Blog
Resource for using up ingredients
I don’t have a large kitchen which means I don’t have room to store ingredients I won’t use (or keep until they are so old I have to throw them out). In a fit of organization, I went through my cupboards and pulled out 9 items I needed to to use or get rid of. One internet site I like to use to search for recipes with specific ingredients is Allrecipes.com. You can put in the ingredients you want, those you don’t, and you have the choice to search all the recipes or by category. The only thing that is annoying is the pop-ups that ask if you want to become a member or a supporting member. Here are the 9 items and what I decided:
Organizing your kitchen
Organizing your kitchen will save you time and stress (any time of the year, but especially when we are doing lots of extra holiday cooking).
How Being Organized Saves Money
Does an organized kitchen save money? I say yes because:
The Basics of Kitchen Organization
In the last few days, I’ve been reading a lot about organizing kitchens and how kitchen organization relates to saving money. The three common themes I found are listed below:
How to Organize the Kitchen Pantry
I think of myself as an organized person. However, I know that I have a problem with clutter. If you have not gotten to the back of your kitchen pantry in a long time, here is a step by step guide that I used last weekend.
Is it Still Good? Tossing Food that has Expired
On New Year’s Eve my husband and I invited some friends over to celebrate. My husband requested that I make chili and white chicken chili for the gathering and offered to help me in the kitchen! We made some other appetizers too, so needed some space in the refrigerator to store all the food. While trying to make space in the refrigerator, my husband started looking at the dates on various bottles and containers, such as a partially eaten bottle of barbeque sauce, and tossed out the old ones. Soon I started looking at dates on the spices I was using. I wasn’t concerned about the spices going bad but that over time their flavor would deteriorate. I decided it was time I get rid of some of the old ones (like the ground ginger I’m sure I moved with us to our current house almost four years ago!) and purchase new ones.
Labor Day Meal Plan
Labor Day Meal, serves 4 for less than $3.50 a person!
Spice Cupboard Spring Cleaning
Sometimes the idea of spring cleaning is just too much. When the weather turns warm I have a hard time staying in the house scrubbing floors and cleaning bathrooms, but there is one spring cleaning chore that I actually enjoy – cleaning out and sprucing up my pantry and cupboards!
Meal Planning: Less Stress, More Money
Last year I wrote a blog on menu planning and mentioned that my son’s famous first words after we got home at night were, “I’m hungry.” Now that my daughter is two, I have two kiddos telling me this! Therefore, I find meal planning even more important so I can get a healthy meal on the table fast. Since I find it so helpful, I’d like to share tips for successful meal planning again.