Taming the Chaos

Right before Thanksgiving break, I finally decided to break down and clean out my pantry.  My pantry had been bugging me for ages, but with the huge cooking task of turkey dinner looming, I decided enough was enough and cleaned up my act.

Here are a few shots of how my pantry looks now:

To get my pantry looking like this, I had to do a lot of work.  I...

• Took out every single thing in my pantry.
• Sorted things into three categories: keep, toss, or donate.
• Moved all the keep items onto my dining room table to be dealt with later.
• Emptied out and recycled what I could from the toss pile.  We ended up with about 3+ bags of trash thanks to my pantry clean out!
• Bagged up my donation items and searched for places to donate.
• Cleaned out every shelf.
• Lined each shelf.
• Reorganized where my keepers would go.

I can't believe how much crap I had in my pantry.  There were opened bags of cookies, cans that expired in 2007(!?!), and things I don't remember buying shoved into the murky depths of my too-deep pantry.  It amazing how many boxes of pasta and cans of refried beans I have stashed away...and I have no idea what that says about me as a person.

I used to have all my canned goods on the top shelf, but have now come to the realization that that was madness.  Canned goods are now lower, just below eye-level so I can better see what's in there.  Pasta and grains have been moved to the top, with baking goods just below them followed by canned goods, then snacks, then cookies, then miscellaneous junk that has no better place to go.

I'm hoping to keep the pantry organized, but we'll see how long it lasts.  Pantries can be scary places, but for now, I'm happy that I've tamed the chaos!

What a Mess!

I WISH my pantry were this organized!

I don't know what's going on in my kitchen, but lately it seems like my pantry is crammed with crap.  I THOUGHT I cleaned it out recently, but I must have been dreaming.  All my shelves seemed overstuffed and disorganized, and I know I'm missing out on some really good stuff simply because I can't find it.

It's odd. In my professional life, I'm an organized person.  But at home...and especially in my kitchen...it's chaos.  It's not as bad as an episode of Hoarders on A&E, but I hate feeling like I can't find stuff or that I'm storing things that may be out of date.


So I ask you: How do you organize YOUR pantry?  What are your best tips for this never-ending task?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Since this is on my mind, I thought I'd check in with the Queen of All Things Organized, the fabulous Ms. Martha Stewart.  Here are her tips for controlling the pantry chaos--I'm not finding them all too helpful.  Oh well:

Store items that are used together next to one another. For example, group baking staples such as baking powder, baking soda, sugar, cocoa, salt, and molasses on the same shelf.

Most items keep best in airtight containers; glass, metal, and heavy plastic containers are least likely to become infested with pests. Containers for oils and dried herbs should be opaque as well as airtight. Martha likes to store grains, dried beans, dried chiles, rice, and dried fruit in tightly sealed canning jars.

Make sure that jars of food you've canned at home are properly labeled and dated. It's a good idea to mark the purchase dates of other foods such as flour and spices as well, so you can tell at a glance if something is past its prime.

A cool, dark space in the pantry is an ideal place to store hardy vegetables such as potatoes and onions. Don't store potatoes and onions right next to each other, however, as they hasten each other's spoilage.

The pantry is also a convenient place to store non-food items such as lightbulbs, candles, matches, baskets, serving trays, and pet treats.

Read more at Marthastewart.com: Setting up a Pantry and more decorating ideas, organizing tips, and homekeeping and cleaning solutions on marthastewart.com

Matha Stewart Would Not Approve

I own tons of cookbooks and have mounds of recipes. Because I have so many places to search for recipes, I often get overwhelmed by it all. And then stuff like this happens: I'll find a kick-ass recipe on the Internet, print it off, cook it, then promptly lose the hard copy while simultaneously forgetting where in the worldwide web I found it in the first place. It's exhausting, really.

I can't believe that I am the only one this happens to. And to combat this, I really, really need to get my recipes and cookbooks organized.

Our mother has all of her recipes organized in overfilled yet neat envelopes, sorted by category and housed in plastic storage bins. She also makes notes on her recipes, indicating any changes she made, who she served it to, and how it was received. Martha Stewart would love to compare notes with Mom.

I am not like my mother. I have piles stashed away, clippings here, there, and everywhere, and print offs folded up and stuck inside cookbooks, etc. It's complete and utter chaos.

I don't like the idea of putting everything on index cards. Binders seem intimidating. Scanning every recipe I own into the computer appeals to me, but seems like a major undertaking.

So I am going to ask you--our readers (all three of you!)--how you organize your recipes. Does your current system work? How long did it take for you to get set up? Also, do you make notes in your cookbooks? (I do, sometimes!) Please leave a comment and let me know what you do. I'm hoping one of your suggestions will be my ah-ha moment and will get me going with my goal of organizing my damned recipes once and for all. Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have!