Productivity Tuesday: The Uses of Parchment Paper

The inspiration for today’s productivity hack resulted partially from the task that I performed on Day 5 of the 30-Day Challenge: Procrastination Station, a month-long challenge that was ongoing from December 2018 through the beginning of January 2019. And, I’m not referring to today’s post as an official reblog since I’m only including a few sections to display instead of the full post, originally published on December 11, 2018. Here’s a little taste of what happened on day 5 of the challenge:

Task:  To clean out the inside of my refrigerator and freezer units from top to bottom, as prescribed by Betsy Rossen Elliot in her book, Salt: Clean Coffee Cup Stains and Other Best-Kept Secrets.  In the book, it was suggested to sprinkle equal amounts of salt and baking soda on a damp sponge, wipe down the inside of the refrigerator with the mixture, and then wipe the surface again with a fresh sponge dampened with water.

Reason for Task:  My refrigerator and freezer are both due for a major deep cleaning.  It pains me to look at them in all their unsanitary glory.  Unlike myself, the other individuals in my household seem to be oblivious to the unsightly spills, caked-on food residue, expired food items, and spoiled foods residing in my cooling units; but I notice them and I don’t like what I’m seeing.  I guess that Hubby and company think that, if they don’t acknowledge the neglect in the kitchen, then it will somehow go away (meaning…Wife/Mom will take care of it) and they won’t be called to serve on clean-up duty.  Well, leave a thankless task long enough and this woman of the house will eventually rise to the challenge.

Outcome:  Wooo Hooo!  My cooling compartments have almost been restored to their brand-spanking newbie status.  Some take-aways from this task are as follows:

• When you don’t have a soft sponge on hand, use a damp dish rag for wiping.
• It’s much more efficient to remove detachable shelving and drawers to clean them.
• You can always keep an open small box of baking soda in the refrigerator to act as a deodorizer.  I think it needs to be replaced every 30 days with a fresh one.
• The results were the same as if I used a mild detergent and water to clean with.
• You have to make sure and wipe out the salt/baking soda thoroughly or else it will leave a grainy residue on your appliances.

The other impetus for today’s productivity hack is from the TODAY show, where a guest expert showed Hoda and Jenna (I believe it was those two) some organizational hacks for the refrigerator (to make it look more clean and organized). I actually have to give my Mother credit for letting me in on this episode, because she DVR’d it in hopes that she could share it with me the next time I came over to visit.

My wonderful Mother is constantly keeping an eye out on informative pieces of news to share with me. And I truly appreciate it, because she’s taken on the role of honorary news informant. She’s very thoughtful in her pursuit to make sure that I’m educated on matters that she believes would be of interest to me. And, she has recorded many-a-newsworthy episode to prove it.

I firmly believe that my Mother is one of the reasons I keep up-to-date on such important topics of discussion such as the weekly weather outlook, our local collegiate men’s basketball standings, delicious and simple recipe ideas, local health and wellness updates, and of course, household hacks, tips, and tricks. My Mom’s consistent dedication to indirectly providing life education (on productivity hacks and other topics of interest) is served with maternal pride and she fulfills her role very well. A true Mother’s job is never done.

Getting back to the refrigerator segment on the TODAY show . . . I didn’t catch the entire demonstration; but what I did hone in on was an easy hack for keeping the inside of the refrigerator clean. It involved the use of wax paper to line the refrigerator shelves and compartments (to protect them from getting soiled).

Now, you can see (from the snippets above) how hard I had to work on day 5 of the challenge to get my refrigerator in clean working order. So naturally, any effort to maintain a tidy refrigerator with relative ease would be a welcomed process improvement strategy, compared to the very labor intensive method that was described above.

So, wax paper, ehh? Well, let me put my little spin on this hack and suggest using parchment paper instead. I don’t have much experience with wax paper, but I absolutely love, love, love parchment paper and use it for multiple things in the kitchen. For example, I like to make clean up easier by using parchment paper to:

1. line my cookie sheets, cake and pie pans, Pyrex bakeware, and roasting pans.
2. cover my kitchen countertops to keep them free from flour spatter when I’m kneading, rolling out, and cutting dough.
3. cover my kitchen countertops to protect them from meat juice when I’m grinding, dicing, and seasoning meat. (Now that I think about it, wax paper might be a better option for this one. Juice won’t be able to soak through as easily.)
4. place in between my homemade pie crusts to keep them separated from one another for storage purposes or until I’m ready to line the pie pans with them.
5. line my refrigerator shelves and compartments to keep them free from messes and to make the process of periodically cleaning them so much easier. (This one is the subject of today’s “Productivity Tuesday” and is the new efficiency tactic I plan to try out this week).

I guess I’ve always known that parchment paper was a complete winner when it comes to clean up. And anything that prevents time wasted in unnecessary chores is a productivity/efficiency hack in my estimation. It just floors me that, it never once, came to mind to use parchment paper in my refrigerator. Since I buy it in bulk at Cosco, it makes for an inexpensive household commodity worth investing in time and time again.

Too bad I can’t wrap up the entire inside of my house in parchment paper to keep it from getting dirty.