Finish it Friday: Pantry Organization
I’ve now joined the group of bloggers who do Finish it Friday. I’ve fought it, thinking and saying to myself that I don’t need to do a blog post on one thing I finally accomplish during the week just to make sure I get one thing accomplished in a week. I was wrong. I need motivation and someone(s) to be accountable to. This is something I’ve needed to do for quite some time, so I’m going to do it.
We have two pantries in our kitchen, and you know when you first move in you put things places and think, “I’ll organize that later.” And maybe you do do a few improvements and “organizing” but in the end you aren’t happy but you don’t want to spend the time to do more. Well that is me and my pantries. We have one that is quite shallow and one that is really deep. I had more stuffed into the shallow pantry than the deep pantry and decided that I should fix it, I HAD to. My main reasoning being that I like to have extras of essentials… hand soap, floss, emergency stuff, extra cooking oil, etc. Until today I had just been stuffing those all on the very top shelf in the shallow pantry. Well anyone who has met me in person knows I am vertically challenged, aka: short. I (especially in my pregnant state) could barely reach much less see the much prized and needed emergency/storage items. In fact two weeks ago I went without flossing for 3 days until I could get to the grocery store because I was too short to see the extra floss on the top shelf. Sad. And it wont happen again! It only took me about half an hour…
Before:
After:
Basically I moved all my everyday cooking/eating items to the deep pantry with the less-used items to the shallow pantry. And now I have more room to buy storage food/household items. And when you find a way to have more storage space isn’t that always a winner? Yay!
And don’t forget today is the last day to sign up for my 2010 Planner Giveaway!
Freezing Zucchini
Alright, so pretty much anyone who grows zucchini knows that they will probably end up with more than they can use. I waited and waited and waited to pick that zucchini of mine and it ended up being super huge. So what’s a girl to do? Zucchini goes mushy in the fridge rather fast, and I wasn’t sure how long it would stay good off the vine and slowly being eaten. So I used part of it for my Very Vegetable Shepard’s Pie last night and then today I set to getting it ready to freeze. I did a little research online and decided I would grate some and dice some.
Grated Zucchini Process
-Wash zucchini and dry with towel.
-Shred zucchini with a manual shredder or food processor.
-Measure into correct amounts. You can do it by the amount needed for your zucchini recipe. I put them in 1 cup amounts.
-Label and bag, then freeze.
Diced Zucchini
Now this one was a little more complicated because you need to blanch the zucchini in order to store it. Now don’t be scared of blanching. It just means you boil then put in an ice water bath. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll break it down for you.
-Fill medium sized mixing bowl half way with cold water. Place in freezer.
-Start medium sized pot on to boil.
-Wash and dry zucchini
-Cut into quarters. (I ended up doing my in eighths because my zucchini was really big around.)
-Cut out the seeds.
-Dice
-Once water is boiling dump diced zucchini in water. Leave in for 1-2 minutes. Not to exceed 2 minutes.
-Get bowl out of the freezer and add ice cubes.
-Strain boiled zucchini and dump directly into ice water bath. Leave in until zucchini is cold. (About 2 or 3 minutes.)
-Take out ice cubes and strain out cold water. Place zucchini on a clean dish towel and air dry. (I put a fan on them and it took about 45 minutes.)
-Get a cookie sheet, cover with wax paper, then spread zucchini over it. Put in the freezer until frozen.
-Remove from freezer and put in quart sized bag, that is labeled and dated. Return to freezer.
For all my zucchini I was sure to spread them out in the bags so they would be able to thaw faster and not stick together so when I went to use them I can get the appropriate amount out of the bags.
Resource: Taste Book
