New Pantry Configuration

After at least ten years, I finally decided to move the small appliances out of the main pantry and only store food in it.  I actually decided it a few months ago, but waited until after Passover to do it, since I'm rearranging a whole lot of stuff then anyway.

The first step was clearing a shelf in the laundry room cabinet, which is next to the chest freezer, on the backside of the fridge wall.  It isn't a trek to go in there every couple of weeks for the food processor or FoodSaver.  (It was drama when that was my kitchen sink for a week during the whole clogged drain debacle.) This part of the project involved moving a few cleaning products to the garage, which is a longer walk, but it's stuff I don't use often or the big containers to refill spray bottles.  And the cabinet was overdue for a complete cleaning anyway.  I temporarily stored canned goods on the designated shelf, knowing half of them would be gone by the time I moved everything.

Last week was the big day.  Everything came off the bottom shelf of the pantry.  After a good wipe-down, the canned goods went in their new home and the ice cream maker, food processor, FoodSaver, and several other small items I hardly use went into the cabinet.  Took all of an hour.  I'm leaving my home-canned goods on the shelf above alone, plus the oatmeal I picked up when The 99¢ Store was going out of business.  Only place where oats were still a dollar a pound.  I go through about a pound a month, so that isn't as excessive as it looks.

While most of the products I moved are just canned backups, I can now see what I have on a daily basis.  I'm less likely to buy duplicates, and more likely to incorporate them into meal planning.  Nothing in there was a surprise or getting near its best-by date, but now it's more on my mind.  What I really need to do is get used to cooking with canned vegetables.  They're really there for power outages, like after a major earthquake.  The only time we ever ate canned veggies growing up was while camping, so it isn't part of my repertoire.  I should definitely use them more in stews and casseroles.