Journey to Minimalism | Organizing my kitchen – spice jars and food containers

Today I will be doing a little organization and cleaning in my kitchen. I have been using this kettle for almost 10 years. This kettle is always kept near my stove top, so oil splatters will inevitably get on it. I do the usual scrub with soap and water every couple weeks, but the outer part of kettle gets really used and burnt. I read it on a blog that you can use baking soda to clean off these burnt in marks. So today I will try this with my daughter.

The instruction on this is easy: mix baking soda and water into a paste texture, and smear the mixture onto the surface you wish to clean. You need to leave it for couple hours before wiping it off with water and towel.

With my daughter’s help, we are complete. Now we will let it sit and wait for 3 hours.

While we are waiting, I want to organize my kitchen’s spice jars and food jars. I’ve wanted to make changes to my spice cabinet and dried food cabinet for a long time. I’ve been reading up on fancy kitchen pantry on IG, and I love the idea that you can view your entire pantry all in one sight. We don’t have that much dry food in my home nor do we have a large pantry, but our family consumes a lot of dried nuts and fruits. I thought I can give it a shot.

I received my package few days ago and I am beyond excited. You know you are well on your path of adulting if you are excited about food jars and spice jars in the mail. I ordered 7 piece food jars and 14 piece spice jars. I didn’t end up using all of the spice jars, but it’s good to know that I have spare ones.

As usual, I get a little helping hand from my daughter. She is helping me unpack while I wash and dry the spice jars.

Start with cleaning out the spice cabinet first. Bits of spices are left in the self due to improper storing so I am doing some cleaning.

First we have some peppercorns that need refilling. I like the current peppercorn shaker. When pepper is freshly ground, it's significantly more flavorful than pre-ground pepper.

Good thing I was able to stop her from eating pepper corns. She tried to put them in her mouth. It would not be very pleasant for a 1 year old.

The spice jars came with spice name tags and this blue silicon filter. I think it is a wonderful touch.

The stickers came in different shades and fonts. I chose this one with black background because it’s easier to read.

I re-arranged all the extra spices into a box, and inside my spice cabinet. I am organizing my spices based on the frequency of use. The more used ones are placed in front for easier access.

Final look, not that much different but I am pleased with the end result.

Moving on to food jars. We buy bulk dried foods from grocery stores, so they come in little plastic bags. We could bring containers into the store but I don’t know how they would be able to weight it.

I have some existing ones that need refilling. These jars are from IKEA. They have tight clasp. They are quite heavy and hard to open, so this is not ideal for younger children, say if they wanted a snack form the jar. The new jars I purchased have easy open/close function, and are fairly light because it’s made from plastic. I would store nuts and dried fruit in these jars so they are more accessible to my kindergartener.

I was able to get rid of so much plastic packaging.

This is what my cabinet looked like before new updates. Taking everything out and cleaning before we start putting my new jars in.

I did a little purging after taking everything out. I still had baby bottles from when my daughter was a baby. Things we no longer use can be donated or sold.

Any excess dried food will be stored in this box. Refills will be taken from the box, once we use up the ones in the jar.

I am very satisfied with the end result.