Today Passover begins, so yesterday I completed my Annual Full Pantry Clean Out. In a way I equally dread and look forward to the annual event (the pantry clean out, that is).
As my pantry is located directly opposite my dining table – I start by completely clearing my dining table of everything. Then, as you can see in the above picture, I methodically empty the entire contents of my pantry onto my dining table. A scary thought I know, but I believe the all or nothing approach works best when cleaning out your pantry.
While emptying the pantry, I usually find some hidden surprises – a few too many tins of beetroot and passion-fruit this time around. It’s a great opportunity to check that older tins and packages are still in date. Checking use by dates on an annual basis means you don’t have anything lurking from 2005 still sitting in the pantry! This time round there were only a few tins of fruit with 2011 use by dates that found their way into the bin.
A full dining table means an empty pantry. Now is a great opportunity to scrub every shelf clean to start from scratch with spotless shelves.
Once the pantry is clean and dry, I like to line my pantry with newspaper or supermarket leaflets to protect the shelves against any honey or jam spills and make next year’s clean up job even easier.
Finally, return the items to the pantry and feel proud of the great job you’ve done!
I always feel so inspired after my Annual Full Pantry Clean Out, finding ingredients I had forgotten about and being able to easily find all my usually hard to find ingredients. I feel so good, maybe I should make it a 6 Monthly Pantry Clean Out?
I’d love to hear from you – how often do you clean your pantry out?
