pantry clean out
This week I thought we’d take a bit of a dive into the little world of pantries. Ok, well, my pantry is little, tiny even? But it holds all we need for our family of 5. My tiny pantry has seen it’s share of clean outs, of reorganizations, of things flying everywhere because of the shear amount of stuff that we kept in it. I used to think I needed a bigger pantry. What I really needed was a reality check of all the food that we were eating, or more often, not eating. My garbage can will tell the tales of stale food, moldy food, and 5 years expired food. But only recently do I have a better understanding of what we actually need. Chow Mein noodles? Nope. White rice? Yup.
We were wasting food. We were wasting money. And we were wasting valuable space in our little pantry. Shopping trips used to happen every two weeks, with another little shopping trip for essentials and perishables. It worked for us for a while. But we were making more and more shopping trips. Not eating the food we had already bought, because we couldn’t see it in our crammed cupboards.
Now shopping trips happen every week. We buy exactly how much food we need. I make a menu for the week, make sure the kids have food for lunches, and add a few extras for flexibility and fun.
Some tips to help you clean out your pantry.
- Empty everything out of your pantry (and any other spaces you might store food) and pile it into one place. A kitchen table, counters, an island, etc.
- First get rid of those things that are expired, stale, or has a general grossness about it. There, that was easy.
- Next is the harder part. Here we take a look at what is left that is good. Here you might want to konmari that food. Hold each item of food and decide if it is good enough to bring into future meals. I like to ask myself if I have a recipe I know I love that I will use it in. If I bought it for a one off meal (especially if it didn’t go well), throw it out, or donate if it’s not opened.
- Keep your staples. We all have them. Peanut butter, am I right?
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cans I kept -
you wanted to see my garbage right?
In the next post, we’ll talk more about actually organizing what you kept. And you can follow along with me on Instagram.
How do you guys like to shop? A couple days at a time or a month at a time? Is there any food you can stop pretending your going to eat and get rid of (cough, brown rice, cough). What are you favorite staples? Let me know if the comments, I’d love to hear from you.
*And if you found this helpful at all, share on social media!*
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