Observations on Kitchen Cleaning

I’m working on spring cleaning our kitchen this week. Can anyone explain to me WHY we always end up hosting company right before I deep clean my kitchen, when it’s filthy? Keeps me humble.

Here are some observations that come from sticking my head in the back corners of the fridge…

·         Evaporated milk will spoil in roughly 4 months.

·         A half of a lime that is 6 months old will turn yellow-ish, but won’t dry out if properly wrapped in plastic.

·         Greek yogurt left to itself will grow a healthy dose of penicillin [or something equally fuzzy]. Unfortunately the man of the house & I are both allergic to penicillin.

·         Old carrots have something in common with old men- sprouting hair from body orifices. Equally unattractive, but doesn’t render either useless, to be discarded for the younger.

·         Cleaning-Fridge-Day yields interesting cuisine for the neighborhood cats and neighbor’s dog that show up to pick through our discarded garbage, looking for chicken bones and other edible morsels. Fuzzy chocolate frosting topped with habanero salsa, anyone? Past-their-prime oranges ala sweet mustard? Spoiled rice & beans topped with a dab of ancient cinnamon roll pancake topping? It’s enough to gag a maggot!

Come on, tell me I’m not the only one. I’ve heard an estimated 40% of the food grown and produced in the USA ends up getting tossed. I’m positive I’m too thrifty to be throwing out 40% of our groceries, but our percentage is higher than I think it should be. My biggest handicap is staying organized. Stuff gets pushed to the back of the fridge or pantry… I don’t menu plan as much as I should… and it’s harder when you have more than one cook in the kitchen- somehow we end up with more than 1 container of sour cream opened, etc. more often than when I was the only one cooking. And there are certain people living under our roof who won't eat the last dregs out of a salsa jar or the last serving from the bottom of the chip bag. Why, I do not know. Depending what it is, the mister & I long-sufferingly clean it up, but when it's something we don't care for it's an impasse. It’s the stuff with a short shelf life- bread and produce especially- that are really my undoing. I’d love to hear your tips for staying organized and using up food that is headed downhill.  

In the process of cleaning my stove, I discovered the self-clean oven feature no longer works. So I resurrected the can of oven cleaner from the back of the cleaning supply cupboard, and did it the old fashioned way. This brought back memories- when I was a kid we loved when mom cleaned the oven because the spray cleaner that was used back then made the floor in front of the stove slippery. Slipping & sliding around in socks was grand fun! Anyone else ever do that? Simpler times, but much too hazardous for today’s kids. Lol.