People always seem interested in checking out whats in another persons fridge— I know I am. Stranger, friend, hunger, fullness, whatever, I love looking in other people’s fridges. I just want to see whats in there. Usually in preparation for when hunger strikes during my visit, but not always haha.
Our fridge, before leaving our home, was usually pretty packed. But since coming back from our time away, we rarely completely fill it. We used to have loads of condiments and other things, but now we keep our fridge pretty minimalistic. Just the necessities really. I think we were all inspired by cooking with less in Mexico. You can see what our fridge looked like in Mexico, if you’re interested. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself. So here we are:
What is in our vegan fridge and pantry:
Okay, not technically the fridge, but part of our pantry I suppose: Directly in front of the fridge we have shelves where we keep our potatoes (both regular and sweet— I LOVE white and purple sweet potatoes). We also keep our onions and garlic here. Hard to see it, but we have piles and piles of tea here. Both bagged and LOADS of loose leaf tea. I go through phases when I drink it every night and phases where I can’t make a cup of tea to save my life. But we really enjoy tea and have a large collection.
In the space where a microwave is supposed to go (we’ve never had a microwave here) we keep coconut sugar and coffee beans. I think there is also a jar of whole unbleached sugar– which was for our airbnb guests and their coffee. We don’t use it. It will probably sit there until we decide to get rid of it one day– which means giving it to family or a friend who likes to bake. Either/or.
By the way, if you’re curious to see the layout of our kitchen, you can see it here.
The top row of our fridge. We typically have a plate or dish sitting here with already cut veggies. Sort of like the “hey you need to use these veggies first” plate. Typically there is an onion and lemon sitting on this plate. And ginger too. This particular week I had found mangosteen at the market and almost died. I freaking love mangosteen. It was embarrassingly expensive and totally one of those “treat yourself” moments, but I bought them.
The next row has lemons and avocados, cucumbers (I need to grow these again, their pricey) and leftovers. Pretty sure both leftovers here are potatoes. Heh. I really like potatoes.
The next row has our soft greens (baby kale and spinach), romaine, carrots, and blueberries. This shelf makes me cringe a bit. I wish so badly we could buy these items in bulk, without the plastic. We found bulk spinach this week at a market– but it was still in a giant plastic bag. The carrots, we can find loose– I totally forget why Alex came home with a bag of them this week, but we don’t normally have this giant bag of carrots in our fridge. That was probably all the store had. But everyday I’m learning to find a middle ground between feeling completely obsessive about wanting to things to be better and understanding that I can only do so much. It’s a hard place for sure.
In our drawer– we typically have loads of celery (mostly for juicing), green onion, cabbage, and whatever other veg purchases we made that week. Often times zucchini, this week peppers. And loads of spicy little peppers too. Alex bought the spicy peppers, not sure what he has in mind for those. I typically don’t cook with them because Marlowe can’t handle spice.
The fridge door! This used to be packed with things. Now it only ever has miso paste and four things. Except this week there is five things. The probiotic sriracha is not a normal purchase around here. Alex brought it home and said, “I got you something!” and handed it to me very excited. And then, me being me, I popped the giant bubble of excitement by saying, “but its in plastic.” —-And this ladies and gentlemen solves the mystery to why I never receive surprises haha. Anyway, the hot sauce is/was good and I put it on everything. But I’ll just be making my own from here on out.
Our other must haves: mustard, raw tahini, coconut aminos, raw apple cider vinegar.
Inside our pantry shelf we have all our bulk items.
One third of this stuff is for our acai bowls: goji berries, granola, peanut butter, shredded coconut.
One third is the powders I like to use in my smoothies: spirulina, kale powder, greens powder, and homemade dry moringa. — I like the green powder fine, but I probably wont buy it again. Spirulina will forever be my bff though.
And the other third is snack stuff (like popcorn, dates, raisins, sunflower butter, nutritional yeast, and theres some oatmeal in there too.)
We also have some rice crackers and a bag of tortilla chips (not pictured).
Again, we buy most of this stuff bulk, but I linked what I could have brands I like here for you guys <3
More pantry goods. We have bulk brown rice, brown sushi rice, usually at least two – three types of legumes. Typically black beans, lentils, and pinto beans. Coconut milk, coconut cream, a jar of tomato sauce *just in case*, brown rice pasta, arame seaweed, wakame seaweed, nori seaweed (for sushi), rice paper, and at least one type of brown rice or millet noodles.
We definitely used to rely on canned products a lot more. Now we really only ever buy coconut milk and sometimes the cream. We don’t eat beans as much now that we have to soak them and prepare them ourselves. But honestly, I dont mind. If we have a craving it’s not a big deal to soak a pot and cook it the next day. I might actually do that with some lentils now.
Say hello to our flavor stations. Above our stove we have vinegar, sesame oil, and tamari. I don’t use any of this stuff. That’s Alex’s go to for sushi or other asian dishes. I might use the tamari here and there– but I usually reach for the coconut aminos instead.
To the right of that we have all our spices– whole and ground. We also have dried chilies and sun-dried tomatoes too. Everything from turmeric, paprika, saffron, hing, and wayyy more. We use a lot of these spices daily. And some of these spices sometimes— that makes sense, right? Let me know if you want a post specifically about spices. Maybe a run down of what we buy and what dishes we typically use them for? That might be fun.
Lastly we have our counter. Here we have fruit. Typically we have a giant bowl of tomatoes– but we probably just used most of them. We always have piles of bananas.I think we go through 6 bunches of bananas a week, maybe more. And this week we have two bunches of plantains from our garden. Mangoes (also from our garden). Limes (some from our garden). Passionfruit (from our garden). And guavas from our garden too.
I’m hoping when this next growing season comes we’ll be fully stocked with greens, tomatoes, and cucumbers again. This will help with cost + plastic waste. Maybe I’ll even give sweet potatoes another go. They’re so easy– the hardest past is knowing when they’re ready, haha.
Oh man, I just realized I forgot our freezer! It’s pretty empty though. The only thing ever in there is leftover fruit that we decided to freeze, a bag of frozen blueberries (def. can’t grow those here). And acai packets. Sometimeeees there might be a pint of ice-cream in there, but not usually. Right now I also have a bag of avocado pits in there for a project I want to dye. Totally normal.
Our fruit selection changes based on the season, but otherwise this is a pretty standard food situation for us. It’ll change more when we begin growing stuff again (winter). But for now we mostly hit up farmers markets when we can to stock up on what we can.
Alright friends! There you have it! We’re very lucky to have the goods we have in our house. We NEVER take our food for granted. It’s actually the thing we spend the most money on in our life. Food is life right? You 100% are what you eat. Which means we try to be mostly whole, organic, and delicious too 😉
Cheers friends!
11 Comments
Hey Drea 😊
Thanks for sharing again. I‘m always a little surprised, that people (me too obviously 😅) really want to read about the content of other peoples fridges. Would anyone care for what‘s in my fridge or pantry??? Probably 🤷♀️ But a little strange, though… 🤗
Enough rambling, what I really wanted to write is, that I would be over the moon, if you could make a post about your homemade sriracha, if this happens anytime soon. The storebought stuff always has all these nasties inside. 🙈 So I‘m buying Sambal Manis (do you know this?), but it‘s just not the same.
Lots of love from hot and sweaty Germany 💦😅💦 (we absolutely have Florida weather right now, but I’m not complaining, as I adore the warm summer nights – reminds me of Thailand 🌺)
Bye, Romy ✨💛💫
I love this post! So, basically I just love snooping through people’s cupboards.
Never heard of the spice hing! Would love a post about how you use different spices!
xo
I love Mangosteen too! I actually spent 7 years growing up in Cambodia, so I have a fervent love for fresh tropical fruit. I now live in Chicago where fresh tropical fruit is obviously rare. Fortunately I live in a very diverse neighborhood that is right next door to Chinatown, so our neighborhood grocery store gets an awesome selection of fruits and veggies. Randomly we get different tropical fruits (I.e. dragonfruit, lychees, longan, etc) on sale and I always make sure to buy at least one to get that taste of home.
The other day they had Mangosteen for 7.99 a pound! 0_o So I bought just one and it was amazing. Totally made my day.
I also don’t do canned beans but my method is to do a huge batch at a time and freeze them in pint jars – almost as convenient as canned. And we eat a LOT of hummus so I like to have at least chickpeas at the ready at all times. You are probably the only vegan I know who doesn’t seem to eat a crazy amount of hummus haha
I really have to do this! For sure when you freeze beans and re-heat the texture is awesome– and if you’ve flavored them the flavors are even more rich. I’ve just never thought to do it with non seasoned beans. Do you freeze them in liquid? or strain? I might cook a bunch of batches and try 🙂 Just gotta hope we don’t lose all the power again its hurricane season this year. It’s the saddest with the frozen food.
I know exactly how you feel about the plastic containers for everything – like here I am, trying to eat healthy and vegan for the environment, and the food I buy is – WHOMP – in plastic. So hard to find bulk groceries in this tiny town!! I do want to ask, you mentioned you keep acai in the freezer. I’ve seen the acai packets at Trader Joe’s, but I only go there mayyybe once every other month because the closest one is 250 miles away (seriously this town!). What do you think of acai powder? Can it still make a good smoothie bowl?
Thanks! xoxo
Right? If we lives in California it would be one thing– I would be AMAZING at low waste if I lived out there and could go to rainbow groceries or one of the other amazing co-ops. But its just cant happen here. Also my question is– how low waste is it really anyway? Cause the product needs to be shipped to the stores in something, right? I mean, its obviously got to be better than the standard way of shopping, but no method is perfect.
re acai: I dont know! I’ve always been curious to try it. Because in Mexico we could not find frozen acai to save our life… but we visited a ton of places Wirth acai bowls– so I feel like that had to be using the powder. Unless their supplier magically had frozen packets– but I dont know. But ideally it would taste really good cause that would def help cut out some plastic! I feel like it cant be that bad— like with frozen blueberries and strawberries and banana? Its gotta be decent.
Very inspiring! See, this is what I’m working towards. I’m trying to go the zero-waste route, but I’m still struggling with it.
~Laurali Star
http://lauralistar.net/
it’s just not possible in some places of the world. Unless we were to drastically limit the food we eat, we cant do it. And I think we already buy a lot less things than more people 🙂 But every little step is a good step 🙂
I love how organized everything is! I started organizing my kitchen this past weekend and got as far as the spice cabinet (which is fully stocked).
LOVE the idea the wicker basket in the fridge!
Oh and congratulations on being literally the only non-Indian person I know who knows what hing is!
cleaning out your life and starting from scratch helps 🙂 We’d really love to do open shelving to keep us even more in check on what we have vs what we need— one day for sure 🙂
And yes! hing party over here!