So I had to re-calibrate. How to blog about healthy lifestyle choices with a minimum amount of effort. Hmm.... I considered a few meals I could make, but I lacked the oomph. There were a couple of other brief considerations, yet no oomph could be found. A friend suggested a blog about reading. Even that sounded too labor intensive. Ah-ha, but this week I did organize my pantries. My sad, less than exciting, yet obnoxiously organized pantries. So that's what you get. This is also your first glimpse of our "new" house, aside from my kitchen counters. By the way, it's not new. It was built in the 1980s and we moved here in March, be that as it may....
This is our 'main' pantry, if you will. It's right outside the entry to our kitchen. Upon moving into the house, it seemed a very poor layout, but we've grown accustomed to it. This is where we keep items that need to be readily accessible. The door also holds most of our herbal teas. Easy to see, easy to access, works great!
The top shelves.... I keep items that I want to be slightly harder to access at the top. The kids can get to it, and they do, but they need to pull a chair over which usually draws some attention. Cereal, chips, crackers, and so on.
The next shelf.... Canned soup(almost all bought at store clear-outs), hot sauces, peanut butter, cooking oil, syrup, honey, soy sauce, and so on.
The next aisle has baking mixes, fresh fruit, nuts, and baking goods.
One more row down is all of my dry goods. Beans, wheat, grains, sugars, chocolate chips, raisins, coconut, rices, and so on. There's the latest batch of avocados waiting in my mom's old Corningware, too.
At the bottom is vinegar, more rices, those 12 pounds of oranges, seltzer, onions, lunch boxes, Ziploc bags, and caffeine free Coca-Cola leftover from my parents' Christmas visit. One of these days I'll let the kids have a little with a movie and popcorn, but I haven't felt that generous yet. Or they haven't been cute enough yet. It could go either way.
This is our other pantry. It's in our formal dining room, which is a short hallway away from our other pantry and from the kitchen. This also seemed awkward when we moved into the house, but it helps keep the room formal and clean since it doesn't just extend from the more casual living spaces.
This is where I keep a lot of base ingredients, and all the extras. I also keep some large kitchen items that don't fit in our kitchen cabinets and don't see daily use.
Then oatmeal, hot cereals, and breakfast cereal. I bought Cocoa Puffs for my dad while he was here, but then he decided not to eat breakfast. Hmph.
Next row... salad dressing, condiments, potatoes, rices, pastas.
The next row down is canned fruit, spaghetti sauce, and canned tomatoes of many varieties.
Below that, coffee, chicken broth.
And then the bottom.... Ho boy. Bottled water, wine, champagne, food processor, juicer, all my giant storage containers, gift wrap, bows, you name it it's likely to be down there.
Tomorrow I will try, TRY to be better. I promise I will. But for now, be happy gawking at my not excessive food stores.
Your pantries look great! I'm still trying to figure mine out since the laundry and pantry are one small room off the kitchen -- it's a little awkward in there. Thanks for the inspiration! ~Angela~
ReplyDeleteWe have definitely had some challenging pantry situations in the past. One house didn't have a pantry or closet or anything, so we bought some cheap cabinets with doors at Wal-mart and put those in the "eat-in" nook/corner. The next house also didn't have a pantry, so we put those same cabinets on an empty kitchen wall. That was also the house where I started couponing and stockpiling(a dark period in my life), so we also stored stuff in our unfinished basement and in our master bedroom closet. It got pretty scary! Now I'm glad to be able to store things in logical places!
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