SOS! Organize Under The Kitchen Sink

"I can not open the cabinet under my kitchen sink without being embarrassed and frustrated. How do people fit their cleaning supplies and plastic bags in that small cabinet?"

The trick to dealing with the small, dark and damp cabinet under the sink is to limit what is stored there. Think about what you are usually doing when you are at your sink. Washing dishes springs to my mind, so dish washing supplies are kept handy under the sink.  One of the rules of organizing is to locate items where they are used. Free-standing baskets or mounted, slid-out baskets bring the supplies to you so you don't have to dig around in the cabinet. The basket unifies the appearance of the supplies for an uncluttered look. As far as the other cleaning supplies go, keep them in a different location - like the broom closet.

When it's time to clean the house it's nice to grab the vacuum and the furniture polish at the same time. Keeping cleaning supplies in the broom closet is pretty handy. Door-mounted baskets efficiently hold all of your supplies and preserve the closet shelves for other uses. Contrary to what most people think, you do not need a huge collection of cleaning supplies to keep you home clean. Use multipurpose items as much as possible so you have fewer items to store. You'll probably save money and have less environmental impact as well. Less is more!

I have posted two pictures from my home. Under my kitchen sink I keep the garbage can so it's away from my dog's curious snoot. The can plus the garbage disposal severely limit amount of space in the cabinet. But the cabinet is a very convenient place to keep the can. The basket holds only the things needed to do the dishes and a can of scouring powder. The bag on the left door collects are recyclables. On the right door is a cork tile which has the county recycling guide on it for handy reference.

The second picture is of my broom closet door where I keep most of my cleaning supplies. You can probably tell from the narrow width of the door that my closet is tiny. But the door-mounted baskets provide me with plenty of storage. Plastic grocery bags are kept in a tote bag that hangs from a hook in a closet. When the tote bag is full, it comes with me to the grocery store so I can recycle the bags.

Keep the area under the sink organized by following three guidelines:

•  limit what is stored there to only the items that you need when you are working at the sink,
•  use baskets to provide easy accessibility as well as neatening the appearance,
•  use the space on the doors for extra storage. 

Thank you Teresa for your question and the nomination of Backstoppers for the charitable drawing at the end of the year.

Don't forget we're giving away tickets to the home show. See the last past for the rules of entry, and good luck!

Is Your Fridge Clutter Sabotaging A Healthy Diet?

One of my personal goals for 2010 is to improve my health with healthier meals and more enjoyable, vigorous activity. I am certain that millions of people have the same goal. One of the easiest ways to focus on healthier meals is to be sure your fridge, freezer and pantry have the ingredients to create healthy meals.Organizing the kitchen for efficiency, making healthy choices, and planning meals (and snacks!) nourish the goal of creating healthier meals (I couldn't resist the pun!).

Organizing the kitchen for efficiency is the subject for today, specifically the fridge. When was the last time you gave your fridge a thorough clean-out? This is a great time to open that fridge door and start tossing the junk food, the holiday food, the science experiments and the "what on earth was I thinking?" stuff. You want to eliminate the clutter and keep the food that is healthy and fresh.

Now let's organize that fridge. An organized fridge is more accessible and easier to work with than a fridge that has its contents thrown in without rhyme or reason. For information about organizing the fridge, I am directing you to "Let's Get Cookin'" blogger, Carla. Carla wrote a great post on organizing the fridge. I hope you enjoy it and the rest of her blog: http://cakescraps.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/organizing-your-fridge/.

In addition to gaining an organized fridge, you will undoubtedly find a few good recipes to try on Carla's blog. Organizing the pantry and meal plans are the subjects for subsequent Clear Spaces posts.

Happy de-cluttering!

If Your Spice Tin Has Rust It’s Time To Toss It

Has spring inspired you to begin a few spring-cleaning projects? While you are in your kitchen, take a look at what is lurking on your spice shelf. Spices can sit benignly on the shelf for years. They really don’t spoil per say, but they do get old.

Identifying old spices is easy if the manufacturer has stamped a “Best By” date on the side or the bottom of the jar. Instead of a “Best By” date you may find a product code on the jar itself – this is not the number on the label by the UPC. Product codes can be translated into manufactured dates on some of the company sites.

McCormick uses both the “Best By” date and the product code. The McCormick website (www.mccormick.com/Spices101/) has an abundance of fun information about spices and herbs. Plus there’s a gadget that allows you to enter the product code along with the city of manufacture to get a manufacturing date. Durkee’s website (www.durkee.com/homeuse/) has an FAQ page that tells you how to translate their product code into a manufacturing date. If you are in the Greater St. Louis Area and buy Schnuck’s store brand spices, you can figure out the pack date with the algorithm they kindly provided to me.

The first number is the year.
The letter represents the month, where “A” is January and “M” is December
The next two numbers is the day of the month.
The last letter represents the shift.

So Schnucks would represent April 1, 2009 (first shift) as 9D01A.

In the absence of “Best By” dates use the guideline below for freshness.

Ground Spices 2-3 years
Whole Spices 3-4 years
Blends 1-2 years
Herbs 1-3 years
Extracts 4 years – except for vanilla extract which lasts indefinitely

If the label is faded or there is rust on the tin, odds are your spice is way past its prime. If you use your own spice jars you will need to rely on the signs of aging: faded color, lack of aroma, and diminished flavor.

Toss old spices but before you rush out and replace them, consider if they are really needed. After all, the spice got old because you did not use it very often.

To make your life a little easier going forward, use an indelible marker to put an expiration date on your new spice bottles. I use “exp” before the date so I know it’s an expiration date. If you fill your own spice bottles, put a piece of tape on the bottom of the bottle before writing the expiration date on it. Spice Islands provides a spice registry on their website (www.spiceislands.com). Enter the product code in the registry and the site will return the “Best By” date. Additionally, the site accumulates the names of every spice you enter in your own spice library. In one glance you can see your entire inventory of Spice Islands spices, and quickly peruse the recipes that use your inventory.

With age spices lose their flavor, aroma, color and vibrancy. Do you really want to add dusty flavor to food that you worked hard to bring to the table? Purge your old spices and herbs, and your taste buds will thank you.