We bought our Frigidaire when we first moved from an inner city apartment to the ‘burbs. I got her off Trademe for a song, second, maybe even third or fourth hand and we immediately had her resealed by a pro. This fridge-freezer has moved house with us four times and we reckon she could be from the 1970s, making her older than me.
Our old girl had a freak out over the weekend. I wish I had before and after photos to show you, as the stalactites were amazing. We shifted her a few inches to the right and I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but the top third of the freezer turned into an ice cube with icicles as thick as my wrist. Ice expands and within hours it got so bad that we couldn’t close the freezer door. The Koala came to the rescue, carefully using a hammer as an ice pick and excavated the ice from the top shelf and around the seals.
I’m now trying to use up everything in our freezer. At least I can tick that off as part of the kitchen spring clean. We need to properly defrost but there’s still so much food in there. How do normal people defrost? Do you eat everything in your freezer first? Or do you just shift it into the fridge for a few hours and hope nothing thaws out?
Still tossing whether to get this old girl another reseal or just to cut our losses and get another secondhand, (but this century) fridge-freezer.
It’s amazing the amount of food we tend to stockpile. I’ve got enough frozen leftovers for lunch every day this week and then some. I hope to see the last of the frozen scallops and this week’s menu also features a few side salads to get into the spring spirit.
This week is the 10th week of our OOOOBY deliveries and our second week of the organic only box.
This week our CSA box included:
Vegetable
- 5 Kumara
- 2 Baby Leeks
- 2 Swedes
- A large bunch Spinach
- 8 Orange and Yellow Carrots
Fruit
- 5 Braeburn Apples
- 5 Navel Oranges
- 8 Green Kiwifruit
Add Ons
- Wild Wheat Ciabatta
- Apple Juice 2L
The most interesting thing in the box:
Baby leeks and swede (which are called rutabaga in the US)
Menu 10
- Smoked chicken and spinach* fettuccine
- Steak with baby leeks* and root mash (carrot*, swede*, potato)
- Kranskys with scrambled eggs and ciabatta* toast
- Bacon, egg and spinach* quiche
- Seafood stew with toasted ciabatta*
- Individual shepherd’s pies (carrots*, peas and onion) with mashed kumara* and cheese topping
- Fruit* salad with Collective Dairy banoffi pie yoghurt
* CSA from this week or previous week
CSA Link Party
I regularly join a CSA box link party. A link party is a weekly or monthly round up of relevant blog links in one handy place. Anyone can submit their posts and if you are interested in CSA and what see what other people around the world are getting each week in their boxes, have a look at the What’s In The Box over at the blog In Her Chucks.
About CSA and OOOOBY
For those new to the concept, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. This concept allows onsumers buy subscriptions or shares for a set amount of time in return for a weekly box of locally grown produce. Produce can come from from local farms, micro-growers, yours and your neighbour’s backyards, community gardens and organic farms. You join either as a consumer or a grower or both. Some growers swap produce for shares and others deliver or pack so it can be a engaging, social way of sharing food.
CSA is relatively new here in New Zealand and there are only a handful of companies/groups offering it. Price was always going to be a factor for me and the cute name and good looking design of OOOOBY really appeals to me.
I am not affiliated with OOOOBY and we pay for our box and add-ons with our own hard earned money. This is a review, not an ad, but if you would like to join OOOOBY, contact me about their their refer-a-friend scheme. It takes supporters for these kinds of ideas to flourish and they have a ways to go yet. Find out more about the concept at their website www.ooooby.org.
Read my other posts about CSA here.
Bunny Eats Design 
Our fridge is about 10 years old – maybe a little more and is self defrosting, which is great, because, no defrosting obviously. But also annoying because we had to buy ice trays with lids to stop the ice disappearing and when I was storing breastmilk in there it changed the flavour because of the constant thaw/freeze cycle effecting the enzymes in the milk. It will be interesting to see if your power bills are lower with a newer, more efficient fridge.
Weird. I never knew that self defrosting fridges thawed and froze in cycles. I guess it must be completely safe though right?
i love seeing whats in your ooooby box !! mmmmmmmm ciabatta
Thanks for dropping by Paula. With your stunning baking skills, I bet you could make your own ciabatta.
Sounds like a great initiative!
It’s been a fun experience. Though I don’t think we’ll do it forever.
Love the idea of a root vegetable mash. I have never received rutabaga in my box before but will have to try that when I do.
Come and add your link to the party when you get a chance…http://inherchucks.com/2012/09/06/whats-in-the-box-42-a-giveaway/. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Will do 🙂
I’m guessing you don’t pay for electricity or that it’s cheap! A1970s fridge would be a power hog here in Canada!
I haven’t defrosted since the late 80’s in our apartment when we first got married! We used to take everything out (into a cooler with ice, in the winter, on the balcony) and set hot water in bowls in the freezer and wait for the glaciers to melt. It made a mess, that’s for sure. When no one was around, I would take an ice pick and hammer to it (dangerous), but I was young.
Time to get a new(er) fridge I think.
My SILs fridge just crapped out and she asked me what type we have; we love our Fisher Paykel, a New Zealand brand!
Our power bill is very high these days, but I attributed it to our heater and dehumdifier being on. Our power bill is big enough to service a medium sized family and it’s the two of us (or three if you count Tofu). It’s super that you have a Fisher & Paykel fridge. It’s not that springs to mind when I think about NZ made. I would buy Fisher and Paykel for our next fridge.
R.I.P. Old girl. You can pick up a cheap fridge in Australia at somewhere like seconds world. That’s where we got ours, well Tyler got it. It’s pretty much the only thing in our house that he owns. Other than one tv and his golf clubs. Had a rip in the box but the fridge was fine. it has neon blue lights in it, like a disco every meal. Do you have somewhere like that? I ❤ my westinghouse!!
I don’t know of any place like Secondsworld. I would totally shop there. Our choices are either brand new or used.
Check this site out – http://search.secondhand.co.nz/
Awesome post.