Recent Kitchen Problems

One thing that I almost always do is save vegetable scraps, peelings, etc in a plastic bag in the freezer.  When I get enough, I turn these leavings into vegetable broth.  The process is carried out in the Instant Pot where I place the scraps, still frozen, in a steamer basket I have for the IP.  I fill the pot with water, set it going for a LONG time, and leave it alone.  When I am on my toes, I add at least bay leaves and sometimes other herbs and spices.

About a month ago I made a big batch of vegetable broth.  There was so much that I put it in a two-quart mason jar and placed it in the top shelf of the refrigerator.  The quart jars were on the second shelf where they easily fit.   They were visible and got used up pretty fast.

As time went by, the half-gallon jar got shuffled to the very back of the top shelf, actually touching the wall of the refrigerator.  A little internal voice asked me if it was possible that touching the wall would freeze the contents and break the jar, but I did not listen.  More tall stuff went into that top shelf and I forgot about the vegetable broth.

Fast forward to a trip to Sam's Club after going to the Dorr Farms for fresh vegetables...all in all a very long exhausting day.

Imagine my surprise, and chagrin, when I opened the refrigerator and noticed there was brown liquid in the bottom of the refrigerator. In an instant I knew that the prompting had been for my benefit those weeks ago!  I did not want to have to deal with that mess, but there was nothing else to do but do it.

First I cleaned up the bottom of the refrigerator, then wiped up the other shelves, then finally came to the top shelf where I found just exactly what I knew I would find.

In case you cannot tell, that is a jar whose contents froze and the poor thing cracked and let out all its juice.  Sad.

That was the trickier part of clean up, but worked just fine. I brought over the trash bin and held it up to the shelf and dragged the jar into the garbage.  I had had enough cleaning at that point and told Dear One there was a mess in the trash that I would take care of.  I certainly did not want him to get cut trying to help me. 

The next day I closed up the bag and carried it out to the rolling garbage bin outside the house and dropped it in, without touching it again. I am confident the nice trash man did not get hurt, either.

No,  I will not be putting glass jars, too full glass jars, up next to the wall in the refrigerator again. I loved that half gallon jar.  It is what I used to make some fabulous sauerkraut.  So sad.  So dumb.