Kitchen Organization...Cleaning House, Literall

Over the past 7 weeks I have slowly reorganized my kitchen.  I did this in small segments, one area at a time.  It would be much too overwhelming to try to do this all at once.

1. I have a fairly large kitchen.
2. I have a lot of "stuff".
3. I am an organizational freak.
4. I needed to plan each area.

I will say, this is still an on-going process.  As I do more whole food cooking and find what works and what doesn't my kitchen will evolve more.

One of the first areas I tackled was my "baking area".  I knew I needed to be able to have my new found "flours" easily accessible.  I have a pantry cabinet next to my stove/cooking area.  This has housed many a cake and brownie mix, oodles of boxes of cereal and loads of microwave popcorn.  Today, it looks much different.  

The top shelf contains staple baking items and chocolate.  

The 2nd shelf now is loaded with a variety of "flours" and "starches".  Each container is labeled with what's inside.  I don't want to ever grab an incorrect flour.  Two reasons:  We have tree nut allergies.  Non-Grain flours are all used very differently.  Since this picture was taken, I've added two more containers.

The 3rd shelf, at the point the top picture was taken, had sauces that I still have on hand, microwave popcorn (yes it's peaking back there), my small jar of coconut oil, maple syrup, etc.  This shelf now has been cleaned up a bit.  

The 4th shelf still contains baking mix and a 2 month old open box of Total.  Mike won't let me throw it out. I think some pure refined sugar pancake syrup might be there too.  But right smack dab in the front now is this beauty:

I have a bit of tweaking to do, but overall this is working well.  

The spice/baking cabinet received the next overhaul.  This was an enlightening experience.  Do you KNOW how old your spices are????  I threw a lot of stuff away that day.  At least one garbage bag full.  That says a lot when you are talking about spice jars.

I moved all my old traditional baking supplies to the top shelf, behind everything else.  These may still be used from time to time...Christmas baking.  Maybe.  The middle shelf has become an overflow of sorts.  Extra spices that I've purchased because I use them a lot, vanilla and other extracts, sea salt/pepper.  The bottom shelf contains the spices we use regularly.  This too has grown a bit since this picture was taken.  I've added some balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar and local raw honey!

The "lunch" cabinet has been showcased here already.  But I thought I'd talk about it again.  This area didn't change much overall.  I have kept all our 31 lunch bags on that shelf since my kids went to school 3 years ago.  I bought two sets of the red Rubbermaid sets back then too, and they are still going strong.  I did add a few more with the twist-tops recently.  (Red distinguished them from the blue ones I used for leftovers, stored elsewhere in the kitchen.)  The "snack box" on the top shelf holds all their fruit leather, raisins, etc.  

The cabinet adjacent to the lunch cabinet used to be the "go-to" snack cabinet.  I guess it still is.  Instead of chips, cookies, and crackers, now you will find a wide variety of nuts, seeds and dried fruit.

Lock 'n Locks are stored here for easy packing up of fruits and veggies.