I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve been letting the kitchen go for quite some time. Oh, not that I neglect to do the dishes or to wipe down the counters, it’s the pantry and the fridge I’m talking about.
I think we’ve all been guilty of it at one time or another. You shop and go to put everything away, but realize that there’s no room for “this” in its regular place, so it gets put where it will fit. You promise yourself that just as soon as you’ve used up the box/package/can that you’d forgotten you had in the cupboard, you’ll put the new addition in its place, and all will be as it should be.
Mmmmmmmmm Hmmmmmm…
I said the same thing, and ended up with this:
Before I go any further, I just want to put it out there that my wife, the lovely Mrs. seat of her Pants, is not to blame for this. Mostly because I kicked her out of my kitchen almost as soon as I moved in, and I only allow her (Or anyone else) in my kitchen under protest.
(This will change when we get our own home, as there will be room for two people to work in the kitchen, For now, I just take the responsibility and the blame)
OK, not a complete disaster. In my mind however, it is completely unusable. Please take note of the cans lying sideways on top of other cans. How ’bout the peanut butter (all three of ’em.) And I wonder why the mating call of the cook in our house is usually; “Honey! Where’s the…?”
The fridge was (and is) no better:
It makes me wonder if I’ve forgotten to walk something in there at times. And I swear something growled at me this morning. (OK, it could have been my stomach growling, but it still freaked me out.) I had briefly wondered why the salad greens weren’t in the crisper, until I checked and realized that it was just too full. And mostly with things that should probably not be eaten any longer.
So, Step one: Clean out the cupboard.
Please take into account that this is the only large cabinet we have in our apartment, and that the layout of the kitchen does not lend itself to adding any additional storage, so this is all I have to work with at the moment. Now that it’s all cleaned out, what was I supposed to do with this mess?
Yup. All of that stuff was in one cabinet. And I wonder why I couldn’t find anything.
My wife will tell you that once I decide to purge something I’m completely ruthless. She’d be right. Before I was done I’d filled a kitchen bag with things that were either A) too old to use, or B) never going to be used.
The end result:
I know that it doesn’t look all that different, but trust me, I can find anything at all that I need in under 30 seconds. I hope the spice cabinet is this easy.
I didn’t make it to the fridge today, so I suppose that’s on the agenda for tomorrow, along with the spice/extra cups cabinet. It needs to be able to store baby food now as well.
“So what about the ‘quick lunch’?”
I was getting there!
By the time I was done with this, I was not only tired, (Helloooooo! 7 month old baby. Dad didn’t sleep much last night!) and I was starving. What I came up with was a direct result of this process, and it goes a little something like this:
Spring Cleaning and a Quick Lunch
Ingredients
Instructions
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
1 Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 456Total Fat: 16gSaturated Fat: 7gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 10435mgCarbohydrates: 68gFiber: 11gSugar: 5gProtein: 14g
What I wold have done differently had I thought of it at the time:
Nothing, really. I can find what I need and what I need to replace, and that’s a big step to motivating me to go create something grand and a bit more difficult than the fare I’ve been dishing up.
Oh, the soup? It was wonderful. But then, with Ramen, simple is usually better.
