Fridge Organisation - Slicing & Dicing

A big tip to getting organised in the fridge is to spend some time arranging everything when you are unpacking the groceries.  If I want anything to get eaten, it must be either cut up, out of its bag or clearly visible in the fridge.  We all know that question, 'What is there to eat?', which usually gets asked just after having spent $200 at the supermarket!  I can see you nodding your heads ;)  Therefore, everything must be in the line of sight, and ready to be eaten, or it will not get touched.

The first thing I do is empty the fruit out of the plastic bags and into my fruit drawer.  Then I do the same with the veggies.  This is not rocket science, but seriously it makes a difference between it getting eaten or not. 

I used to put all of this into Tupperware Fridgesmart containers, which keep everything so fresh for weeks, but now I have a new fridge with fruit/veg crispers, so I don't find that I need to use the containers as much as I used to, as it stays nice and fresh in the drawers.  However, I generally still use my Fridgesmart for lettuce, and then others for veggies that make a mess when left in the drawer (eg - broccoli, cauliflower) or celery/capsicum, as it helps to keep them crunchy.

Before I put the lettuce in the container, pull all of the leaves off the head.  I wash it all, put it in my salad spinner and drain the water off the leaves.  When I did it this week I measured 1/2 cup water came out of my spun lettuce!  Then I put the lettuce leaves into the container, usually with a piece of paper towel lining the base to absorb any additional moisture.

Next is the fun part - I get to play with my Magimix food processor.  I use my magic machine to slice tomatoes and cucumber, and grate carrots for our salad sandwiches.  Once cut up, I put them all into Tupperware Clear Mates containers. 

Then I take a 1kg block of cheese and cut it into 3 - I slice one third, grate one third and leave one third whole (either to cube for a salad, cheese platter or whatever else we may need it for).  Again, this all goes in the Clear Mates.  A tip is to slice/grate the veggies first, as it is easy to rinse the bowl, lid and blades after each one.  If you do cheese first, I find it is a bit more work to clean it in between, as the cheese makes more of a mess ;)

Now I have everything ready to make salad sandwiches in the mornings as I pack our lunches for work, or we can grab cheese and tomato to put on crackers for afternoon tea, or toss a quick salad together for dinner, or I can add a handful of grated carrot or zucchini to taco or bolognaise mince. 

It really only takes 15 minutes, but it saves so much time during the week by doing it this way.  It is also so much cheaper to buy 1kg of block cheese - usually a box of slices or a bag of grated cheese are at least $5 each.   But even more important than saving money, we eat more healthy food!  It is already prepared, so we use twice as much fresh produce than if the tomatoes were still in the bag, if the carrot needed to be grated or if the cucumber needed to be sliced.  We are blessing our bodies with nutritious food - yay!

I am lucky to have a food processor to take the hard work out of the grating, slicing, etc.  But I am sure it wouldn't take too much longer to do it by hand.  The big thing is to take everything OUT OF THE BAG/PACKET.  We are so much more likely to use something that is unsealed and clearly visible.  You might notice that we bought pre-grated and sliced cheese this week - that's ok!  We are all human.  The key is to put it into containers so that it gets used :)