Kitchen Purge & Organizing Day! {Plus My Vegan Pantry Staples}

Hey everyone! I'm taking a break from my Friday off clearing out the kitchen, so I figured I'd share my progress for a little @foodfightfriday action. It might not be the most exciting entry I've shared, but this (as they say) is where the magic starts for all my yummy homemade meals. Gotta have the kitchen stocked and ready for my usual foodie posts. Plus @dandays said it counted, so here I am. 😜

In my post yesterday I talked about how I'm working on doing some cathartic purging of things that I don't need in our house. Since I ended up with a day off today and it is too hot to enjoy any outdoor activities, I've buckled down to start working on the big job of decluttering and reorganizing the kitchen. Doing this is beneficial in a number of ways. For one I'm getting rid of what we don't use or need to make more space to keep what I do use better organized and accessible. I'm hoping I can donate a good bit of what I'm clearing out to give to someone who may really need these items. It also makes me more mindful of what I have bought in the past to inform future purchases. I think at one point I might have had 3 jars of tahini in the pantry because it was on sale and I forgot about the other jars that were already in there. Woops. At least that won't go to waste!

One of the other big benefits of this task--perfect introvert time! @dksart is still in the basement working on his own projects, but at least I've got the kitchen to myself to play some music and get to business. Normally Fridays are a bit busy between morning sessions and spending the afternoon with my niece, but my usual clients had other business today and my little one is spending the day with mommy and daddy. I miss when I don't see her on Fridays, so I can't say I don't mind the distraction so I don't think about missing out on the auntie fun.

So where do you want to start? How about the spices!

Though it's not a huge change, it's always nice to go through and organize my spice collection. Yep, I think I've shared before what a spice maniac I am. I usually buy in bulk and then just re-use jars to try to reduce my waste. Plus I go through so much of certain spices that it's cheaper to buy in bulk anyway. To take my purchasing a step further I should probably look into finding places that sell spices in bins so that I really reduce my impact. We do use the old spice jars for saving seeds and other things, as well as using all kinds of other old jars for spices and other bulk goods. Going through and organizing is always a good way to check my stock to see if I need to refill any of my favorites.

If you enjoy cooking, then having a good selection of spices is key for developing great flavors. I think it is especially key in healthy vegan cooking. Many people wrongly think that vegan food is boring, but if you use good quality ingredients your meals will be absolutely delicious! One of my favorite spices to use is smoked paprika. That makes everything from chili to black bean burgers to veggie tacos taste that much better. I'll save my favorite herbs for the next @naturalmedicine challenge. 😉

Though I try to avoid buying plastic cups and containers, we are still letting go of old stuff little by little. Between race swag and other freebies it's crazy how much just two people can accumulate over the years! Many times now if I'm at an event I'll decline the cheap free stuff unless it's something I will really use or need. Even the non-plastic stuff adds up. Our kind friends and family often gift us with mugs for tea and coffee, but again there are only so many of those we need. Beer glasses also abound in the cabinet that I haven't tackled yet. We rarely host many people at once, so at this point it just seems silly to keep holding on to things just because. Half the time we end up using our "favorite" cups or mugs anyway!

In keeping with the food theme, I'll move on along to my next point of attack--the "pantry". We don't have an actual big pantry, so it's really just a cabinet. My dried beans and some of the grains hang out in glass containers on a shelf in the dining room right now so they don't take up space in the small cabinet. While I keep some good staples on hand, a lot of what we eat is all the fresh produce from the farmers market so luckily I don't generally need a ton of pantry space anyway. You can see some of the staples I do keep--a huge bag of quinoa, bean-based pasta for a quick meal in a pinch, nut butters, some dried fruit, a few other items, and of course half the bottom shelf is home for all my nuts and seeds. I can't forget one of the other vegan staples...

Nooch! Otherwise known as nutritional yeast. This flaky jar of deliciousness makes things taste like cheese. Though I don't really miss cheese a lot, it is nice to have some magic dust that brings that flavor back to some of my meals. It's great to make nut and seed-based cheese, sprinkled in soup or chili, or even on popcorn. I always have some of this on hand and can find it in bulk at many local stores.

To finish out my progress so far I also organized our tea and coffee shelf and the extra jars. I think this cabinet may have actually been intended as the pantry, but it's so narrow that it's hard to get to things you use frequently. I find it better for storing things I don't need as often. We have a nice little tea bag organizer on the counter by the kettle, so this is technically the back stock. Including some of our dried mint and lemon balm from the garden in the big jars.

Nothing fancy in my old 1960's kitchen, but I'm lucky enough to have plenty of resources to eat well and keep my pantry stocked with some fun stuff! I can definitely still continue my efforts to be mindful of my spending and to be more sustainable in my purchases, but I'm definitely better than I was even just last year! Thank goodness for an awesome farmers market.

On that note, time to get back to work! Happy Friday folks!

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