Kitchen Happenings, Part 1

There have been a few new things tried in our kitchen lately.  This one was of the organization sort.

Does anyone else have a spice cabinet whose contents look like this? I would try to terrace stack them, alphabetize them, put the tall ones in back, so on and so forth.  It never really worked.  Either I had dominoes falling every time I pulled out a jar or I had emptied half of the cabinet before actually finding what I needed.

It has made me crazy for years, but I was not about to spend $20 for some fancy spice organizer that was too hard to expand or adjust for new spices.

I found a solution!  My brother gave me a birthday gift a year or so ago of a subscription to Rachel Ray's magazine.  In a recent issue they had this idea. 

It cost me a total of $6 for 30 containers at my local bulk store (I bought a few extras)!  I already had the labels and cut them to fit.  If you want to try this here are a few things we found to be helpful: 1) call the store ahead of time to find out if they will sell you containers and for how much, 2) do not use round containers; they waste space, 3) if the lids are recessed it helps with stacking, but you still need room for a label to fit, 4)save some of your nicer old spice containers; Ryan wanted them for organizing small screws and nails, and 5) I left cinnamon or crushed red pepper in their old shakers as I use them for sprinkling much to often.

Added bonuses: I cleaned out the spices that had been around much too long. In addition, I now have to use some sort of utensil (don't count on it measuring much in this kitchen) to add the spice to my cooking.  I have long known that it is not proper to shake the spice bottle over a cooking pot, as moisture is then introduced into the spice jar, but it was just too easy to do.

Next time we will post how our first attempts at making our own bread starter (without yeast!) and a chicken stock from scratch are going.