too much food...

There is too much food in my fridge. I should start off by saying that of all the people I know, and all the refridgerators I've opened, my husband and I always have the most food. For the post part this includes couples and single people, but it also encludes families. Some people we know have more food in their pantry, so I am specifically referring to fresh food (I'll leave the coffin-style basement freezer full of frozen meat/vegetables/fruit for another discussion). I like to say this is because we cook a lot, and we eat mostly fresh food, as opposed to pre-packaged items, so we are simply healthy eaters. However, we are only 2 people, of normal size and appetite. We are not a family of 4, nor are either of us an elite athlete requiring a large amount of food just to sustain our weight/activity level. I try really hard to eat everything we buy, and not purchase in excess of what we can eat over a given period of time. However, inevitably, I revert back to my tendency to overstock.



We recently returned from a long vacation. At this time, we had hardly any fresh food. Luckily, we belong to a CSA and were set to receive our weekly load of vegetables in a few days, so we made a quick trip to the store and picked up the basic things, milk, eggs, dairy, some fruit which was on sale. After we received the vegetables, we made a grocery list accordingly. The next week went by, and we received another load of vegetables. We still had a few things leftover from the previous week, but we weren't doing too bad. We also go to a local farmer's market once a week to pick up some more things that weren't included in the bundle from the CSA. A couple trips to the apple orchard also occurred somewhere within this time frame. Since we are relatively new to the area, we are still trying to find the best orchard, so several trips were required, and apple picking is super easy (translation: LOTS of apples). This evolved slowly, ending in my husband leaving for a business trip, and the fridge loaded with tons of leftover meals, and too much produce. For the next week I have to eat/store somehow leftover turkey, squash soup, mashed potatoes, braised pork, half a loaf of sourdough, 3 bell peppers, handful of wax peppers, 2 huge bags of apples, steak, chicken thighs, french onion soup, head of lettuce, bunch of arugula, 1 eggplant, 2 tomatoes, 5 ears of corn, 2 bunches of basil, parsley, and who knows what else lurks in the fridge. My husband blames this on my sporadic procurement of a 12-lb. fresh turkey, but I feel that this is really just the tip of the iceberg. I am trying to work, but every time I open the fridge I can't stop thinking of how best to deal with all of this food, while minimizing waste. The only solution I can think of is to have a block party....