On a quest to get better organized I've been re-organizing our very small and rather crowded pantry.  This project has been long overdue, and as you'll see below in the before photo, rather embarrassingly out of control too.  I wanted to create a budget-friendly project, so I picked up some canning jars (versus individual, more expensive jars) to store the dry goods in and and then also created some printable labels inspired by a field trip last week to a local botanical shop.




It was obvious we needed to contain all the various drygoods we had accumulated, and the new year is always a good time to look at all the expiry dates also and get rid of what we weren't using.  Also with our plans to eat more healthfully this year, there was quite a bit of excess refined foods that needed to be taken out. So now was a good time to do that as well.

Here's how it all went down:

Before

To begin, I removed everything off the pantry shelves and organized into categories on our kitchen table.  Placing all the flours in one row, grains in another, pasta in another, etc. I then began to look at all of the expiry dates and threw out anything that was expiring soon.  And then after that, I just went through what I felt was not healthy for us and set that aside too.  What was left, was food I felt was as close to nature as possible, keeping things very simple and wholesome.

Categorizing

My list of dry goods is now pretty basic and so much easier to keep under control I think.  I still have a few items that we don't eat as much (see all those legumes), but, eventually I know they will be used up in the odd humus or chilli we may make, but this is where it's at for now.  I'm loving the simplicity and easy access to everything. The spices, oils, and things like baking powder are hiding behind the curtain. But, how did I ever find anything before?

If you're interested in the labels I created, you can download them at the bottom of this post. I just used a piece of clear tape over top of the label to apply them to the jars.  I also made a printable copy of the recipe cards that are hanging on a clip from the shelf too (if you noticed). You can print those out too (scanned from my very old card files). The real thing!  All of the printables are below.

All in all I'm pretty happy with the end result, and now the big challenge will be to keep it under control for the rest of the year. If you have any tips for that, feel free to let me know! Check back with me then!





Downloads:
(for personal use only)

Printable labels
Printable Recipe Cards