Extreme Organization

The flawed and expensive old spice racks

When I first decided to re-open this blog and get serious about it, I needed to do some serious planning, purchasing, cleaning and decluttering in my kitchen so I could create food ideas on the fly at a moments notice...

I looked at my spice racks and noticed they were not air/moisture proof and all my spices had been destroyed so I set out to replace them...

OMG!

As usual, I went way overboard...

 

I started by first decluttering all the remaining spices and making an inventory and then going to bulk stores and scratch and dents (yay for Swann's Pantry in Exton, Pa) for new staple spices (like Oregano and Cumin Powder) and then going to Indian and Asian Grocers for the more exotic spices (like Epazote, Perilla Seeds, Nigella, etc) then just for the sheer mental masturbation, I set out to have all the spices I could and went on Amazon and Wiccan sites for the rest.

Yes Im nuts....

I then had to figure out how to store all 170 spices  I now had. 

Im even nuttier then I thought...

I put em all in eBottles.com clear plastic spice bottles with green plastic lids! I then I used my Brother P-Touch Label Printer to make a truly CARAZY  spice cabinet.

Look how pretty they look!

And I put all the grains and beans in their large spice bottles to display in a rack on my pantry door

 

Anyway I made sure to also buy silica gel paks and oxygen absorber paks for those items that need to stay dry (like tomato powder and Australian Bush Tomato powder) Oxygen absorbers keep grains like rice and oats fresher longer...Tape the paks to the underside of the lids...

(A tip about oxygen absorbers: after opening the bag IMMEDIATELY put them in a ziploc bag and push all the air out and close it up. They will get hot if you dont...)

 There are at least 2 spices I have to grow and dry myself  in order to add them to my cabinet...

Sweet Cicely only germinates after a freeze or a hard cold spell, so guess what Im doing?

I have my Sweet Cicely seeds in soil in a Ziploc baggie in my fridge for 8 weeks waiting to plant them

IM NUTS I TELL YA! TOTALLY MAD! 

Sources:

eBottles

Brother P-Touch