What's in My Fridge?

My kitchen has been a cooking-free zone the last several days. I was home too late Thursday to feel like cooking, dinner Friday was a happy hour that turned into being out all night, dinner Saturday was our favorite Margherita pizza and wine before heading out with friends, and yesterday we painted the office, which meant I was not about to be productive in the kitchen after spending all day doing manual labor.

I did make it to the Farmer's Markets this week (Worthington and North Market), where I picked up asparagus and spinach, along with lots from North Market Produce, bacon from Blues Creek Farm, chicken from North Market Poultry and Game, and of course the requisite pint of Jeni's ice cream (coriander with raspberry this time). Part of both the asparagus and spinach went into a quick pasta lunch Saturday.

I made the mistake of not planning this week's meals before doing all the shopping, which means I don't really have a good plan for any of the food I bought, meaning I'll probably stick to tried-and-trued recipes that I have all the stuff on hand for this week and not have much to post about. So I decided to go ahead and join in on Sam's inquiry (a couple week's ago now) over at Becks & Posh to share what's in my fridge.

At first I thought, there's no way people want to read this stuff. But then I realized how interested I was in seeing what different bloggers have in their fridges compared to what you might think they have based on what they tend to blog about; there were definitely a few surprises. The rule is you have to photograph your fridge as it, no removing or rearragning. So here goes:

Top shelf: eggs, leftover cream cheese frosting from these cupcakes, i can't believe it's not butter, unsalted butter behind that, buttermilk that expired last week, and leftover Chinese from, um, when my mom and sister came to visit 2 weeks ago ... should probably toss that.

Drawer: Various cheeses and ends of bags of deli meat. It most likely needs cleaned out.

Middle shelf: Diet Coke and Sprite Zero (both for Ryan, I don't drink much pop); hummus, with leftover enchilada sauce and corn, wheat, and flour tortillas behind that; strawberries and blueberries

Bottom shelf: Sampler pack from the Great Lakes Brewing Co. (we love it because we can never decide which 6 pack to get); chicken thighs for tonight's stir fry and cauliflower behind it; couple kinds of yogurt and milk for my cereal

Veggie drawer: zucchini, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, green onions, carrots, red pepper

Fruit drawer: oranges, apples, grapes

Top shelf: lemergency lemon juice, sour cream, pickles and jalapenos, some juice left from a champagne punch we made for our Christmas party (yeah, that should probably go, too), sesame and poppy seeds (I didn't used to know they needed refrigerated, and man, those sesame seeds smelled rank after a not-too-long stint in the cupboard)

Middle shelf: condiments and sauces galore - soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, chili oil, chili-garlic paste, ground bean sauce, tahini paste, assorted mayos and mustards, bw3's sauce, horseradish, strawberry preserves (Ryan is very particular about this - these are the only jelly/jam he'll eat)

Bottom shelf - really old tonic water, fish sauce, beef and chicken stocks, and the tail end of a couple bottles of wine now relegated to use in cooking

So what did we learn? Charise needs to do a better job of cleaning out her fridge more often. And I like condiments.