Friday, February 29, 2008

Spice Up My Kitchen

I fully admit it. I'm a spice whore. I probably have over 120 bottles of spices. And probably 20 of those are duplicates. I'm convinced that spice bottles are specifically designed to make the consumer lose their spices in a sea of short, tall, skinny, and fat bottles.

I would love to be able to store my spices like this


Or this


Or even a pretty spice rack on my counter like this one





But let's be realistic about it. None of those systems work unless you have just a few spices and they are all in uniform containers.


I don't know about you, but I have a fortune tied up in the spices I already have. I also cook a lot so I like to have a huge variety of spices on hand so that when a recipe calls for that elusive spice, there's a good chance that I have it on hand. My spices come in a variety of square, round, fat, skinny, tall, and short bottles.


A while back I came upon a solution that worked for me. I divided all of my spices into several boxes, divided by type: General Spices, Dessert Spices, Meat Spices, Salts and Peppers, and Baking Spices.



While it made it really handy to grab the right box and quickly locate the right spice, it still wasn't perfect.


So this week, I took a little time and labeled the tops of all of my spices so not only can I grab the right box quickly, but I can also locate the correct spice with just a glance and I won't have to dig through the box.



Heck, I might even get Vern to help me out in the kitchen a little more.



5 Comments:

Miss French Jessica said...

Great idea. I need to figure something out for my spices. Like you, my bottles are all different sizes/shapes and they get lost in the cabinet.

Anonymous said...

Where did you get the boxs?

Tammy (Rodeomom @ 2peas)

Argenta said...

The boxes are just regular photo boxes. I think these happened to come from JoAnne Fabrics or maybe Menards (we spend a lot of time there in case you hadn't heard!).

Ariana Sullivan said...

That really is a good idea. I've organized and reorganized my spices several times this year trying to find a way for them to be more easy access.
I love this idea.

karen said...

What a great idea!