Organizing your pantry

Since I have been doing coupons, I have accumulated quite a bit of dry and canned goods over the years. After going to Kroger this morning to pick up some milk and more Libby canned veggies for 17 cents a can, I realized that it was time to reorganize my pantry. I find that I have to reorganize my pantry about twice a year.

A couple of years ago, I came to the realization that the two small cabinets that I was using to store my dry and canned items were just not cutting it anymore. My mother had a wonderful suggestion to help me find space for my food. She suggested that I take my linen closest, in the kitchen hallway by my bedroom door, and make it into a pantry. A decision that has benefited my family, by allowing me to have more room for more food. Something we desperately need since there are 6 of us.

Now after three years of using coupons, I find that if I do not organize my pantry every six months that I tend to run out of room in my pantry. After six months, cans tend to be placed where ever I can find a space and instead of being placed by other like canned food. In my pantry I try to keep all my canned items in the middle since that is where I have the most space. Up top, I place my dry items like rice, pasta, taco shells, etc. In the bottom where the hamper used to be, I place my big bulk items like my 25lb bags of all-purpose flour and bread flour, and my home made canned fruit.

Today I started my reorganizing efforts with my canned food. This is were I tend to get into trouble when it comes to keeping my pantry organized. I try to keep my like canned foods together and line them up from furthest away from the expiration date in the back to the one closest to expiring in the front. This method is recommended when doing food storage. That way you can keep your food rotating and not having any go to waste. It also lets me take inventory of what items I have plenty of and what I need to stock up on.

Today I noticed that I have more than enough canned diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, and tomato sauce. So I organized those cans together and made a note that I do not need to buy anymore tomato product for at least 6 months. Next I saw that I had more than enough canned corn, green beans, and mixed veggies to last me until Spring. Most of those I bought within the past week!

I did notice that I had only 4 cans of evaporated milk left and it was getting close to the expiration date. I'm not too worried about running out, since in about a month is when I tend to stock up on evaporated milk for the year. In October, is when the coupons come out for evaporated milk and around Thanksgiving is when Kroger has sales for evaporated milk too. Last year I got all my evaporated milk for free. I also saw that I am low on chicken broth and condensed soups that I like to use for cooking. Good thing that for the last couple weeks, we have been getting Campbell's condensed soup coupons in the Sunday paper. Now I just need to wait for a sale to come around for me to stock up. Here soon we should be getting the Swanson Broth coupons. During the winter months is the best time to stock up for the year on my beef and chicken broths. If in a pinch, I do keep extra chicken thighs in the freezer for me to use to make homemade chicken broth. Which in my opinion is far superior than the stuff you get at the store, but I just don't have the time to make that much broth and freeze it.

After reorganizing my cans, I moved next to my dry goods. That was not too hard. Most of the items were where they needed to be, I just had to put the pasta together and throw away any expired items. I did spend some time reorganizing my condiments. I used to have these by my canned items, but since I needed the space, I had to move them up top with the dry goods.

The last thing was to organize the bulk items, but since I only have a couple of these, I did not have to do this. Took inventory of my homemade canned fruit and saw that I was out of pickles and running low on canned peaches. I guess next time I go to my parent's house, I can pick some up.

Overall, it only took me an hour to redo the pantry. Not too bad since last time I redid the pantry, it took me all morning. You will find that the longer you coupon and the more items you pick up, the more you need an organized pantry. It makes life easier, especially when you are planning dinner and need to make sure you have all the ingredients. Just doing mine today, gave me ideas for meals I can do during the week. It is also nice to open the doors and see just how much food I have to feed my family and know that it was not expensive to accumulate it too.