I couldn’t agree more. Prep is super time consuming, and veg prep is the most time consuming of all. Esp if you love veg, buy too much at the store, and then a week later when you finally get to some of it, there is surgery to perform as well!
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Not being able to go to chinatown for so long single-handedly reduced my stress related to this 
Otherwise I’d be loaded up on varieties of mushrooms, greens, and so much more fresh “specialty” produce that either isn’t available near me (or is insanely expensive if it is).
Major stressor: giant bag of snow pea leaves! So delicious!
Can’t wait for normalcy…
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I have the big eyes pretty much anywhere they sell veg. If I’m at my local Asian market, I’ve probably bought too many bottles and jars of things I don’t quite know what I’ll do with, but good intentions!
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Bottles and jars keep… I live in fear of letting fresh vegetables spoil and having to throw them away 🥲
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Dinner tonight was fish curry and rice (cucumbers and carrots on the side).
This is the fourth or fifth different version of fish curry I’ve had since being home - it was a thin, simple, Bengali curry. Absolutely delicious.
Paneer (homemade - this is a new development since the pandemic) in the same curry for mom. The paneer soaked up the flavors even better than the fish!
Fish was baby pomfret - similar to pompano in the US.
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The only trouble is that my refrigerator currently has 2 door shelves and at least 50% of 3 inside shelves completely dedicated to opened jars and bottles of this and that. There is literally no room for food in the fridge.
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So… when I came home after over a year of pandemic “exile,” one of my big tasks was emptying out the fridge.
It was configured so the top shelf was entirely jars and bottles, plus the door.
My recent redo was to buy a couple of lazy susans and some fridge bins for the jars and stuff that are permanent fridge residents. I had never thought they’d work for me, but I gave it a shot with fresh eyes, having been away for so long.
So far so good - it makes me a lot happier to look in the fridge and also to find stuff without playing Tetris, and I’m slowly grouping and moving them around in ways that are more intuitive by use. I will also say that it actually freed up space in the door, as things I had kept there by default made more sense in one of the other organizers.
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That is a very interesting idea. Particularly the susans. Circles would take up some additional space, in that you can’t usefully put things between 2 of them. But, the ability to turn them instead of tetris, like you said, is pretty genius.
Yeah I’m really good at fridge Tetris, so I was worried I would lose space, but that wasn’t the case. I really like the spinning and not having to slide jars around to get to what I want.
I was more skeptical of the bins, but the visual order has been a plus, and the walls have actually resulted in some space creation.
I’ve got two stacked on the bottom shelf - ymmv based on your fridge shelf spacing (I took everything out, put the bins & lazy susans in and moved them around a bit before deciding).
There are different sizes and heights and depths of all of these things too, which is very helpful.
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My spices are on stacked spinning Lazy Susans in my cupboard. My fridge space is too tight to add a Lazy Susan, but I’m pretty good with the fridge and freezer Tetris.
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The story of my life
Do you place your spices in the frig and freezer? Or, did I misunderstand your storage layout?
Yup, same here.
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I wasn’t clear.
No spices in the fridge and freezer. My fridge doesn’t have much room.
My fridge:
Top shelf: left side jams and marmalade, mint jelly, right side that allows for taller things: milk , maple syrup, juice, tall bottles.
Middle shelf : pickles, condiments , mayo, sour cream and room for leftovers, refrigerated soups.
Bottom shelf: veg that don’t fit in the crisper and leftovers,
Meat and cheese drawer: eggs, cheese, hummus, meats, smoked fish
Door shelves: filled with condiments.
No room for spices or a lazy Susan!
My spices are on some stacked lazy Susans in my cupboard at room temperature. Overflow spices are in a huge Ziploc bag filled with packets of spice, and tins filled with packets of spice. I probably have over 100 different spices/ spice blends/ peppers/ salts on hand.
My spices on the main double stacked Lazy Susan are organized alphabetically, the Lazy Susan above that have spices from one company that stack well on top of one another, and cans of paprika, odd shaped jars or bottles. The top shelf Lazy Susan which is hard to reach has spices I use rarely, or only during holidays ( stollen spice blend, mastic, mahlepi)
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Thanks for the clarification. I’ve been told never to place dry spices in a fridge or freezer to avoid moisture, so I wondered if you had diff intel.
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Generally, I think that’s correct, to keep dry spices out of the freezer.
I know that saffron can be frozen, a friend who is Iranian told me that her mom stores saffron in the freezer.
Had a memorable experience after freezing dill. It permeated the plastic containers in our freezer, so our sour cherry pie made from frozen sour cherries stored in a sealed plastic bucket absorbed the dill scent, and the cherry pie smelled and tasted like dill.
We do store nuts in the freezer. I keep my pine nuts in the freezer, too.
Man, that’s some fresh dill! I’m with you on freezing nuts (and seeds).
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Quickie fish tacos (paging @Sasha) with creamy cilantro-lime slaw and chips with salsa and queso.
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Do you put your tortillas over a flame? I have electric appliances only. I can warm them in the oven or stovetop - that’s about it. But yours have a pretty little char.
Yep - gas stove here.
