Spring cleaning your home? Don't forget to clean out
your pantry! If you want to feel like cooking and baking again find
tips for cleaning and organizing your kitchen cupboards and pantry.
It
can be hard to get
excited about cooking and baking when you
cannot find anything in your kitchen and you question the freshness of
ingredients. Find expert tips for spring cleaning the pantry
and kitchen cupboards.
Do you have any idea just what exactly is in
your pantry or how old some of those items may be? It is time
to evaluate, throw it out, and replace! Spring cleaning can
be a daunting task, but well worth the effort.
Most
television cooking shows stress fresh ingredients for cooking and
baking. You may think that only applies to fruits and vegetables, but
it
also applies to your baking ingredients and canned goods as well.
Step
1: Clean
Take all your food out of your cupboards and pantry.
Dust your
cupboard shelves, taking the time to wipe out each cupboard with a
cleaning cloth and get the gritty flour, salt and grease off of your
canned goods and jars.
Wipe off the bottom of jars
and bottles and give the entire
can or bottle a quick wipe to dust them off. Place all labels forward
facing and try not to stack too many cans in a row or you may never
know what got pushed to the back of the cupboard.
Step
2: Evaluate
Just how long has that been in my kitchen cupboard??
Will you
really use some of those items in your pantry? Throw out anything that
you haven’t used in over a year. Chances are you will never use them or
maybe they just didn’t taste as good as you thought they would.
Step 3: Organize
Think you are running out of room in your cupboards?
Pull
everything out and organize according to cooking type. Organize all
baking ingredients together and all main course foods together. Try
grouping them by how they are used in your recipes. You would be
surprised how much extra room you can find, just by spring cleaning and
organizing.
Step 4: Label and Date
Label anything that you have put into a separate
package with a
marker and/or masking tape. Write the date purchased on it as well.
Date your canned goods with a black permanent marker
on the
bottom with the date when you purchased them. This can be especially
helpful if you have more than one of a specific item. That way you know
which one to use up first. Place the oldest cans or jars to the front
of the cupboard.
Whether it is the spring cleaning bug or a
fall cleaning bug,
make some time to clean out your kitchen cupboards. You would be
surprised how fast time flies and how long items can stay in your
cupboard.
If you cannot remember when you
purchased it, you should probably replace it. Be confident
that your baking supplies are fresh and you will feel like baking and
cooking so much more.