Home challenge - week 3 - pantry

Week 3, we are still managing to keep the bench clean - tick.  The cupboards are still organised - tick. Now we are moving onto organising the pantry, spices and food. The scary thing is, yep once again, I did this not that long ago. Well not this detailed, but I did take things out, clean out and put back in. So once again, my challenge is to keep it tidy.

This took me 4 hours to complete. Who would have thought?  So lets start with some before pictures.

                                                                     Spices - before

                                                                       Pantry - before
                  Top 3 shelves                                                                 Bottom 2 shelves

First thing I did was take everything out.....who knew we had so much food in there - it took up ALL my bench space (did you see my nice clean bench in week 1?)

I even had to put some on the floor

Next to clean out the shelves - ewwwwww....

Next I went through all the spices. Checked expiry dates, chucked those out of date and straightened them up. I found I have 2 lots of thyme leaves! I made an inventory of what spices I have -which will come in handy when I do my shopping list - currently I have to go check through all the spices to see what I have and haven't got.

                                                                         Spices - after

Then I went through and decided where each type of food should go. I got rid of anything out of expiry date, or what I don't think we will use. And labelled all the shelves (the little yellow labels - hard to see in the pics). As I was going through I made an inventory list.

Top 2 shelves - after.  The top shelf still looks quite full - but things are stored in tubs (at the back where you can't see) and it's food I don't want the kids to be able to reach - chocolates, chips etc. The 2nd shelf is for cans and cereals, salt and pepper, and root spices.

Shelves 3 and 4 - after - here I've got vinegars (I have 5 different types), sauces/condiments, and tea/coffee/milo supplies.  And then I have all my tupperware things - sugars, flours, pasta/rice and dried fruits.

Then the bottom shelf is for drinks, potatoes and onions and dog food. Coles had longlife milk on sale for $1 a litre so I bought 20L.  We wouldn't usually have this much!

Then I made up my own inventory list.  The one from the website wasn't big enough. I typed up the general foods we have, and left some blank spaces for additiona things we may buy. I've put the quantity in using a blue temporary texta. This way when we use one we can change the number, and when we get low it goes on my shopping list, which is on the fridge.

Here is my inventory.

                                         Spices                                                                               Pantry

I'm quite pleased with how my pantry looks now and am ready to tackle the fridge and freezer next week!