The Cupboard…

You haven’t had a Saturday Spot from our home for a while, so I thought lets do an honesty blog… and take a look in our fridge right here, right now: What does a family with se7en kids keep in their fridge…

Firstly I have mentioned before that not all spaces in our home are what they appear to be… and we call this one the cupboard. And it will become apparent why as the post goes on…

Not to mention our fridge has a history so let’s begin: In days gone by, when we were engaged to be married my potential in-laws offered to buy us a tv or a fridge… well judging from our pre-occuation with all things television:

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We naturally went with the fridge and I loved my little fridge, not a sticker on it, not a magnet in site – pristine and clean and more than enough space. Actually I have a bit of a thing for small appliances, but I have noticed just lately that they aren’t terribly practical for us.

Years later and several kids later, and there is a pattern here, my mom in law got herself a new fridge and she gave us her family size fridge, which we kind of rattle around in. And its why we call our fridge the cupboard – because we store plastic containers in it and any other dishes and plates we don’t have room for out on the counters.

So here we go and I know I am ambling towards the contents because well, on revision I don’t keep very many things in the fridge at all – but I promised honesty blogging so here goes. (I might just mention again – I loathe clutter… hmmm maybe just a little bit minimalist!) This is it:

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To me this looks gigantic, literally we could all climb inside and take a trip to the moon and back, but I digress. There are a couple of tins on top… And magnets from our travels – but no chaotic kids art or lists or pamphlets… no I can’t do pamphlets on the fridge!!!

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On the door:

  • The top door shelf: The father person’s condiments.

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  • The bottom door shelf: the ketchup… some things need to be accessible to all! The rest of the door shelf is kept free for kids water bottles when we go on an outing.

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And the shelves:

  • Top shelf: Couple of things like jam, margarine, pepperdews, mustard and a cup of baking soda – as an anti-smells mechanism. And a stick of insulin, very handy if your husband is a diabetic! Normally I keep wall paper paste (ready mixed and good to go for countless paper-mache type projects like pinatas), play-do and finger paints on the top shelf too. But I put them out to photograph, turned my back and they have vanished – somewhere there is an elaborate and creative mess going on – but I will blog on regardless… Oh the heavy price I will pay for this mothering idleness!!!

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  • Next shelf: A block of butter (we use a lot of this – it is a whole new food group) and the cheese box.

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    In the cheese box: A block of parmesan, loads of mozzarella for our Saturday pizza’s and a lump of salami – also for pizza!

  • Next shelf: Milk box, water jug, yogurt, feta and the father person’s condiment corner with pasta sauce, for pizza toppings and mayonnaise. And a lone beer that has been lurking there for a long time – all fridges have lurkers and this is ours.

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  • Bottom Shelf: Eggs – we eat a lot of those: scrambled, omelets, pancakes and daily baking! Yup that’s a weeks worth of eggs. And two teething rings, commonly know as cold things and we use these for any biffs and bumps that need something instantly cold applied. Also there is a dish for snacks – right now it has carrot sticks but when it empties then I rotate the contents.

  • The left hand drawer: Some lettuce, some carrots and a mango.

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  • The right hand drawer: tub of garlic – we eat a lot of that too – no colds in this house! Cucumbers, basil and tomatoes. Because quite frankly a house only feels like home to me when there are tomatoes in it.

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That’s it the insides of a fridge of a family with se7en kids – you know you wanted to know that!

Oh, you want to see the freezer as well?

Here it is:

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  • Top shelf: Ice blocks we always need these for science, pastry (can’t have a freezer without that) and the inside of the father person’s cycling water bottle – hmmm dunno why!

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  • Next shelf: Some burgers, porkies and chicken pieces and some vanilla yogurt carefully hidden for late night bloggers!

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  • Next shelf: Oven chips – we eat those or potato wedges a lot! Some frozen peas and cut corn (I keep these for Wednesday nights when the father person’s mum comes for supper) and that funny grey circular thing is the frozen base from the ice-cream machine, and quite essential to life.

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  • And the bottom shelf: well it’s empty – normally full of ice-lollies but our mid-summer visitor situation has taken care of that!

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Also their is a large lump of ice attached to the fridge and the freezer and this accumulates simply because the doors are never shut – It’s as if people are standing around waiting for something lovely to jump out of it – unlikely!!!

So that’s what a fridge/freezer looks like for a family with se7en kids and why we have plenty of room to store plastic cups and containers in the gaps! And why we call it the cupboard.

I plan to write a little bit about how to feed se7en kids in the next couple of weeks, so this is really a bit of an introduction to those upcoming posts.

Munch on!

18 Replies to “The Cupboard…”

  1. Okay. . .how often do you go shopping? Because what you have here, is LESS than what I have in on my shopping days. (When we consider our frig "bare".)

  2. Hay you! This is after our Saturday shop (hence all the cheese!!!)… We probably use a box of milk a day, I keep the supply under the counter till we need it. The father person does our food shopping and pops to the store once or twice a week for fresh yogurt and maybe more butter for baking. Our vegetables come on a Thursday once a week, but they didn’t come this past week because of the holidays. So what’s in your fridge – what do I need?!?

  3. 😉 If your family is happy and healthy. . what more could you possibly need?

    Part of our frig "load" is our milk. We go through 6 gallons / week. And Americans have their milk in the frig — not shelf stable (though you can buy it that way).

  4. There is probably some major food group our kids aren’t getting, which would explain why they are so short and so skinny!!! But they do seem to be surviving and happy and healthy enough. Have a good day!

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