Are you lucky enough to have a pantry in your kitchen? My kitchen doesn't
have a pantry, so I keep most of my dry goods in one main kitchen cabinet.
This is where I keep all my grains, pastas, spices, and some other
items such as peanut butter, honey, raw almonds (we eat some every day;
other nuts are kept in the freezer), and dried fruit.
This is the cabinet before. Not too bad, but a little sloppy.
I started by clearing everything out of the cabinet and wiping down the shelves.
Then I threw away anything that was expired.
I like to keep grains and pastas in glass jars ~ it keeps the items fresher when
you can put the lid back on a jar instead of trying to close a box or bag. Ever
try to close a box of pasta when you didn't use the whole thing? I can't tell
you how many times I actually used tape to keep a box closed.
I also like how you can easily see what you need when items are in glass
containers. I cut the cooking instruction label off the original bag and put it in
the container with the grain or pasta.
Honey, maple syrup, and molasses are obviously sticky, so I use plastic
lids underneath these types of jarred items to catch the drips and prevent
the sticky stuff from getting onto the shelving.
I ran out of glass jars for some of the goods, but I'm always on the
lookout at thrift shops. I also reuse salsa jars or any other food that comes
in jar that is big enough to re-use for dried goods. I then group things together ~
grains, pastas, dried fruit, dried beans, and spices.
I think I have every spice known to man. I don't want to be wasting time
searching for a particular spice when I'm cooking, so I organized these in
baskets according to how they're used. For example, one basket holds Italian
spices - oregano, thyme, basil, rosemary, onion salt, garlic powder (though I mainly
use fresh garlic), and parsley. Another basket holds baking spices - cinnamon,
ginger, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, and cloves. How about a basket for salts and
peppers? I have a pepper grinder for coarser pepper and then a bottle of "regular",
fine-ground pepper. I have a little bottle of kosher salt, but I sometimes use Trader Joes
21 Seasoning Salute in my cooking, since it's a salt-free blend.
It's so easy to just pull a basket off the shelf and have all the spices you need
at your fingertips. Now I need to find my label maker and label these baskets!
And here's the after - much neater and more organized.
Joining Cozy Little House for Tweak it Tuesday.
Come on over and see what all these talented ladies have been up to!
