Containerize Your Pantry

I saw this idea somewhere on line, but can't find it again. Anyway they had used beautiful containers that matched their kitchen. I already have my pantry divided into like things together, and I had used some containers and baskets. I wanted to continue that idea and do more of it and try and find some pretty red containers to match my kitchen. I looked at every place I could think of around here and couldn't find what I ideally wanted, so I've decided for now just to use what I have. So I've containerized my beverage mixes like hot chocolate and Cafe Mocha. I also put all my beans, lentils and grains together. I have another container for all my chocolate and dried fruit and another for sweeteners. I already had my herbs and spices in small baskets. I have a basket of just different kinds of salt.

I wish I could have found the original post because she had different ideas and categories than I do. We are all going to do this differently as we have different kinds of foods. I don't use many processed food, but pretty much cook from scratch. I think snack foods was one of the catagories I saw. So why am I bothering? I already had my categories together, but I found that they don't stay separated and so I think the container is the way to keep things where they belong and hopefully will make finding them easier.

I would like to dress up my shelves with oil cloth, but don't want to spend the money right now. I still hope to find the red containers, maybe on line, but this way I can see if it really works and is worth the expense.

I found that you don't want something too tall, you can't see what's in it and if you pantry has a door like mine you can't get the boxes on the sides out without moving other things, so you want to be able to just reach in. Something a little deeper than a tray is good. The wooden box I have I found at a craft store with their unfinished wooden things. I could paint it later and get my red that way. For my chocolate I needed a deeper basket because I have a lot of bags. I buy chocolate in bulk of different kinds. I do put a lot of my bulk items in canning jars, but that doesn't work as well for large odd shapes of chocolate pieces.

One thing that's nice about my pantry is that it has fairly deep shelves and that is another reason why the container helps to see what is in back. You can pull it out like you would a draw even if you can't take it out. Depending what you have in them they can be heavy.

I reorganized my pantry because I'm doing more baking and I have some new ingredients I didn't have before, so things were getting messy. Now it's nice and neat again, for a while.

Linda