A couple of weeks ago, I did a major clean out of the pantry. It's been a long time since my pantry has been so clean and so empty! And yes, I do realize that my pantry isn't really empty. It's just that it was overflowing before! I threw out a lot of junk.
I've also been working hard to do better at making yummy meals for us. More nights than not, we would just throw some random thing together for dinner. There isn't anything wrong with that, but I prefer to follow a plan. If I have something planned, we are a lot less likely to just go out to eat. Part of this planning has me prepping some of our fruits/veggies for the week in advance. I must admit, I don't really like getting it all ready to go, but I figure if I'm going to do a little bit of it, I may as well do it all and get it over with. It makes serving up the fruit or making a kale salad go so much faster!
Another change made recently in our kitchen is a new fridge and dishwasher. When we remodeled our kitchen, we ran a line to have a fridge with ice/water in it. All this time we haven't put that to use. A few months ago I was browsing Craigslist and found a fridge I liked. They just happened to also be selling a dishwasher, so we picked up both for a good deal!
I think the fridge is much easier to keep organized and I'm loving having the water/ice in the door. I also love that there is more space in the door to accomodate our love of condiments! :-)
The freezer I haven't found a good way to organize. I would have loved one of the types with the double door fridge on top and freezer on bottom, but I'm just not willing to spend that right now.
Another change is that my husband bought me a grain mill and new mixer (better for making bread) for mother's day/our 12 year anniversary. We rarely buy each other anything, but these were something that we've been wanting for several years. Because he knew I'd likely never bite the bullet and buy it myself, he did. The buckets in the pantry with the red and blue lids are our wheat. We have pretty much made our own bread for several weeks now. I have bought a few specialty loaves, but for sandwiches and such, we've been making our own 100% whole wheat bread!
