Pantrys Need Love, too!

This is from our old residence when we organized our upstairs Linen Closet-turned-Food Pantry; back in March 2009.

Our main problem: Our kids help us fill this closet and a very busy household.
Our incentive: We were starting a 10-day NO EATING OUT or SHOPPING.

Well, we got the pantry organized tonight. Thanks to my great hubby, Mr. Man!

Some befores:

This is just right before we got started in reinforcing some shelves... We had to take stuff out as you can see...

This is my "oh-so" gorgeous hubby making sure those shelves will stay put. There he is testing out the new layout... Almost done!


And the afters! Doesn't my pantry look ready for a 10-day raid? Mr. Man did such a great job, "thank you, Mahal!"
Above is the left side where we put the cans and heavy stuff, and below is the right side where the lighter stuff now resides! And look, an empty container! Yay!

One of our children have many food allergies and maintaining a strict "hide the nuts" policy have to start in this closet for his safety. Making each inventory more visible and accessible, our son can help grab stuff out without any danger of being exposed to any nuts. Thank goodness he's not "nuts dust" allergic-purely skin contact and direct ingestion.
I'm off to tweak the menu for the week as we found a lot of goodies we'd rather eat! We're off to a good start with our family project!

NOW TO THE PRESENT...

As you can see in the pictures, the pantry is full of things we eat and use. It housed both our Food Storage, Everyday Stock and Non-Food Items. Since it was the only closet for all of our needs, we decided to be really organized about the space.

We partitioned using FREQUENCY, PURPOSE, STORAGE, TEMPERATURE SENSITIVITY. (it is upstairs so naturally, it is a bit warmer). Food Storage on the bottom and back shelves, Everyday Stock in middle shelves while non-food items are up top since we have our children help us bring stuff up and down this closet.

So, we... PONDERED about our needs and space. Then we REDESIGNED to have easier ACCESS for even two people. We no longer had to YANK what we needed at the higher shelves since we place a step stool inside and since we were set on a 10-day shopping hiatus, this new setup, made our experience SIMPLE and SUCCESSFUL!

Good luck to your own organization projects!

Summer Salad & Gooey Brownies

Nothing says YUMMY than a fresh and nutritious salad and brownies that melt in your mouth.

Using PRAYS, I PURCHASED just what I needed like basil and the eggs I didn't have. REINVENTING the recipes, I got exactly the results I wanted. I also APPOINTED the time that I would make them to not use too much electricity. After both came out perfectly, I said YES to keeping them into the recipe vault in my head and SAVORED the fruits of my labor!

Summer Pasta Salad- all it required were olive oil, lemon juice, basil, tomatoes, garlic salt and black pepper. You cook the pasta, and make the dressing separately. If you don't have shaved parmesan cheese, you can use any cheese that you normally eat outside of processed cheese slices, of course. We love Laughing Cow wedges here so that's what we used for this salad.

I feel so good that when I came across this recipe in the newspaper, I was only missing the basil. So I only had to pay $2.65 for a great summer dish!

This afternoon, we decided to have brownie cupcakes. I didn't have to buy anything but a dozen eggs to accomodate the two I needed and spent only $1.35! But I also do not like to dirty my pans so I always watch cupcake liners on clearance after any big holiday. But instead of the suggested baking time, on the box, I cut it down to only 15 minutes, then I let it cool down for 15 more on a rack. The result is a gooey brownie cupcakes rivaling a molten lava cake!
So see, if you stock up your pantry well, you can come up with amazing dishes and quick desserts that won't burn a hole in your wallet!

Two dishes, for only $4.00! Anyone can afford that, right? Right!

Before the Market, Open Your Pantry

(Photo courtesy of Healthline.com)
Back in the Philippines, where I'm from, pantry is a luxury. Often, our excess non-perishable items are just on simple shelves. Unless of course, you have the means to have what we enjoy here in the U.S.

So often, we head to the market knowing exactly what what we want to eat and when. In more rural or poor areas, we go both before lunch and just before dinner so fresh food is actually, well, fresh!

Back to now and here in the U.S. Modern thinking led us to big massive containment. Both for saving time, gas and money. Well, if we look at it, are we really saving on all these three big factors of our lives?

Let's look at that, shall we? (I'm guilty of this, too as well as my husband)

We often get things we don't really need that only sounded great at the time or someone else convinced us to get it.

We don't organize our current stock so that we have an idea of exactly what we have therefore no time to organize what we can do with them.

We make a lot of food but don't really like eating it all or we eat it all within a few days and we're back to square one of not having enough.

We make too many excuses!

I've learned during lean times that change has to start with how I use what I already have before thinking I can afford what the stores offer.

So... I've learned to PORTION, REINVENT, ALLOCATE, YAMMER for ideas, and finally SOLVE my problems of what to do with what I already have!