ready to cook, you have it actually measured out in little containers first. So you've got your cooked rice in a little cup that it's, that if it's a cup of rice, and if you've got like one cup of beans, then you've got the cup of cooked beans already ready to go, so that when it time to, like, assemble and saute and everything, you've got all of it just ready to dump and go.

Tia: is that what mise en place means

Amber: Yeah, it does. It means everything in its place. And definitely in the restaurant world, it's like you're doing all of the chopping earlier in the day, so when you get to part, you can just kinda like pull what you need and put it

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: And I think that is a really great way, if you're not a confident cook especially, doing all of the chopping ahead of time so you're not like, "Oh no, it says I'm supposed to add and I haven't like,

Tia: I haven't chopped it yet.

Amber: s- I sometimes don't do that because it do- it can take more time.

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: So depending on where you I guess I do both. Be- I don't prep things before I start cooking because I'm pretty, like I know, oh, the meat will take this long. Before I have to add this, I can chop it in the time Like I feel I have that level of confidence kitchen. Um, Uh, for example, yesterday for dinner, I made this kind of pasta situation to use up some that we had. Uh, some zucchini from the garden, some arugula that was getting a little floppy around edges, um, some rotisserie chicken that had been in the freezer. And the main thing that got me started was this cream that was about to go bad that I wanted to use up.

Amber: So earlier in the day, I did actually grate the zucchini and chop up the arugula into smaller pieces and cut up the chicken into smaller pieces, so when it came to cook, I could just kind of slide those into the pan as needed to cook them. And it did make it so fast. And it was nice… Like, if you have the opportunity to do this because you work from home or on a weekend as you're kind of going about different things, it's also a nice way to, like, like, five You know, it took, like, five minutes to shred the zucchini and chop up all the stuff. And then it was just ready and waiting for me when it came time to cook dinner later.

Amber: And as we've talked about, dinner time is hard.

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: having those little things already done made it feel so much easier yeah,

Tia: that's really nice. I think I used to have it in my mind too that needed to have, like a meal prep day where all the meal needed to happen happen in one day, and then I never got around to actually doing it because it felt like such a big burden, and it took away from my weekend and the time I wanted to relax, and that doesn't feel relaxing to me. It was a bit of a revelation to me when somebody told me that what they do is they do tiny little bits of meal prepping each day. the day… It's for the next let's say it's, let's say it's the pasta situation like yours, right? If you did, like, the day ahead, you did all the grating of the zucchinis and the chopping of the arugula and had that in separate no rush.

Tia: It's already ready to… go for the day that you're gonna eat it. you might, you might need to… That morning, afternoon, or evening, whenever 15 to 20 minutes of spare time, you look ahead to what's coming up the next day and you say, "Okay, well, I'm gonna grate this cheese, and then I'm gonna cook these beans, and then I'm gonna da, da, da." And then you've got it ready to go, right? So then it doesn't have to be, like, your entire weekend or, like, an entire day of your weekend is just all meal prep. 'Cause you see that a lot on Instagram and Facebook of these, like, "I made these 16 freezer meals in one weekend." Like, if you really need to do that because you've got a really big, um…

Tia: You know you're gonna be really busy few month. Like, for example, if you're gonna be having a baby and you wanna have freezer meals, go ahead, do that 'cause that is needed. Like, do that before you have your baby, Make it a whole party. But doing that all the I love this idea of just, like, chunks of time

Amber: leftover, but there's also the little bits and bobs, as I also refer to them, that we all end up with because whatever recipe you're using might only need a half an onion, or you might need one tablespoon of tomato paste out of a little can of

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: so having a you tuck kind of those extras so that you might work for you. I keep them in the front of my crisper drawer so I can see that there's a half an onion in there,

Tia: Hmm. Mm-hmm

Amber: when I need to make thing that has an onion, like, oh, I can see there's a little bit in here. I'll at least use that up. If I need more, I can um, that sort of thing, that might be helpful for someone to consider if they're having a really hard time with, like, refrigerator organization

Tia: So you actually mentioned one earlier without maybe realizing it, but the… When you had said put everything in, like, a little bin for your dinner coming up, there are, like, clear plastic bins with a handle on and, and they can fit a decent amount of stuff on the front, so it's almost like a little And you can use it for putting in all of the ingredients for one meal, and then you put a little on it for, saying, "Monday um… I have a friend who I organized her fridge once, and her husband loves condiments, and so they could not store all their condiments in their fridge door. It was too much. So w- that's what we did.

Tia: We used a little handle pull-out bin, and it was just for all the condiments, and they love love It It works really well for one example. Another one that I really situation, is the lazy Susan or turntables. You can put one of those in your fridge. So you like, on any shelf for any category of thing, and then as you turn the little lazy Susan, you can get to what you be in the back. It's really nice. and then another one could be vertical stackers or shelf risers. If you have enough space between one shelf and the next, you add, like, vertical stackers or shelf risers to like, some of your little uh, glass containers on the bottom and others on the top, so that it's not this, like, Tetris situation of glass containers that you're needing

Amber: can I make a comment about lazy Susans?

Tia: Please do

Amber: So I love a lazy Susan. I have a lot of lazy Susans in my cabinets to help with storage. I-- my fridge is too small to be able to use them in the fridge, and let me explain why. In a lot of ways, yes, they would make life easier, but because they are round,

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: this is a constant conversation in our house, is not an efficient way to store things.

Tia: No, 'cause then you're missing out on that corner space. Yeah

Amber: fridge is so small that, like, we need those corners I don't have enough space to be able to, leave out that back corner

Tia: Oh my goodness. Okay, well, I might have something maybe, maybe, depending on your shelf size and depth, um, that might solve for like a lazy Susan type solution, but it's rectangular.

Amber: I would

Tia: Isn't that crazy?

Amber: Yes

Tia: it's hard to describe on a podcast. We will put it in the show notes. But imagine two rectangles on top

Tia: of each other, like plastic rectangles,

Amber: Okay

Tia: that have a little hinge in the middle or maybe a couple hinges, where like the bottom rectangle stays stationary and like sits on your fridge shelf. That one doesn't move. But the top rectangle can sort of like shift forward so that it goes from horizontal to… I don't-- It's not vertical. It goes from like 180 degrees to 90 degrees. It shifts around at a 90-degree angle

Amber: Got it

Tia: and then back again. it actually turns all the way around so that it almost functions like a lazy Susan, so when you have your door open, it has enough space when you move it to like shift it forward to, and then shift it around. But that might be an interesting solution. One thing I wanna say about condiments, my lovely husband is one of those people who wants to save the ketchup packets and the mustard packets and the soy sauce packets and all of these things from takeout. And there is, this tiny, little almost throwaway shelf on the bottom of our fridge door that can technically hold all those things if anybody wanted it, right?

Tia: But, like,

Tia: I'm not a fan of keeping those. I'm not a fan. it feels wasteful to throw them away. I get it. It does. But for me, the ability to have, a clean, organized fridge that doesn't have a bunch of clutter that we're not using and stuff that just, we'd never use it. Like, we, we always grab our ketchup container, not the little packets of ketchup. So if you're gonna use them, awesome. make a little container for them, find a little shelf for them. That's awesome, if you're gonna use it. If you're not actually gonna use it, just throw them away. Just get rid of 'em.

Amber: I think that's a good point. you're not, saving anything, money, the environment, whatever, if you're not using the thing that you're saving. but

Tia: Mm-hmm.

Amber: saving it just for the sake of saving it isn't doing anything for anyone if you're not actually going to make use of it. So yeah, I agree. any other refrigerator things that we need to make sure we talk about.

Tia: I think the only other thing that I might add is that there is like stackable bins,

Amber: Hmm

Tia: that might help you with your vertical space or help you like sub-categorize things a little bit better. But I would just add the little caveat of if you're not a fan of like taking one thing out so that you can get to the bottom of the other thing and then putting it right… Like, unless it's a drawer, a pull-out drawer situation, I'm not the biggest fan of those, but for people who might find that helpful, that's another idea.

Amber: we talked about organizing is big business. There's no shortage of storage

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: out

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: if you need something to make your life a little bit easier, it probably exists in the world, and you can get it. Double-check your measurements before you order anything.

Tia: Yes,

Amber: I

Tia: absolutely

Amber: learned that lesson yet, dear listeners,

Tia: Yes

Amber: let me tell you, it's really frustrating when you think you've ordered the perfect thing and then it just doesn't fit.

Tia: My husband, if he could interject in this podcast, he would probably say, please, please please do not buy another organizing bin just for the sake of having another organizing bin." do not do that. and here's where a point of contention in our fridge happens to come in. I have an egg organizer, and he would so much rather just leave the eggs in the carton. He's like, "The carton was designed to organize and protect the eggs. Why would you buy something separate for that?"

Amber: it sounds like

Tia: And he

Amber: said earlier in this podcast, just saying.

Tia: Yes. because I can see the eggs and they, it happens to be one of those where like they fall forward so that when you, you stack them all in and then the, the newest egg that like falls down towards the bottom. It doesn't matter. But like, it's easier to just grab an egg or two or three.

Amber: have to talk about this more.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: those, soda can organizers where if you pull one out, then they all sort of, like, roll forward

Tia: Kinda. Kinda, yeah. For eggs.

Amber: Okay. Okay.

Tia: Yeah

Amber: cut the top of the carton off so I can just

Tia: Oh, I mean, that is a brilliant solution. 'Cause really my pain point is I don't know how many way- eggs we have. So yeah, if I just cut the top of it, right? But then the other thing is like

Amber: But yours probably looks prettier this this, is where, I don't know, would people be interested in fridge tours? Maybe we should, like, film a little fridge tour

Tia: That would be so funny.

Amber: or something. says the girl who doesn't have social media. I can share it with Tia, who can share it with you. Um, I… Part of, like, the weird setup of my fridge is in the center of our refrigerator, we have a shelf that's probably only, like, three or four inches tall. So, like, literally I can just slide in the eggs that I buy at Costco that are two

Tia: Got it. Mm-hmm.

Amber: just cut off the top, slide that in there, and there's just enough clearance where, if I wanted to slide, like, a package of bacon or something kind of

Tia: Sure. Yeah.

Amber: that on top of the eggs. But with the lid off, I can just pull the eggs that are right in the front

Tia: Yeah.

Amber: without taking the whole thing out. And then every once in a while, I just move the eggs forward until they're gone.

Tia: that sounds like a perfect solution for you, and also might be a a brilliant solution for others listening that are like, "That's awesome. I never thought to just cut the top off." Yeah, so my husband does not like the egg storage container of mine, therefore, he refuses to put the eggs from the carton into that container. So anytime we go grocery shopping, it is my responsibility to transfer the eggs from the carton into the egg organizer.

Amber: to wrap us up, I just thought of the most ridiculous social media trends from the last few years. Do you remember when people were, like, styling the inside of their refrigerator? And I don't mean they used cute organizational bins. They were, like, putting a bouquet of flowers in a framed picture inside

Tia: What? No, I missed that

Amber: It was so ridiculous. And again, as a person who doesn't have social media, I don't know how these things come into my world, yet somehow they still do. So people were like, yes, styling like it was a display shelf, not like it was a functional refrigerator.

Tia: my gosh, I d-- who has time for that?

Amber: and I

Tia: I'm sorry.

Amber: bait. Maybe they did it just to make people go, "This is ridiculous. Why would you ever

Tia: I know. I, yeah, yeah, just to get enough comments to for it to be seen. I don't know. That's, That's, odd to me, but I mean, if it makes somebody happy and they have the time to do it, I'm not gonna say they can't. But th- practically speaking, it would never happen in our house.

Amber: No, and I also just think of the space. I guess if you weren't, if you just had condiments in your fridge and you didn't really have food, maybe you have room to put a framed photo. I don't have room in my

Tia: So

Amber: even if I wanted to decorate

Tia: Oh my gosh. Please don't tell me that they were putting like decorative wallpaper, like sticky adhesive paper on the inside of their fridge

Amber: don't recall seeing that, but I guess I wouldn't put it past someone to do that. I mean, like literal framed photos or artwork. Yeah, very

Tia: Interesting. Okay

Amber: so you can use your fridge to store food, or it can be a delightfully arranged representation of your creativity. Whatever works for you.

Tia: Yeah. Mm-hmm I love this conversation. I, I think we can definitely move on to what's working now. Amber, let's, let's have you go first

Amber: What's working now is the most delicious sauce in the entire world. Anyone in my life, and for sure people who have been in Meal Planning Collective have heard me talk about this. I probably sound like a broken record, but I cannot get enough of this Peruvian green sauce. It has cilantro, it has garlic. There's a little bit of mayo, so it's like slightly creamy, but it's also acidic. It has spice to it. It has a little bit of Parmesan cheese, so it has that, some of that like umami saltiness.

Tia: Wow

Amber: It is so good. I could eat it off of a spoon. But how I mostly use it is with grilled vegetables. We have so many zucchini right now, and it's just takes, kind of boring grilled zucchini to this like craveable level.

Tia: Hmm

Amber: we've drizzled it over, uh, mojo pork rice bowls. We have used it as like a spread in a sandwich. I paired it with some roasted sweet potatoes and some meatballs. it makes everything better. I will put a link to the recipe that I have been using from a random blog on the internet, but it is so good. I think I have made it at least three times in the last month

Tia: That's awesome.

Amber: All right, Tia, how

Tia: what's… Yeah, what's working for me, I'm a huge fan of taking things out of boxes before storing them, including in my fridge. The only downside for that in the fridge and freezer is that if it has any preparation instructions on the box, then you need to, like, cut that out and stick it inside the little Ziploc container that you're poking the stuff in or whatever. But usually the packaging for stuff can take up so much extra space. Even if you're buying the little cups of yogurt in the little box, you'd, you wouldn't think that tiny little thin cardboard box would take up that much extra space, but honestly, I think it does.

Tia: when they're in that box, it, it forces you to put it in the fridge just like that, versus when you take it out of the package, you can reconfigure your fridge to a place where more stuff actually fits in there if they're not all in their original packaging.

Amber: I do this as well. I mean, as a small fridge haver,

Tia: Mm-hmm

Amber: be together on the same spot 'cause there's not enough space. But also as soon as you take out one, you just have empty space inside this box that you can't use for anything

Tia: Yeah, Yeah. It's dead real estate space. and honestly, I apply this to everything in my house. If we're putting stuff in the bathroom, if we're putting stuff in our pantry, if we're putting stuff in our fridge, I remove all the packaging,

Amber: thing that I keep in the box that it came in are board games and puzzles.

Tia: Ooh,

Amber: You…

Tia: get to that someday don't even get me started because I I'll go down a whole other rabbit hole with that.

Amber: about board games

Tia: Yes, we will.

Amber: All right. Okay. Jotting that one down If you liked today's episode, you can support the show by telling your friends or leaving us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Tia: If you have questions about the show or suggestions for future episodes, you can send us an email at heymonicapodcast@gmail.com. All show notes and links are available at heymonicapodcast.com

Amber: Pia helps busy professionals with kids who have amazing systems at work and no energy left to create organized systems at home. Book a free consultation at roomforserenity.com or get organizing tips and tricks from her on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is @room_for, that's F-O-R, _serenity.

Tia: Amber supports individuals exhausted by dieting who want to improve their relationship with food and body. you can learn more and book a free consultation call at wholeyounutrition.com. Amber also hosts a virtual community and co-working space dedicated to planning realistic, satisfying, and nourishing meals that actually taste good. Find more and join the collective at mealplanningcollective.com

Amber: Hi, Monica

Tia: Bye