Cleaning the fridge

How long is it since you cleaned out your fridge? I haven't done mine since just before Christmas! There are a couple of jars in there holding sugary jam and last night I found a jar with one slice of bread and butter cucumbers. Isn't that crazy! One slice. Why would one slice be left? Hanno must have done that. ; - )

I try to clean out my fridge before I do a big stock-up but for some reason I've left it three months without cleaning it. I usually don't put jobs off, there's no point. All the work I do here in my home is for Hanno and I, no one else lives here, so putting off a job like this is shortchanging us. Tomorrow it will be the first job I do. I'd much rather have a clean and organised fridge rather than a dirty one. In the interests of safety and frugality, we have to be careful with our food.

Cleaning a fridge is a simple and straightforward job. The main thing to remember is to do the job thoroughly but quickly. You don't want to have the fridge door open too long or the food to warm up too much while it's out on the bench. I remove everything from the fridge, including the shelves and fruit bins at the bottom. I wipe out the fridge using a clean moist cloth and bicarb. When I've wiped every surface thoroughly, I get a clean cloth, dip it in warm water and wipe off the residue.

I check the seals, clean them with a toothbrush dipped in homemade all purpose cleaner, then wipe with a clean moist cloth. I remove everything from the outside fridge door - yes, even the Kath and Kim cut out dolls - and wipe the outside of the fridge, again with a moist cloth and bicarb. I wipe the residue off, then dry the surfaces with another clean cloth.

Finally, I replace the clean shelves and fruit bins, that I wash in the sink, and close the door for the fridge to cool down again. Then go through the food that was in the fridge. Sometimes old food is given to the chooks or worms instead of being returned to the fridge, sometimes we have a meal that night using leftovers. I always try to limit the amount of food that's not eaten by us or the critters and I'm happy to report that over the years I've cut down our food wastage a lot.

I wonder who else needs to clean out their fridge. Let's make it a date to do it tomorrow. How many of us will clean out our fridges? Are you game? I'm going to post a photo too, if you want to show your clean fridge to the world, send me your photo and I'll post it later in the week when I post my photo. Cleaning a fridge is a tedious but necessary job, we might as well have some fun with it.

Graphic from allposters.com