It's Winter in My Refrigerator

I opened the refrigerator this weekend after shopping for salad stuff only to find that the fresh leafy greens frozen. It's among the more unpleasant of kitchen surprises. I tried to thaw it in the bathtub (we have no sink in the remodel progress) with a vegetable strainer but it was difficult to get the center thawed. Those of you who have had frozen heads of lettuce know that the results are typically soggy and limp.

 

Many factors can lead to frozen vegetables, from setting the refrigerator's temperature too low to storing the produce in the wrong place. This is a relatively new development which has occurred for the second time since we moved out our refrigerator to tile the floor. Ever since we moved it back, our lettuce, cucumber, cabbage, tomatoes and carrots have froze in the vegetable crisper.

 

The first thing we did was check the temperature setting. We dropped it to the center of the range of temps. We've kept our produce in the crisp drawer all the time but now it freezes. If we take it out and place it on the bottom shelf above the crisper its okay. Manufacturers

recommend keeping produce in the crisper drawer, away from the circulating air. You don't want the moisture to transpire out of the product and make it limp, which can happen with produce on a shelf.

If the crisper is full and some produce has to sit on a shelf, it's better to keep it at the front of the refrigerator, because cold air falls down along the back wall. Along with the area directly beneath the outlet, the back and bottom of the refrigerator tend to be the coldest spots.
So we have some limp soggy lettuce in our salads. Luckily the red leaf didn't freeze, so they are salvageable. But more investigation is needed this week.