The Kitchen – Cupboards & Canned Goods

One more day on the Kitchen.

Your cupboards.
Go through each of your cupboards. Are they a mess? Take everything out, wash them down, and put everything back in, in an orderly manner.

BUT.

Before you put everything back in, is it still good? Check the expiration dates. If it is a non-perishable item, are you going to use it? If not, donate it to a food drive. In fact, start a grocery bag of non-perishable items so that you will have something to donate when the opportunity arises.

Do you have any “one use” items such as a quesadilla maker or smoothy maker? Dan and I had both and when we were moving, we realized how we never used them, but both took up some much needed space – so to Goodwill they went. For quesadillas, I make them in the oven now (because I usually am making them for a big group) and I just use our nice blender, to make smoothies. So our blender doesn’t have a spout on the end – we can live without that. What one-shot wonders do you have and rarely use? Can you use a different method or item to make the same thing?

Canned goods. They add up! We did not have a “pantry” at our old house, so we ended up storing our canned goods in our basement stairway on a shelf (I know, sounds wierd, but it worked). When I was packing up our canned goods, I had no idea I had a can of kidney beans – pathetic really because Dan can’t eat that type of bean (he’s allergic to them). So why in the world do I even have that? What about other random canned goods? Do you keep for when you “might” use them someday?

I have thought about starting an inventory of my canned goods – like a dry-erase board or small chalkboard because when they are stacked high or deep, I have no clue what I have. Then you end up with 5 cans of cream of mushroom soup! Hence the idea to start a running list – granted it’s a list that you have to keep up on, but will also save you time when grocery shopping b/c you’ll know exactly what you have.

Thus concludes organizing the kitchen – hope yours is a little more organized. Maybe too, you have some new ideas on how to get organized when you get the time to do some work on your kitchen.