Organization #5

Back to the kitchen today for the next step in 21 days of Organization with A Bowl Full of Lemons.  The Pantry was the given assignment.  Or in lieu of a pantry, any cupboard with food works fine.  Well in my kitchen, I have 4 food cupboards.  The baking cupboard, the supper cupboard, the box cupboard and the everything else cupboard. 

I am the grocery shopper in my house and I get home before my DH so I am also the one who carries them in and puts them away.  So by the time I get home, I have touched everything already 5 times.  Into the cart, onto the register belt, back into the cart, into the car, into the kitchen.  I try to do all my shopping in 1 day to cut back on the times I have to run out to grab something.  Because ya know, I never just grab what I went into the store for.  So that means that I have done my main shopping @ 1 store, hit store number 2 for their sales and the things not carried by store number 1, and then maybe store number 3 for their sales.  So by the time I get home and have to touch every package for the 6th time, I am tired and things get put away slightly haphazardly. (to say the least)

The baking Cupboard:  Just what the title says.  Everything I use for baking.  All my spices, measuring spoons and cups etc.   2 tips I would like to pass along when it comes to kitchen cupboard organization.  Mason jars and Lazy Susan's.  I transfer all of my herbs and spices to 1/2 pint jelly jars.  This way, all the jars are uniform for stacking, I can get a Tspoon into all of them if needed, and they are clear so I can see when I am almost out of something.  I use Qt jars (or old Spaghetti Sauce jars) for Baking cocoa, chocolate chips, pwd milk, cornmeal, etc.  Also if I buy spices in bulk then I keep the excess in the larger jars too.

Here is the baking cupboard before and after:  Yes that is Lard in there.  In my quest to perfect pie crust, my search has led to lard.  And it makes mighty fine pie crust.

The supper cupboard.  All the herbs, pasta, breadcrumbs and other things that are used on a nightly basis to make supper.  Before and after. Another tip.  I have a jar of salt in both the baking cupboard and the supper cupboard.  That way I never have to go looking for it.

The box Cupboard.  Macaroni and cheese, “Helper” meals, and snacks that I don’t want the kids to eat as fast as they can.  Things that need to go into lunches.  Before and after.

The everything else cupboard.  This is a waist high cupboard that has 4 shelves that slide out like drawers.  LOVE IT.

Drawer #1 is canned goods that I use for dinner regularly.  Since I am looking down @  these shelves, I use a black Sharpie to write on the top of the cans so I don’t have to pick up 5 to find the one that I am looking for. ~~Just a note here, My mom grew a lot of Oregano and Basil and Parsley and dried it and gave it to me.  So the several large jars of “"herbage” that you are about to see are completely legal.: )

Before:

After:

Drawer #2 is excess from drawer #1.  Before:

After:

Drawer Number 3 is the kids Drawer.  Pop tarts, granola bars, peanut butter.  Before:

After.  I took the packages out of the boxes and put them in organizers because then never through out the empty boxes and Frank has Radar for that sort of thing.  Drives him bonkers. I also put the excess hot cocoa mix and coffee there.  Once it was all consolidated, I counted over 60 packets of hot cocoa.  Yikes.  If you receive hot cocoa mix in a jar from me next Christmas, I bet it will taste as good as store bought.  LOL

And the bottom drawer just holds the extra 64oz bottles of juice.  Since there was really no way to re-arrange them I didn’t take a picture.

So that has been my tour of my “Pantry”.  It is so much more organized and I now know how much food I have.  My next couple grocery trips should be lighter since I found so much food.  LOL

I am afraid that tomorrow might be the fridge.