It was a dark and dreary day.
I was really bored. Bored with social media. Bored with television, Bored with YouTube. Just flat out bored.
If you can't tell, I'm bored. I have my monthly menu planned out. We shoot for using the ideas about 60% of the time. It seems to help to have some choices written out. So, I cannot plan that out because I already did that.
I was looking through the last blog post I wrote and I was rather horrified at the state of my spice cabinet. I've doubled up on buying several items because they were lost in that rat's nest. Since the weather outside looks like this today:
Bob is out doing some odd job for someone this morning and early afternoon, so it was the perfect time to dive into that nasty looking spice cabinet and make some sense out of it.
So, this is what my spice cabinet looked like.
I took everything out of the middle shelf. I needed to start all over from scratch!
By doing this, I was also able to take a mental inventory of what all I have. I forgot that I had made some 7 Spice. I need to start using my French 4 Spice. I have some Rogan Josh that I need to turn into a delicious Indian curry dish. Just know that as many spices as I have in that cabinet, I have a 2 very full drawers that are full, as well. Persian dried limes, anyone??
One of the features that this fifth wheel has that I dearly love is my pantry. Between that and the bathroom, the underneath storage and the outdoor kitchen...if it weren't for those things, we would have passed on this one. Anyhow, I have to fit all these into one half of a shelf in my pantry. You all know that RV storage is ridiculously small. They were not designed to live in full-time.
This is what it looks like with nothing in there but my spice shelf. I gave everything a quick wipe down. It wasn't too dusty at all.
I organized this, too. I got the stuff that I use all the time up to the front and the other stuff to the back. I find this handy for corralling those bottles that seem to want to float around. Also, if my soy sauce tips over, it's not going to get all over everything. It will stay in that container. We buy gallon bottles of soy sauce and just refill that one. We do the same thing with Worcestershire sauce. I should do it with hot sauce. I'm not sure why I haven't.
There! That's what I like to see! There's a semblance of order! I bought that Everything bagel seasoning when we went to Trader Joe's. I am not really sure what to do with it. If you have any ideas, please leave them below in the comments. I also discovered that I'm very stocked up on Thai green curry paste and Russian mustard. I found a container of beef bouillion cubes, too. Those will come in handy when I make some homemade onion soup mix. I don't buy gravy mixes or onion soup mix any longer. I just make my own.
Yes, I realize that I own a ridiculous amount of spices. Yes, I've already cleared out a ton of them. I gave them to my sister because she loves Penzey's Spices as much as I do. The top row of Penzey's are big bottles with the smaller bottles on top. The other row are small bottles of Penzey's stacked 3 high.
I even have 30 vanilla beans and saffron in there!
Spice cabinet is done!
I'm making baked eggplant parmesan with Russian kielbasa tonight. I'll try to remember to take pictures of that.
