Thursday, June 6, 2013

Livin' the Dream, Baby!

Okay so maybe that is an exaggeration, but my inner OCD child is so happy!

As you know I've been making preparations for life in my tiny house.  Last week I revamped my pantry, and my spices had to be next.

Here are the scary conditions in which my spices lived:


I mean, can't the spice companies get together and agree on a container size and type??



 But now -- and brace yourself for the glory...




Holy cow.

I need about 10 more tins, which are on the their way from Specialty Bottle. (Love that place - really inexpensive, and fast, reasonable shipping.  And they have everything!)   I thought I counted correctly, but no.  And I neglected to make a label for my kelp - I printed my own labels - you can order them online, but if you need immediate gratification like I do, you want them NOW.  Plus, most of the ones offered on line were fussy.  I just wanted plain, utilitarian labels.

The tins have clear lids, which is cool.  I was just amazed as I dumped each bottle into a tin how beautiful the different textures of all the spices were!  And the colors... and the aromas... Now I understand those posters of pictures of heaps of spices that I see around... they really are beautiful.  It gave me a whole new appreciate for spices.  Speaking of which, I really need a class on cooking with spices.  When I don't use recipes (often) my combinations are hit or miss.  I've thought about this book, but I don't really want recipes - I just need some spice know-how.  Ah, another topic.

So now that I know how much space the tins take up, I can start thinking about where I will put them in my tiny kitchen.  Originally I thought a shallow drawer.  Then I thought about a magnetic board.  I really want kitchen items to be visible and reachable - I don't know why, but I have this aversion to opening cabinets and drawers to get things out.  Like that is wasted time/energy.  I'd like to just grab something and set it back down in it's place.  If you Google that type of organization you get a zillion hits, so the ideas are out there.  I just need to devote some mental space to it.  But hey, one thing at a time.

But I'm getting equipped to be a kitchen ninja.  Fair warning.




4 comments:

  1. Just an idea , metal tins, magnetic, unused space on the ceiling of that cabinet. Just throwing it out there you can sort it out. Love what your doing , i think we all need to downsize our "stuff".

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    1. Hi June,

      Do you mean the underside of an upper cabinet? I love the magnetic possibility... plus they wouldn't shift around as I travel... but where to put the magnets?? Therein lies the question..

      Thanks for stopping by!
      BA

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  2. LOVE THIS! Spices always inspire me and make me want to start cooking :-) I love June in Florida's idea -- just make sure they're not hit by the sunlight (if they are in dark containers like that, though, I'm sure they'd be fine). And hurray for homemamde labels :-)

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    1. I alternatively keep forgetting and then remembering about the sunlight. I guess in that respect the clear lids are not optimal. Hopefully I can find a place for them where it doesn't work against me.

      I gave my leftover spices (when you dump a spice out of a jar it seems to really expand...) to my friend/neighbor. She said she was inspired to look for recipes that used them! And I went on a bit of a cooking bender too - so I guess you are in good company with the spice inspiration. : )

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