Spring Cleaning the Kitchen

I’m not Martha Stewart. I don’t give my house a top-to-bottom clean in the spring…or ever. But my kitchen is a different story. I can’t cook unless I can find my ingredients.

Over the course of the winter we’ve accumulated layers of canned and packaged comfort foods, ready to become healthy and warming winter meals.

We have dried peas and beans out the wazoo. Soup mixes that’ve been there for years. And rice noodles of every shape and size. 

My baking cupboard is getting to the point where I am forced to duck and cover every time the door is opened, or risk getting plunked in the head by a bottle of quick-rising yeast.
(edit: my bad <3 Mike)

Overstuffed baking goods cupboard

In terms of the fridge, well…have you ever seen so many sauces?

So many sauces

Some would call this a well-stocked kitchen. If I had a pantry like Chef Michael Smith, I might agree (and I wouldn’t be writing this post). But the reality is I have a small city kitchen and a fridge in need of a good clean. But first I need to be able to see the shelves.

Canned goods cupboard

So, over the next few weeks I will be trying my best to embrace the coat-tails of winter and cook up some comfort food to get us through to spring. I know it’s technically spring already, but here’s what I woke up to yesterday morning:

Snowy front yard

Snowy deck

 

If you have any comfort food recipes that rely on pantry staples, feel free to send them my way. I have to clean this stuff out before the spring veggies come into season, or there will be no looking back to winter.