Before I started, it was a jumbled mess in here. This pantry is really quite an inefficient pantry because the shelves are so deep. Sure, you can put a lot of things on the shelves but you just can't see what you have beyond what is in the front of those shelves. And I'd gotten lazy so had just been throwing things in there and then kind of forgetting what I had.
I went through things and threw out a lot that was long past it's "Use By" date and then set about organizing what was left. In the process, I was able to take the canned goods that I'd been storing on our table in the kitchen and move them into the pantry.
We don't eat at this table and it really has become just a "catch-all" place. I had been putting whatever canned goods I was going to be using for the week's menus here on this table. Plus when we got our gas oven, we lost some storage space in the bottom drawer of the stove so we'd been storing the broiler pan and griddle on this table, too while we tried to figure out where we were going to put it. Now that I've cleaned out the pantry, I can fit it all in there.
Next stop was the refrigerator. I had been getting pretty tired of all the containers of leftovers clogging up the fridge. My method of eating leftovers is to eat it each day until it is gone. That's not how the Commander does it. He "contains" it and then forgets it. So I fix something different each evening. Plus I was tired of looking at jars of food that had been in there for ages. I'm telling you, I was ruthless. I dumped a lot of jars of pickles down that drain....so much so that the vinegar smell was making me choke and my eyes burn.
I also found some real winners among the "expired" foods. Here's one that I purchased in April 2008. Sheesh! Obviously I wasn't doing much cooking requiring pesto sauce. I think the winner was a can that had an expiration date in 2007. It's gone now.
And that's the extent of today's clean-up. If it is feeling a little cooler out your way, just consider the possibility that perhaps hell really HAS frozen over.
2 comments:
My pantry in Harrisburg was really deep like that. I got these special slide out baskets from the Container Store and that way I could just slide out the basket and see what was in there!
LOL.....I can totally relate to the deep shelved pantry! I have one of those, too - almost useless, it is!
Feels good, doesn't it, to get something like that done?
BTW....I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who has had to through out food that expired years ago.
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