Pantry Clean-Out

You remember my messy pantry, yes? It took a few hours to pull everything out, wipe down the shelves and floor, and look at everything before I put it back to make sure it hadn't expired, but I got it done.

The nice thing about having an organized pantry is now I don't have to dig through it to find anything; it's arranged the way I use the contents. I also weeded out a couple of cans of expired food and learned I really need to make ziti more often to use up a stockpile of that pasta.

Some thoughts on the process if you're thinking about doing the same:

Don't rush the process. I do one shelf at a time, and I take breaks after two shelves are done. That way it's a little easier to manage the task without wearing myself out.

Take time to organize everything. Yes, I do alphabetize my soups, and categorize my canned goods, but that's how I like to keep my pantry.

Store things according to your needs. I use egg noodles a lot because my guy loves them, so I pour those bags into a big plastic storage container. I'm diabetic, so I keep a sugarfree product section just for me. We have lots of bugs in the country, so I also keep pasta, rice and sugars in plastic ziplock bags to prevent luring the little critters into the house (this also helps isolate any that got into the containers at the market before I bought them, also an occcasional problem.)

Finally, if you organize and maintain your pantry, you'll have an easier time with meal preparation, shopping and being able to see what you have on hand.

I'll be keeping a spring cleaning online album here showing before and after photos for this year. This is more to motivate myself, but I like documenting what I get accomplished, too. If you'd like to keep up with how I'm managing spring cleaning, that's where to go.