a new pantry for momma

By on November 18, 2013 in Home

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Living in Kentuckiana is different than Florida in so many ways.  One of those ways is taking pictures for this little ole blog.  Some days there is not enough light coming into the house to take a good picture.  I am definitely not used to that.  Days of complete overcast-ness… very different.

Yesterday, everytime I walked into my kitchen I had my camera and not one time was I able to get a picture of our new larder to share with you.  Today was not that much better but it was good enough to make a go of it.

There are still many boxes of cookbooks that we have yet to find, whose books will live on these shelves and I had to leave my preserves back in Florida so the shelves are bare in that respect, but for now, this is what it looks like.  I have been collecting vintage blue and clear mason jars in every size for years.  We did use them in our last home but they were tucked away in this and that pantry or cupboard so you never saw them in any pictures.  Now they all live together and it makes me so very happy.

Ingredients for food making for almost everything we make are right here where I can see them.  If something runs low, I know it, before I start that recipe that might have been cancelled for lack of something or other.  The fruits are right where my children can reach them, all washed and ready to eat.  We have switched our way of preparing food in the past few years to using all fresh ingredients so no canned goods (other than the ones we can), very few boxes foods other than pastas and the occasional cereal for those nights or morning when there is no time.  Everything else we eat is in the refrigerator or freezer and that’s it.

The jars are all labeled by the top with the exception of some of the flip top jars which I intend to label in the next few days, though I know exactly what is in them, for the benefit of kitchen helpers who are not familiar with their contents.  I will be back tomorrow to show you how I labeled them with “chalkboard” paper in a bunch of different colors for free.  I love free.

Oh and the cow picture?  It is our running joke here.  I picked it up in an antique shop.  It is a 1940’s ad from a magazine that I brought home and had the perfect frame for it.  The joke is that it is an ad for irradiated milk in a “real food pantry”.   I love it and I think it fits in perfectly.

So that’s it.  Our real food pantry.  I hope you enjoyed your visit.  Next time, maybe we can pop some popcorn and enjoy some tea.

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something old and something new

By on November 14, 2013 in Outings, Uncategorized

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Our new house has almost everything we could ever ask for.  Space for everyone, oh goodness yes.  Closets galore, yep.  Bedrooms for all, you got it but the one thing that was missing is a big enough pantry.  Our kitchen in Florida though only 1/3rd of the size of our new one had gorgeous wood shelves to accomodate all of my jars of food stuffs.  Luckily, the new kitchen has this one empty wall and so I began my search for pantry shelves.  I searched high and low, both locally and through the internet but knowing exactly which kind I wanted made it difficult to settle for something else.  A quick search at Ikea’s website ended our search but the closest store is in Ohio so we made a day of it.

Halfway there, on a small country road, we came across a sign for a barn sale and since it was literally right on the road we were traveling, I stopped in.  What a cool place to be!  An old barn stuffed to the rafters with all sorts of treasures.  I felt like one of those guys on American Pickers, have you ever seen that show?  There were so many great things but nothing I really needed until the very back room.  An old Amish bench for our new breezeway, the room we enter the house through which separates the garage from the house.  Guests to our home enter through the front door but we enter through a side door and that room has so much possibility but I have not figured out what to do with it yet.  This bench would be a great start.  An old Amish bench to greet us as we come and go.  A place to stop and put on your shoes (no shoes in the house)  or just sit and enjoy the breeze.  Yes, this would be a great thing to bring to our new home, and so we talked the man into a price we all liked and he even offered to bring it home to us??  I explained to him where we lived and he still insisted that it would be no trouble at all and no extra cost.  All as his way to welcome us to the state he loves.  Sigh…. oh but we have met so many nice folks around here.  So off we went in the direction of Ikea with a new bench to be delivered the next morning.

Another two hours or so and we got to Ikea in time to eat some lunch and walk around.  Olivia had been so very excited to lay down in the little beds in the children’s rooms, she had been thinking about the cute little pencil she always gets to take home with her and the lingonberry jelly, one of her favorites.  We walked and laughed and I let the kids pretend that they lived in what seemed like every single display room.  They had lots of fun.

We returned home much too tired to do anything but unload the van and the next morning the boys and I started putting our purchases together.  A new bunkbed for the boys, new white crisp cotton curtains for most of the rooms in the house and a pantry for Momma.  I have everything almost where I want it and can’t wait to show you plus a few little projects I think you will like for your own kitchen.

Tomorrow we go to a local orchard to buy enough apples to make apple butter, apple sauce and put up apples to make pies throughout the year.  I’ll see you then, to share our adventure and Saturday I hope to share our new pantry with you.

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