The Broken Fridge Diet

Old Fridge R.I.P.

My old fridge lasted 25 years. I know because I bought it when my flatmate in our completely unfurnished flat, got married in 1992 and took her fridge with her. It then came with me when I moved to my current place 16 years ago. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my old fridge. No bits missing, cracked, broken or bent out of shape. No scratches or dents. Nothing wrong with it except that it died of old age.

This happened last Saturday and last Sunday after school DD and I went shopping for a new one. I wrote about the shopping trip and how we got a free sofa thrown in, here.

Anyway, we had a week of hot weather with no fridge until the new one was delivered today. The freezer was definitely kaput but the machine was still humming so I convinced myself that the fridge part was still a little bit cold.

Luckily I had no expensive meat or fish in the freezer, just bags of frozen (or unfrozen) vegetables and some gluten free rolls for my nephew. I put all these items into the fridge and have been eating my way through them all week. For example, every day for lunch I cooked up a 400g bag of green beans and ate them in a salad with salad vegetables, tuna, cottage cheese, and grated hard cheese. For supper I ate an 800g bag of broccoli with parmesan cheese and some homemade vegetable soup that I'd frozen in jars.

I am writing a book called The Broken Fridge Diet. It worked because I was determined to eat as much of the food as possible so I didn't buy anything out. And it largely consisted of bags of green vegetables. cottage cheese, and vegetable soup.

On Saturday afternoon I had to admit that the sliced cheese was going off. I pretended it was a mature, smelly, blue cheese and finished it off with my nephew's gluten-free rolls that had also defrosted. Have you ever tasted gluten-free rolls? They're disgusting nothing like real bread. I could have cried for my nephew but he likes his egg salad so what is he going to eat it on?

The milk lasted all week - which makes me wonder what they put in it. I eventually threw out a whole 800g bag of green beans, a bag of mixed beans, and two bags of peas.

New Fridge

The new fridge is larger than I thought it was. I set out to buy a smaller fridge than the 525 litre fridge we had. We don't need so much fridge space and I don't have an enormous kitchen. I think what happened was that the smaller fridges in the shop had much smaller freezers. I got scared that my jars of soup and bags of frozen veg, DD's ice-cream, and nephew's gluten-free rolls and pizzas wouldn't all fit. Also, I was only prepared to buy a fridge with an A or B energy rating and the smaller fridges were mainly Cs and even Ds. Oh, and the smaller Electra fridges all had digital displays on the front that I didn't want either.

So I ended up with a Sharp 495 litres, energy rating B. It's only 10 cm narrower than the old fridge and quite a bit taller so it actually feels bigger. They also make more shelves and cubbies than they used to. So far all the food I have fits into the door.

I'm a little bit in love with my new fridge. DD asked me why I didn't buy a vanilla coloured fridge like the old one. (The old one was white once upon a time.) I told her not to put fingermarks all over my new fridge. Five minute later we had this exchange:

DD: Mummy, can you come and open the new fridge for me.
Me: Why?
DD: I want to put my chocolate biscuit in it to eat later.
Me: Why can't you open it?
DD: You told me not put my fingermarks on it.
Me: You can touch the handle to open the door.

Obviously I don't want to cover it in magnets and class contact lists. And the hot plate doesn't fit on top like it used to. I'm going to have to rearrange the whole kitchen to empty the cupboard where the hot plate could go.  I may need a new kitchen.

Finally DD and I went shopping for a few things to put in the new fridge. I bought gluten-free rolls to freeze for my nephew.