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Day 17: Spice Rack
Our Day 17 assignment is keeping us in the kitchen, this time tackling your spice rack, or wherever it is that you keep the spices in your home.
I absolutely love to cook, and purchase spices for a single recipe as they are needed. My two favorite places to purchase spices are Target and Amazon. I can always find what I need, and get them at the best prices through these resources. That’s not to say they are the only places that I buy spices, but it is where the majority of them come from.
Over the years, I have found that square containers make the most sense for our storage needs. Both Archer Farms and Simply Organic come in glass bottles which fit nicely together, as you can see from the bottom shelf of my spice rack pictured above.
I also like the larger square bottom canisters of herbs and spices that you can find at many grocery stores and BJs for the items we use most often. I keep those on my top rack so they don’t get in the way as much.
I have been experimenting with refillable containers, pictured on the middle shelf, but have yet to find any that I’m particularly happy with. For now the ones I have are working ok, but as I use up the contents of each container, I am not putting them back on the shelf. My plan for the spring/summer is to move those items into Ball canning jars with shaker lids.
Your decluttering rule of thumb is to get rid of any old herbs and spices. A good rule to follow is that whole spices will stay fresh for about 4 years, ground spices for about 2 to 3 years and dried herbs for 1 to 3 years. Anything that is older than that should be discarded and your should replace them with something new.
From here forward, when you open a new spice, I want you to write the date on the jar/bottle in Sharpie so you can use it as a reference. If you have been using old spices for way too long, you will be amazed by the difference in flavor when you start using fresher jars.
Not only are you decluttering on this assignment, but I can guarantee that with new herbs and spices your food will taste better too!
Day 16: Kitchen Gadgets
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