I did my Kitchen Cure assignment yesterday afternoon and it only took my husband and I about 2.5 hours. To be honest, I think that was because we've moved twice in the last year, so there wasn't a ton of old stuff in our cupboard. However, it was the first time in our new home that we'd deep-cleaned the fridge. How embarrassing to admit that. The oldest thing that we threw out was a can of sweetened condensed milk which expired in 2006 - whoops! Given that expiration date, that can had most likely moved through - get this - 7 different housing locations. In two states. Ewww.

I did the first part of my pantry, threw out a couple of things expired in 2008 and early 2009. Have two more pantry cabinets to sort out. Luckily I cleaned out and cleaned the fridge 2 weeks ago so there's nothing lurking in there. The freezer is a different story. The Cure is a great motivator!

I did the pantry this weekend but not the fridge yet. I was amazed at how many duplicative items I had -- like three jars of cinnamon and three jars of curry. The oldest thing I found was a box of lipton soup mix with a 2004 expiration date! Guess it's been awhile since I used that. Already I feel better about things as I can see where everything is and hopefully avoid re-buying things I already have. Will tackle the fridge this week but it shouldn't be too bad as we had a five day power outage two weeks ago and threw everything out, so the fridge is still looking pretty good.

I thought I'd just pack down all the food and bring it with me when I move in less than three weeks, but a closer inspection showed me that I'd be insane to do so. Honey jars I haven't used in a long time - which regardless of this fact have managed to survive two previous moves within 1.5 years - were parted with during the weekend and other similar items got thrown out as well.

The spices in this home are fairly new, but those in the other home need to pass a close exam, the nose test, or I'll chuck them out too. Only the jars will be saved for new spices, which I can buy in bags then.

Right now I'm reluctant to buy anything but fresh food, so I'm cooking a lot of pasta and rice dishes to empty the containers and thereby shelves as well. This also means I can get a head start with cleaning a last time; there are already some empty, cleaned cupboards!

I worked on it in bits and pieces over the weekend and will continue this week. The cabinets are not really a problem, since I rearranged the herbs, spices, and baking stuff in the last kitchen cure and they're still good. Other than that, I don't really keep that many dry goods on hand outside the fridge. So, I'm mostly focusing on the fridge. The clearing out part hasn't been too bad so far, since I know there's not a lot of stuff rotting away in there. The cleaning will be most welcome, since I haven't done it except in bits and pieces for a long time. Hopefully, I can chip away at this for the rest of the week.

fridge and pantry are cleaned out and refreshed. tossed 3 jars of mustard that expired in 2007 - i didn't realize mustard could go bad. and found some bulk tvp, circa 2004, rolling around in the back of the pantry. shelves are de-grimed fridge is sparkly.

and i made a big pot of veggie chili with most of the veggies that i couldn't fit into the crisper, which served as dinner last night and will be mighty fine as lunch a few times this week. the rest will be frozen for future consumption.

My mustard expired in 2008. Whoops.

tomorrow is cleaning day for me! i actually got as far as uploading the un-doctored images into flickr and called it a day! i did a TON of cooking yesterday (that was ONE happy hubby, ha!) and just didn't have the energy...monday's are busy so tuesday looks like a great day to tackle, throw out, organize and CLEAN both the fridge, freezer and pantry...wish me luck! i'm inspired by ALL that have already gotten rid of their grime :) cheers
http://www.casacullen.com/

I just finished the fridge, after Saturday's monster pantry clean. I think the oldest things I threw out were little packs of applesauce circa 2004 or 5. I'm so happy with the way the kitchen looks, already, and I've definitely noticed a difference in functionality.

I cleaned out the cupboards, but still need to do the fridge. Tonight or tomorrow night I'll be having a date with the fridge since I'll have the evening to myself.

Reorganized the cupboards and now there's way more space and it's much more organized! I was even able to move the crockpot into a cupboard, instead of leaving it out all the time.

I found a few things that were here when we moved in over a year ago that I had put in the back of two of the cupboards incase we wanted to keep them; we totally didn't need them.

My pantry is pretty organized, I probably re-organized it a few weeks ago. I threw away some vinegars that looked disgusting. I lined some shelves with some plastic liner and now things sit straight. I constantly need to keep up with it though because miscellaneous stuff always winds up in there. i think I should probably throw away some old cooking magazines that I haven't been through and maybe clear up a drawer i have that is devoted to recipes and stick them in a binder.
OK OK...I'll do it!

I removed everything from my pantry shelves and wiped them down yesterday. I purged a few items. I really need to rethink tea. I have a TON of it and I don't drink it all that often. It is taking up an entire shelf! Today I need to finish organizing the shelves and then it is off to tackle the fridge.

Our "pantry" (two cabinets) are totally reorganized, and the broken magnetic door catches have even been replaced. The oldest thing we tossed so far was a box of something or other from Finast, a store that hasn't existed in this are for at least ten years.

We will get to the fridge and freezer during the week.

And I agree with Mrs Olkid about the TEA. I had two shelves worth of tea. Currently, the only teas in the cabinet are the ones that were in open boxes. All the closed boxes are in one of those pretty charity shopping bags, and stored under a table in a different room. As I use up the open boxes, I will replace them from the shopping bag. I would have gotten them all on one of the larger shelves in the white cabinet, but I wanted to use half of the shelf for the diet snacks, so that they were all in one place when I wanted a snack. Also, I usually have a mug of tea when I have a snack, so this makes sense for our apartment.

The non "assignment" thing I did today was that when I picked up the replacement magnetic catches, I also picked up two curtain rods and the hardware therefore, so that I can ask my ex, who is taller than me and has a longer reach, to put them up next time he comes by.

It was amazing how much stuff we were able to toss, both recyclable and non-recyclable. I was also able to get some of the containers off the top of the fridge already.

I do have pics of the reorganized white cabinet, but I haven't uploaded them yet.

Totally done. Nothing too gross this time. The pantry purge encouraged me to use some things in the freezer whose time had come. I made this thanks to some inspiration from Molly Watson and her dinner files:
http://www.thedinnerfiles.com/2009/02/18/from-the-cupboard-chickpea-and-spinach-stew/

I jumped the gun and posted this comment in the previous Kitchen Cure thread, so I'm copying it here--my progress this weekend:

I had to fit extra ice cream cake in the freezer last night, so I was spurred to empty the bottom drawer, throw stuff out, rearrange and--most important--clean the bottom surface of the freezer, which had spilled chili powder and leaked (other) ice cream cake on it, for I don't remember how long.

Except for the fridge, I've been procrastinating. My kitchen doesn't have a pantry as such, so I have "pantry goods" all over the kitchen! And, truth be known, some in a closet off the bathroom. I need to take out all the food goods and find a place where they can all live near each other, in some kind of sensible order.

ha took me like less then 10 min. I had no expired food in my pantry and just a few take out boxes to throw out in the fridge. I guess its helpful when purging is part of ones weekly routine!

Pantry done on Saturday - took a couple of hours and resulted in quite a lot of stuff chucked out and the containers recycled or repurposed. Oldest thing was probably spices from 2004 or so. It looks a lot better now, and there is room to restock with the stuff we actually use.

Need to tackle the fridge now!

We're pretty good about using up what we've purchased, so there isn't much to purge from our cupboards. Our fridge is another story, though... We have home-made hot sauces that are turning fuzzy green, and month-old chicken soup with corn from a friend...and neither of us like the darn soup to begin with (which is why it's been sitting in the back of the fridge for a month).

I guess the plan tonight is to flush the foods and condiments that are too wet to put in the garbage (our apartment building doesn't use green bins for compost), and then start scouring the cupboards and fridge until they shine! We've also got a ton of cookbooks just tossed into the cupboard, which we should probably go through and start paring down.

I know many of my spices are old, but I do use them sometimes, so I'm just going to hang on to them for now.

I managed to do everything on Monday! Yeah! My kitchen is pretty small and had purged my fridge and freezer in December already. The oldest item I found in my pantry was expired in 2004 but I don't remember what it was ... It feels good now that I've thrown out expired food (wasn't too much but still) and I now know what I have in my pantry. It's been fun so far and I'm looking forward to the next assignments! Which probably will be more of a challenge for me.

I got as far as taking pictures of everything and tossing a couple of things out of the fridge. We leave tomorrow afternoon and will be gone through Sunday night, so this week has been cut a bit short. I WILL do this though! I will plow through! It just might take me into Week 2...

OH NO! I am behind on the cure. I did not get a chance to read the email or check in ... I will be on double duty this weekend! Can't wait (kind of, in a weird way).

Chez Us

www.chezus.com

I cleaned out the fridge last night... oh man, was it ever dirty under the veggie bins!

I also made a list of the food in pantry and fridge that has been hanging around for too long, and a recipe to use up each one!

Freezer cleanup tonight...

I'm trying to do one thing each day. This AM I tackled the TOP of the refrigerator. Threw out SIX old lunchboxes my kids refuse to use, some of which contained green furry things that were years old. I'm super busy with work, but maybe bit by bit, I can keep up!