Finally.

It’s been a while since I promised to show you the inside of my freezers and refrigerator. But finally…I opened ’em up and snapped some shots. 

I’ve gotta be honest. (It’s not like I’m usually not honest. Why do we use that phrase anyway?)  But seriously? Opening up my pantry and trunk to show you was a lot more fun and a lot less embarrassing. I almost took the time to clean out my fridge and re-arrange everything a little more nicely…but then…that wouldn’t quite be telling the truth would it? And my freezers? Well…let’s just say Laura needs to learn to de-frost occasionally.

Okay, ready?

Here are the two freezers we keep in our storage room. 

Freezer number one…the meat freezer:

The top shelf is full of Smart Chicken brand chicken breasts that I found on sale for $2.29 a pound. I loaded up…can you tell? (And that’s the part that reallllly needs to be defrosted…can you tell?) 

We bought a half a cow last fall and a whole lamb. Pictured is what’s left…plus some frozen baked goods and chicken broth and a casserole. And a pan of frozen buns. I just made them and as soon as they’re frozen, I’ll take them off the pan and throw them into a baggie. 

Okay…moving on to freezer number two…the one I call my fruit and veggie freezer:

This freezer is looking a bit more bare than I like…but just wait until the end of gardening season!!! That’s when this freezer is so crammed full of food you can’t get even one more pea into it.

But I still have plenty of green beans and a bag of corn left. I also have strawberries, peaches, blueberries, grapes and rhubarb.

There’s also a big bag of ice for our shaved ice , and a jar of tomato sauce. The door of that freezer also has more tomato sauce…just in case I run out of all the tomato sauce in my pantry. (Which is not likely to happen…ever.)

(BTW…when one is typing the word “pantry” and speaking about things being in one’s “pantry” multiple times in blog posts…one must make sure one does not leave out the letter “r”. It is a mistake easily made…but a mistake one would want to be sure to catch. I’m just saying…)

Okay, moving on back into the kitchen to my fridge and freezer. I have a side by side. It was here when we moved in and it is very nice, but if I were given the choice, I would not choose a side by side. The freezer is too skinny and the ice machine takes up too much space. (But with two large freezers in my storage room…who’s complaining?)

In this skinny little freezer, I keep one bag of each veggie and fruit you saw in my other freezer, so that I don’t have to run out of the kitchen every time I’m making a smoothie or cooking vegetables for a meal. I also have butter and cheese in here, and chocolate chips and pecans and some frozen bananas. This picture turned out kind of dark, so it’s hard to see what a mess this freezer really is all the great food inside.

And now my refrigerator:

See my pretty brown eggs in the door there? And my pretty jars of milk under them? That’s my favorite part of my fridge. Again, this picture is kind of dark, but I’ll try to walk you through it anyway. I have a drawer up at the top where I keep a few random things like cheese sticks and homemade chocolate chips. I also have my rennet in there that I use for making mozzarella cheese. (Wanna learn about that sometime?)

Next I have my big ice cream bucket full of freshly ground flour. (By the way, thanks Marnie for reminding me that it needs to be kept in the fridge. During the winter my kitchen is so cold it doesn’t matter…but once the weather got warmer I forgot to put it back in the fridge!)  Also on that shelf there are jars of pears and applesauce and homemade salad dressing. And a big container of Brown Cow yogurt. Yum.

Then of course, more milk, a quart of cream, and some bottles of juice for our shaved ice. I’m really looking forward to putting those juices into our new fridge down at our Shaved Ice Shack ONCE WE CAN FINALLY OPEN because they are kind of taking up space in my fridge and making it hard to keep everything as organized as I would like. (The open date has now been pushed back to June 17…don’t ask.) *ahem*

Under that shelf we have our crisper drawer which is currently full of carrots, broccoli, oranges, grapes and lettuce. And, in the drawer under that, we have 3 loaves of homemade bread and a bag of homemade tortillas. It’s a happy day when I can actually make bread and tortillas and have some left at the end of the day for future use. Yea.

Okay…I hope that freezer and refrigerator tour didn’t bore you to pieces. Don’t worry…I won’t tour you through my closets (“…and here we have our everyday shoes…and our shoes for working in the garden…and our shoes for when it’s raining…”)  (snore). 

Now that you’ve seen my food stash…we’ll continue through the series and I’ll tell you why we eat all this stuff. 

I think my next post in this series will be about our food budget and how we manage to eat what we eat. Sound good?

Based on your (awesome) comments in Part 1…and based on all of the (awesome) emails I’ve received with questions…I believe we’ll begin today by taking a little peek into my pantry. And my freezer. Uh, freezers. And my fridge. Oh, and my cool trunk! You should see my cool trunk!

So come on in to my kitchen with me…and I’ll show you all of the food I typically keep on hand. (And while you’re here…would you mind lending me a hand with the dishes? Thanks.)

Let’s see, what do we have here in the pantry? Canned peaches, pears and tomato sauce that I put up last fall. And also tomato juice. And tomato soup. (I’m slightly embarassed to tell you that I planted 40 tomato plants last year…so that I’d have  plenty. And I did. Have plenty.)

( This year I’m planting fewer tomatoes…like maybe only 10-15 plants.)  (Because yes…I am crazy.)

Okay, what else is here in the pantry (to eat with the tomato products)?

A few varieties of whole wheat pasta, organic dried beans, organic brown rice, a bottle of Muir Glen Organic Ketchup…

(Do I need to keep saying “organic”? Most of my food is organic…but not all. Just most.)

Olive oil, red wine vinegar, molasses, honey, wheat germ, tuna, peanuts, coconut flakes, sesame seeds, popcorn, raisins, banana chips, dried cranberries…

That’s just the front shelves of the pantry. My very awesome pantry has hinges on the first shelves…that open up to reveal another layer of shelves in the back! (This is DEFINITELY my favorite feature of the entire house!)

So, in the back of the pantry, the shelves are bigger and deeper, so this is where I keep my big buckets of stuff. (And my mop….which is not organic.)

Palm kernel oil, coconut oil, jar of rolled oats, containers of rapadura, wheat berries, wheat that has been ground into flour, container of sea salt, and extra jars of tomato products… ahem.

 Now…moving on to my cool trunk. 

I order MANY of my dry goods in bulk, so the big opened 25 pound bags of oats, rice, wheat berries and popcorn live in this trunk. Then, to make my life easier (or, so that I don’t have to lift out a 25 pound bag of rice every time I need two cups of rice) I pour or scoop some into big jars…which is what you saw in my pantry.

Hang around here long enough, and you’ll see how much I LOVE jars. Yes, I’ll probably do a complete series here some day about the beauty and delight of jars. Big jars, little jars, tall jars…

(You are really starting to learn more about what a nerd I am, aren’t you? Yeah, well…)

Also in my trunk, you will see a couple boxes of cereal and a bag of potato chips. (gasp!)  I found this brand of cereal a couple of months ago, “Mom’s Best Naturals”. It’s not organic, but it’s better than the really bad stuff…it doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, artificial colors or flavors. I don’t consider it a health food by any means…but it does save my sanity on occasional crazy mornings. We maybe eat it once every two weeks.

And the chips? I can’t remember why I bought those…but the bigger bag was cheaper…and sometimes we all just need something crispy, greasy and horrible. (Although I feel pretty strongly that if I’m going to have a chip…it needs to be a Nacho Cheese Dorito…cause if I’m gonna eat garbage…I’m going to really enjoy it.)

Okay…I believe we should probably talk about my freezers and fridge next time…so that this post doesn’t go on forever. I would hate to leave you glassy eyed and disoriented. 

I’m sure you now have even more questions…and if this series lasts until “Getting Real With Food, Pt. 3,457…then so be it! Just so you know, I don’t plan to leave you hanging on where I buy all of my food, and how we afford it and all of that. I just wanted to give you a run down to start off with!

Come back for Part 3…in which I open my freezer to show you my cow, lamb and chickens. And frozen fruits and veggies…

And all the JARS of food in my fridge. (You KNOW you want to see my jars, don’t you now?)

As I begin to write this series about eating real food and about what I feel about nutrition…first I must say that…

I don’t know everything. 

Not even close. I only know what I’ve read (mostly from the book, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon…and from the website mercola.com).

 But this is what I know:

1. This series is really hard to write. (Because there are so many things I want to say, and I’m not quite sure how to go about sharing it all.)

2. I don’t know everything. (I know I already said that…but I want to make sure you know that I know that I don’t know everything…you know?)

3. No matter WHAT we eat…if we over-eat…we will be overweight and have other health issues. (So just because I recommend that butter is good for you…doesn’t mean I think you should peal yourself a stick and have it for an afternoon snack.)  ;)

4. Not all food is created equally. (Milk is not milk is not milk.)(More on that later.)

5. There are a lot of ways of thinking out there…and many, many of them are conflicting. (Which is a really, really frustrating thing about learning about nutrition.)

6. Some of the time when you are reading this…you might not agree with me. (Thanks for coming back to visit anyway!)

7. You won’t always like what I have to say. (Like when I tell you that chocolate is not a food group…don’t get mad at me.)

8. One of the reasons I think that this series is hard to write is because I don’t want to overwhelm you…and because I never, ever, NEVER want any of you to feel burdened by the information I share or to feel like I’m judging you in any way if you don’t eat like I do. I ONLY JUST want to share some of the things I’ve learned and am learning. Okay? (Oh, and maybe I should let you know that sometimes I get hungry for a hotdog…and I buy some and we eat them. With chips. And we enjoy it.) 

Okay…so maybe you could let me know some of the specifics you’d like me to share? 

And I’ll continue to work on how to share it!

If you haven’t already…be sure to sign up to win my two new e-books full of healthy recipes!