Pantry Overhaul

Mindy here, and we have officially moved into the big house. Things aren't perfect, not that they ever will be. Some finishing touches still need to be done, like the exhaust pipe for the venthood over the stove, some shelving, etc. Little things that we can get by without for a short time.

In the meantime, there's still that physical act of moving-in. While most of our things had been moved into the house the day after Thanksgiving, we didn't spend our first night in the new house until December 15th. Then it was a rush toward Christmas, hopping into the car Christmas morning to meet the rest of the family in Ft. Worth, welcoming baby Taegan, coming back for a day and half with one daughter and her 4 boys before I headed back to FW for 10 glorious days of getting to know my new granddaughter.

I can't believe she's 3 weeks old already.

And this little guy...

He's 8 months old now and trying his hardest to crawl.

But I digress. Babies will do that. 

Moving in. Yes, that's what I was talking about. So you know how it goes. You're unpacking boxes, not sure where most things are going to go, but shoving them here and there as you go. Then, once you get most of the rooms kinda settled, you go back and figure out where to put all that stuff you just stuck somewhere for the sake of putting somewhere.

Which leads me to my pantry. For two months, it pretty much served as a catch-all. When something needed to be out-of-sight-out-of-mind, we stuck it in the pantry where it wouldn't be in the way of the workers. I mean, not only did it have all those shelves, it was also the the first space that was truly "finished." So by the time we got somewhat settled, the pantry looked like this.

Which was okay, for a time. I mean, for the most part, we knew what was in there. Then I woke up one morning with a determination for some sort of organization in the house. Living in chaos for several months will do that do you.

And so it began.

But where to begin?

At the bottom.

Bet you weren't expecting that. 

Notice all the crapola on the floor, rendering our walk-in pantry un-walk-inable. So the first thing I did was remove everything cluttering the floor.

This isn't all of it, but these boxes took up a lot of space. We'd purposely kept boxes for things, knowing we'd be moving, but now that we're in our forever home, it's time these things had a permanent place to live where they're easily accessed. 

Next, I segmented similar-use items into their own areas. Like my baking supplies.

Of course, flours and sugars were already at home on the counter.

Cereals were grouped together in clear containers so with one look I can see which ones need to be added to my grocery list.

Even snack foods were grouped. Now I just need to come up with something to hold all those individual little packets, but that's a job for another day.

Once everything was grouped and put back in, this was the result.

The stuff I rarely use went on the top shelf. While the things I use regularly...

Are easy to grab. Note the air fryer on the shelf. Now it's ready to go whenever I want to use it. No unboxing necessary.

Notice how much more free space I have. And would you look at the floor.

No more tip-toeing around things while I'm looking to see what I need from the grocery store. 

You know, when I envisioned my new house, everything was perfectly appointed and clean as a whistle. Reality, though, is that I am not an organization freak, nor a clean freak, and my rooms rarely turn out as beautifully decorated as they were in my mind. However, I'm pretty proud of my tidy little pantry. And all it took was some time and determination. If only the rest of the house were that easy to tackle.

Now it's your turn. Does organization come naturally to you or do you have to work at it? If you're a natural, the rest of us would love some tips. 

Mindy Obenhaus lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, the youngest of her five children and two dogs. She's passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. When she’s not writing, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her grandchildren. Learn more at www.MindyObenhaus.com  

Fall Pantry Organization has it's rewards!

The weather's turning colder. Pumpkins are out but the farmers market is getting a bit sparse.
Then there was the reminder to be prepared for pandemics. Not my favorite P word.  But it did make me look in my pantry. Now there's a horror story right there.

I didn't take a before picture. But it was bad. The shelves were half empty. Half full bags turned over on their sides. How had it gotten to it's "after an earthquake"-like state?

Wellllllllllll. We only use fresh veggies in the summer. I don't buy preservative-laced food. If it isn't "clean" food, it isn't in our pantry.  I make it through the winter thanks to freezing. But this year, for a lot of reasons, including very bad spring weather, I didn't get a lot of freezing done.  

It really wasn't the fear of an Ebola pandemic freaking me out when I looked at the pantry. Nope. When you have lived through hurricanes and ice storms, you learn a well-stocked pantry can keep you from traveling roads with folks who think they can drive on slippery asphalt or keep you from starving while you wait a week for the power to come on. Or say everyone in the house has the flu? Do you really want to go to the grocery store in your pjs?

For us, long term storage stocking up means canned goods like chicken noodle soup, canned ravioli and Frosted Mini-Wheats for ManO, gluten-free snacks for me, dried fruit and nuts, oatmeal, and Spam. But most of all, getting my act together meant getting my pantry in order. I'd already decluttered back in the spring but I needed to organize.

Where to get ideas: I researched the net. I visited Pinterest.  Traveled to Amazon.com. I looked in TJ Maxx and Target.  Pondered closet organizers in hardware stores. Bottom line?  I decided I'd rather spend my money on food rather than racks and boxes and other storage containers to make my pantry "pretty."  Not to mention, I found out canisters don't necessarily keep out bugs. So I turned my rabid attention to the ZONE method, putting foods together by their use or type of meal.

The Top Shelf:  Water filters, plastic bags, parchment paper and such as well as cookbooks are up here. Sadly, I only pull out the family cookbooks at holiday time. The rest of the time, I'm on Allrecipes.com.  But I broke down and bought a fill it yourself recipe book to keep all my most used GF recipes at hand.  

The Baking Shelf: Gluten free flours, mixes and other grains, condensed milk, pumpkin, spices, extracts and four kinds of sugar for holiday baking. If it wasn't before the holidays, this shelf would be practically bare, even with my reorganization.  Money saving organization: I have baggies of spices and mixes that I stand up in dollar store plastic napkin holders. 

The Quick Meal Shelf: On the left, I put my various sauces and GF pastas, stir fry ingredients, and condiments.  On the right, breakfast stuff like oatmeal and Frosted Mini Wheats. Okay, mostly Frosted Mini-Wheats. ManO is obsessed like a toddler who will only eat one thing. And that thing is Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast.  Why yes, that is a bag of potato chips on the quick meal shelf. Don't judge.

The Long Term Storage Shelf:  The canned goods here have a long shelf life. There is enough here to survive two weeks. Yeah, I won't make it through a zombie apocalypse but will make it through a North Carolina storm. My rule of thumb is to always replace what I take out but, if I have the option of buying fresh ingredients, ignore this shelf as much as possible for true emergencies. Ready.gov has a list of items you should have on hand in case of an emergency but googling emergency preparedness works too or maybe even zombie apocalypse.

Floor level:  My bulk paper products and bags go here.

Sigh. I've worked over several days on the pantry. But I'm not done. It's a work in progress. ManO keeps moving stuff because he likes it better in one spot or another. I have some dead space that needs to be thought about and used better. But I did mention rewards.

I decided to make my pumpkin ice cream as a motivation.  After three days of hard work, I rewarded myself with a variation of my three ingredient (whipping cream, condensed milk and vanilla) ice cream. You can find the original post and vanilla ice cream recipe here.  Whip the cream before folding in the condensed milk, 3/4 can of pumpkin and one tablespoon pumpkin pie spice. Throw it in an ice cream making and voila.

But then I decided to get wild and crazy and top it with a pecan praline sauce.         

It doesn't get much better when you find a praline sauce recipe that doesn't require corn syrup or a candy thermometer. This is my adaptation of several I found on the web. Just remember you must use butter to make this recipe work.

Easy Praline Sauce 

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup organic half and half 
1/2 unrefined organic cane sugar
dash salt
vanilla to taste
1 cup toasted pecans, chopped or pieces (optional)

Melt the butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Mix half and half, sugar and salt together then pour into the pan, whisking constantly. Continue to stir until sugar is dissolved and sauce thickens. Take off heat, add vanilla and stir. Cool for a half hour or so, stirring occasionally. Add pecans, stir and serve over ice cream. Store leftovers in refrigerator up to four days.

Note: Some folks leave out the nuts and use it as an easy caramel sauce. 

You can also add gingersnaps or other types of cookies on the side to really make it special.

So how is your fall pantry looking? Is there anything you make sure to stock up on before winter, bad weather or flu season set in? Do you have a favorite sundae combo as a reward for good behavior or a bad day?  

Fall Kitchen Tour: Surrounded By Ancestors And Cottage Style

I blame the cover of an old Country Living magazine. Nothing less than seeing my dream kitchen come to life would've made me go through a couple months of remodeling hell. Cooking with a microwave, the refrigerator taking over the family room, and dealing with the dust from refinishing and laying down wood flooring. At least we did it after ManO and I became empty nesters.

I wish I could show you a before picture of my kitchen. Didn't take any. My bad. When we broke down and redid our two decades old house, worn white linoleum, cheap, splattered cabinet fronts, and counters with stains of meals gone wrong made the room an eyesore. Every single room had a different dark wall color. The Duke blue dining room led to a Robin Hood green kitchen. And then there was the built in desk no one liked to use.

But all that inconvenience was worth it. After adding wood floors, lightening the wall color to a nice Tuscan beige, putting on beadboard doors, new hardware, tile back splash and a lovely gray Corian type counter, it looks like this:

Well, I might be fibbing a little. The counters are never this clean or uncluttered.  I'm always chopping or staging or using them for a project with the grandkidlets.

When we originally built the house, we made sure one piece of furniture had a special place in the kitchen, the pie safe that ManO and his father built back the year my son was born. What I always remember is being exhausted all the time and not hearing ManO punch the copper panels in the next room. Pregnancy takes it out of a girl. 

My kitchen is decorated with family heirlooms from both sides of the family. The clock? It's from our newlywed days and reminds us where we came from!  

Everything has a purpose or is repurposed or has memories attached.

We have a regular old counter top microwave after having to repair or remove THREE over the stove appliances in the course of our thirty year marriage. The desk counter no one used has converted into deep drawers and cabinets to hold the turkey roaster, turkey platter and small appliances. All the items above are heirlooms from my grandparents, pictures of my grandparents or paintings of the family farm I visited every summer.   

Favorite spot in the kitchen:  I love standing at my sink and checking out the bird feeder and the squirrels' antics.

Favorite thing about my kitchen:We managed to create a cottage style kitchen with lots of storage, something a real centuries old cottage probably wouldn't have! And it's pretty close to that cover of Country Living I found years ago.

Favorite kitchen organizing tip: You don't see the huge pantry to the right of the cabinets and can barely see the little spice cabinet on the wall (another newlywed purchase). I make sure to keep all my spices, baking items, cereals and canned goods as far away from the heat of the stove as possible to keep them lasting longer.

So, have you ever remodeled a kitchen? What do you like best about your cooking space? What do you wish you could change?

Kitchen Decluttering: How to live with less and love what you have more!

Well, I'm back! So good to be in the YB Cafe again. In the past three months, ManO, my dearly beloved, had a stroke. Papa Jack, ManO's dad, suffered from a different kind of stroke. And I broke my foot. Big sigh.

Years ago, a friend advised me, "When life gets out of control, declutter!"  Point being, clutter is something you can control. You throw away stuff that stresses you out. You see concrete results. I ultimately threw away 24 bags of trash, took 40 bags to thrift store and four truckloads to the dump over 40 Days thanks to a wonderful blogger who posted about her own journey, 40 Bags in 40 Days.  Not only did I lose stuff, I gained muscle mass with all that carrying to the car and down from the attic and lost a lot of that out of control feeling.

Nothing gets more cluttered than my kitchen. It was the job I dreaded the most but I learned a lot.

1) A clean counter is one less obstacle to cooking...unless you don't want to mess it up.

A clean counter is a thing of beauty.

2)  You don't need a whole cabinet of coffee mugs and tea cups. A shelf will do.

The thrift store got a lot of freebie mugs I collected over the years. I keep the good stuff.

3)  With the advent of virtual cooking sites like Allrecipes.com and specialty allergy sites, my cookbooks were woefully out of date. But I kept ones from ManO's and my early days for sentimental reasons. That's also the reason I kept my Laura Ingalls Wilder Cookbook. Pure sentiment. I am not going to be roasting a pig's tail any time soon.

Yep, they are stained and ripped but cookbooks on the top row and middle kept us alive as newlyweds.

4) If you don't keep every dull knife, melted plastic measuring spoon, broken peeler, etc., you have a lot more room in your drawers for what you use every day.

5) Are you really keeping your important kitchen implements in the right place?  I had stuffed my collection of kitchen towels and oven mitts in a tiny drawer. It was constantly getting stuck when I opened it. I had a bigger drawer only half full of sandwich bags, plastic wraps and parchment paper. Off to a shelf on my pantry they went and voila! Plenty of space for my linens and such. Some folks move their utensils to a crock on the counter by the stove.  Others use a hanging rack.  Whatever you choose, make the most of your space.

So what about you? Have you done a kitchen declutter lately, ever? What is the one thing you just can't throw out for sentimental reasons?