Where Bloggers Live 02.2023: a Peek into My Pantry

Howdy friends!! Thanks for stopping by for this month’s Where Bloggers Live 02.2023: a Peek into My Pantry. This month finds the gals and me sharing a peek into our pantries.  In the case of my pantry, this won’t be an especially exciting post.  But a few years ago, I updated the storage in my pantry a little.  If you are considering updating yours, you might find some of these gadgets helpful to you.

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A Peek Into My Pantry

 

When I sat down to write this post, I started to title it “No Pans in My Pantry”.  And I pondered, for a minute, if that is how the word pantry came to be…that it was the name for the space in most kitchens where pots and pans are stored.  So, ever the librarian, I did a little research into the history of the word pantry to confirm my thoughts.  Here’s what I learned from this post at Apartment Therapy:

The word “pantry” comes from the Old French word “paneterie” meaning from “pain”, the French word for bread. In medieval times food and supplies were stored in specific rooms: meats were stored in a larder, alcohol stored in the buttery and bread was stored in the pantry.

My pantry has become a kind of catchall for most of that and more.

No Pans in My Pantry

 

But there are no pans in my pantry.  Bread, yes.  A little alcohol, yes.  And lots of dry goods and canned goods.  A FastRack gallon glass fermenter for making wine from the peaches off our tree, yes.  Yup, it’s in there.  And there’s my Hamilton Beach bread machine.  The door on the left side of photo above is my pantry.

In my little house where my daughters grew up and we lived before PC and I were married, my pantry was smaller than a phone booth.  The pantry in my current house is some bigger but still not a walk-in pantry like those of my daughter Brennyn and BFF Sharon.  It is plenty of space for the 2 of us but I could fill an airplane hangar-sized pantry if I had one.  I am my mama’s daughter.  And I like having plenty of food on hand.  Just in case.

When I moved away from my parents’ home in Memphis, my mom turned my bedroom into a kind of pantry.  It started with flats of Tab and other diet soda in my childhood closet.  But then spread out into the room, with lots of toilet paper, paper towels and canned goods stacked against the wall.  We have 2 guest rooms…hmmm….now there’s a thought!!

If Not Pans, then What?

 

Pretty much a little bit of everything else.

Top Shelf

Pasta, instant potatoes and rice.  And out of the camera’s eye, to the left, is where we keep the glass gallon fermenter.  I bought several of those nice, airtight plastic containers for my rice and pasta.  But can’t decide if it makes a whole lot of sense to take that stuff out of the boxes to store it in the containers.  And they are expensive.  So, I just have a few at this point.

They do look nice, though.

Second Shelf

Lots of boxes.  Ooops, I see a box of rice I need to bump up to the top shelf.  Do you see it?  This shelf is where I keep Hamburger Helper – yes, we still eat that processed ‘food’.  And there are boxes of Rice-a-Roni and scalloped potatoes.  Oh, dear.  Should I move them to the top shelf, too?

In that little basket, I have seasoning packets.  Hey, have you ever tried Crockstar crockpot meal packets?  Sharon sent me a couple of packets in one of her sweet goodie boxes a while back.  She sent the chicken pot pie and the potato soup packets.  Recently made pot pie with Crockstar packet and it was delicious.  Absolutely scrumptious.  I have ordered some additional packets for myself, Lauren and Brennyn to use for a quick crockpot dinner.  They are a little pricey for packets of seasoning but boy, the chicken pot pie was heavenly.

Next Shelf

On the shelf below the Hamburger Helper and possibly miss-shelved boxes of rice, are my canned goods.  I bought these racks 2 years ago during an effort to better organize my pantry.  They are pretty neat.  You can expand the width of the rows for larger cans like the industrial sized can of sweet potatoes I buy for holidays.  I try very hard to keep veggies on the right rack and soups and tomato-based foods on the left.

 

Thought for a minute I had gotten a can of soup in the wrong pew but it’s a can of Campbell’s gravy.  And clearly, I need to turn that one can around so we can see what it is.  Let me do that right now.  It’s a can of La Sueur peas.  Rest assured, it’s facing front now.

Don’t Call Me Lazy Susan

Moving right along, we come to the lazy Susans.  Not to be confused with the Leslie Susans.  Have been called a lot of things in my life but lazy isn’t one of them.  I bought these lazy Susans at the same time I bought the racks above.

Might need a third lazy Susan.  What do you think?  I have bottles and jars overflowing all around, don’t I?  That bowl is full of applesauce that we need to eat.  Unsweetened tubs of the stuff.  Maybe I could start mixing it into smoothies? The wire racks suspended from the shelf above hold my bread, buns and English muffins.

I have mentioned the problems I have with my hands.  The cock-eyed lid on the peanut butter jar below is a prime example of an instance when my fingers weren’t working properly.  Screwing lids on and off has become very hard for me.  And I am impatient when the lids or my hands don’t cooperate.   We have a lot of cock-eyed lids around here.

The Door Rack

One can never have too many bottles of flavored popcorn salt, cheese crisps or dried cranberries which are all the things stored in this over-the-door rack.

And that brings us to the bottom of the pantry, which is rather a mess.  Wondering if maybe some drink racks would help neaten that space?  We don’t drink liquor often at all but have a few bottles for special occasions or, in the case of the bourbon, for making chili. 

Probably a prettier way to store that stuff, huh?  A project for another day.

WHERE BLOGGERS LIVE

 

Ever wonder where the ideas for this series come from? Well, let me tell you!! Each month our fearless leader Bettye comes up with a prompt for the gang to respond to. This has been one of my favorite series in which to participate and as I look forward to the quickly approaching new year, I hope to continue to join these fun-loving ladies for 12 more months of thoughtful posts.

If you’ve missed any of the Where Bloggers Live posts last year, you missed a treat. Here’s a list of 2022’s posts:

• a look at our ‘rides’ in January
• our furry fam in February I
• in March we described our dream house
• for April the gals wrote posts about their favorite piece of furniture, but I was struggling with LIFE. I still hope to do that…someday
• shared my photo albums and scrapbooks in May June’s post,
• my favorite movie moments in June
• in July’s post I detailed my longing for temporary escape from life, make that LIFE – while predicting that one was probably not in the stars for us this year.
• after a 2-month hiatus from blogging, I returned for October’s day-in-the-life post
• November’s post was a favorite recipe…maple bourbon chili, but of course
• offered this peek at my family jewels in December

And the first post of the series for this year:

• sharing (some of) my favorite bloggers

YOUR TURN

 

Now you know more than anyone would ever care to know about my pantry.  Shall we all pop in on the blogs of my Where Bloggers Live buds to check theirs out?

Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After

What plans have you for this Super Bowl weekend?  PC has his first scrimmage baseball game on Saturday.  Can’t believe they are already starting ball.  They begin earlier each year.  I have invited Lauren and her family for ribs and a dip in the hot tub later that day.  And then we are waiting to hear about plans for the big football game.  A game we would have been much more interested in were the Bengals playing.

Struggling to stay awake.  Might just give in and go to bed.  Wishing you a happy Fri-YAY!!

Hugs and kisses,