Lately I'm all about keeping things simply and easy to manage. If you read here regularly then you already know that. Despite my normally crafty ways, I am at a loss when it comes to how to store spices. The pic above shows my growing collection. I never had much trouble keeping salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Now that I'm cooking more "real" food I've added all kind of things... paprika, celery salt, nutmeg, etc.
Right now a lot of them are the inexpensive brand from the grocery. I like it that they come in glass jars (still with plastic tops). Ideally I will move away from store boughts and start to make a lot of my own seasonings. The rest I can buy in baggies at the farmer's market.
So, here's the question: where do I put them? People joke about spice racks but should I get one? What do you do with yours? In the cupboard I can't see what they are. On the shelf they still get hidden plus 3 fall off for every 1 I grab. As you can see in the pic I've got over a dozen different ones to store. I don't want to use counter space but I could mount something on the wall. Thoughts? Help, please, they're driving me crazy!!
5 comments:
One of my cabinets is a spice cabinet, when you open the door the inside of the door is a rack. Then there are three shelves in the cabinet to put the rest and baking powder, baking soda, etc on. Another idea is that if you have to put them in a cabinet, keep them organized and put an inventory list to know what you have. Spice racks are good, especially the ones that come with jars so they all fit. Or build your own to accomodate different sizes of jars. Or you could buy or make those tiny stairs type things to put them on in a cabinet. Or a pretty basket on the counter and maybe label the tops of the lids. I can't stand stuff on my counter so that would be out for me! :) Good luck with them! Before we lived here I just had them in a cabinet and dug around knocking half of them over and a few falling out when I needed something. :) LOL
I like Jennifer's set up!
I keep mine in a cabinet, the one closest to the stove for grabbing them easy when I'm cooking. The ones I use all the time are easy to grab, and the one's I don't use often (like cream of tartar, which I'm actually going to use today) are stowed on the top cabinet. That prevents them from all tumbling down or cluttering up when I'm just looking for the pepper.
I have my small bottles on the spice rack near the stove. (It was nailed to the wall when we bought the house) I keep my larger containers (I buy in bulk) on a shelf in the pantry. Yup, I have a spice SHELF. The large ones fit neatly on one side and I keep the lesser used one in the back and my "medium sized" and odd bottles are on a lazy-susan which is nice because I can spin it around and easily get what I want without moving things around. This is the best that I've been able to come up with for us and what we have...but I'm always looking to improve!! Good luck!
In my kitchen, I have a narrower cupboard near the stove that seemed to be made for spices. I got 2 plastic containers to be like drawers. I labeled them A-M and N-Z. Then I use a sharpie marker to write the spice's name on the lid (I had to give a silver pen for the black lids). Anyway, I just grab a "drawer" and look down into it for the spice I want. It works pretty well until someone else cooks and can't seem to put them back in their "correct" drawers. LOL Every so often, I have to re-sort them, but this is so much easier than having them sit individually on each shelf taking a tumble out when I wanted the one in the back. Oddly enough, my kitchen has zero walls to hang a spice rack or I might have gone that route. :)
Thanks everyone for your ideas! I think I'll end up pulling a bit from each to come up with something that works in my kitchen. I'll keep you posted!
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