Operation Pantry

Organizing my kitchen cabinets can be a daunting task.  But there's a clause in my Operation Pantry that says, I am allowed to tackle this one shelf at a time.  Over the kids' spring break, I took a few days off and I tackled two shelves. 

 

The first shelf (top) houses majority of my baking ingredients, like whole flour, sugar, sprinkles, cupcake liners, choco chips, baking powder, ground cinammon and vanilla extract. I put the extra stocks right behind so everything is in one place.

 

The lower shelf is taken up mostly by my cooking spices. I have saved the empty jars of babyfood from my kids' wee years knowing that I'll put them to good use someday.  They are now home to my spices - basil, thyme, curry, cumin, oregano, cayenne, bay leaves, 5-spice, plum powder, and Italian seasoning.  On the lazy susan, I have my soysauce, vinegar, toothpicks, salt & pepper and sesame seeds.

 

Yes, I have a Hello Kitty obsession in the past. I collected the HK Strawberry edition of mostly kitchen and bathroom supplies. It was crazy, but I have made sure they get used now.

 

 

Temporary Solutions

My Operation Pantry began with a shopping trip to Dollarama and Home Sense.  I have been procrastinating this, but with all the baskets, tubs, labels, racks and liners I now have on hand, there's no more excuse not to get on with it.  I am on a mission to organize my pantry one cabinet shelf at a time.  The corner cabinet in my kitchen is not the best to work with.  Think diamond shape.  I have to make sure nothing will get hidden in the nooks that will not see the light of day. 

I got this expandable stair-step rack for only $6.99 to organize my canned goods, which luckily I don't have much of.  The rack is a good tool for organizing, at the same time, it controls my purchase of canned good to the rack's limited capacity. 

On the other side of the shelf, rather than leaving the space unused, I have placed my morning coffee/creamer/honey & PB&J jam on a tray that is easy to slide out.  This will be the temporary set up until I find more efficient pantry solutions. Maybe another stair-step rack?

Above this shelf is where I stash my tea and coffee sachets. 

 

I always first shop around the house for what I may already have before buying. Reuse. Reduce. Recyle.  And so I played around with the boxes I already have.

  

By trial & error, the 2 tea boxes fit perfectly inside the sturdy fruit cup box which I have saved earlier, knowing I'll make good use of someday.  That someday is now.  I just have to cover the box with some pretty paper when I get one.  Meanwhile, I am loving this temporary solution.

 

Coffee, tea or fruit cups, anyone?

  

Insta-Life

Mr. Hotpot surprised me with a Keurig machine on Valentines. Not that I'm a coffee drinker, but at least now I can make better coffee not from 3-in-1s.

 

This is not the most exciting thing to do, but I wanted to be screened for colon cancer. When I told my family physician, she was like "you're not even 50 yet." But I insist.  I'm not a doctor, but I think this is the first step.

 

Lindor is my favourite chocolate.  And cookies & cream are the best!

 

Do you take photos inside the store?  I wanted to see if this will make the cut in our house. It's from my favourite home store, Home Sense.  It's right beside where Sushi goes for Karate class.   That is so dangerous!

 

Another one from Wicker Emporium, what didn't make the cut.

 

My mom brought this sungka (mancala game) all the way from Manila.  If not being played with, it is my tea light holder. 

 

No place like... IKEA.  My source of design inspiration.  This is Pinteresting for my TV room.

 

Joe's Plantain chips.  I'm going back for more to hoard!

 

Please stop snowing.

 

 

T&T

Chinese New Year is around the corner, so lately I have been doing my groceries at the Asian market. I haven’t been to T&T in ages, but now that we’ve moved – danger - we’re darn close. Is it just me, but everything they carry makes you grab at first sight?

Crablets


Squid Tentacles
 

Jasmine Green Tea - did I just hoard?
 

These buns give me sanity some mornings. 

 

Haw Flakes.  Nostalgia. 

 

Did I say T&T does rip your wallet too??? 

Cheers to a bountiful new year! 恭喜發財!

Tempura Ramen

Yes, I'm a bad mom.  I serve instant ramen... but once in a blue moon.  The kids I love it!

Organize: The Meds

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your families and friends. Now that the holiday is over, it's back to regular programming. And I start with organizing!


I found these alphabet stickers from Walmart recently. The lollipop font was screaming my name from the shelves. It was my favourite handwriting font back in the days. So  I got them without batting an eyelash. Then went home and immediately found the place to stick them.

There's this one cabinet in the kitchen that I have devoted to Mr. Hotpot. The hub has always been the family's physician, so the meds are sorta his thing.

 

I hope his collection doesn't go beyond the FEVER & FLU baskets I have put out for them.  The GLOW basket contains candles, scents, lighters and batteries.

A place for everything . Everything in its place.  One shelf at a time.

Favourite Things

Arm candies. Printed dress.
Airplane noise. Airport watching.
Shoes. Individuality.
Windy days. Tall trees.
Sayings. Quotes to live by.
Sunsets on the kitchen. Undressed windows.

Indexed Chopping Boards

My 2 biggest fears in the kitchen – E.coli and salmonella. Me handling raw meat is like me in the Fear Factor show. Hence, I leave the chopping to the butcher. I buy choice cut meat. The meat trays in groceries, they are meant for people like moi. If I have to debone, I can use a chicken breast. If I have to cut, I use the shears and cut straight from the tray, armed with disposable gloves. I use 2 separate tongs when cooking meat, one for handling the raw and one for when the meat is cooked.  I also have several chopping boards for fruits/veggies, onion/garlic, and bread. I use my Hello Kitty one for meat only, though I barely use it in that I do enough prevention to need to.

These chopping boards are from Generate Design It retails for US$79. Wah! Costco sells something similar for under $20.

In the mean time I saw this pretty flexi boards from the Dollarama. You’d think it’s the last place on earth to find nice stuff. You can’t go wrong with $2. While my mismatched chopping boards are, well, mismatched, and old enough for bacteria to lurk in their epidermis, it’s time to bid them adieu. Though this set won’t tackle a whole chicken, it’s pretty and perfect for this non-Meat Ninja.

Dream Cart

I’m a dutiful water drinker. My buying criteria for a purse is one that would fit a water bottle. But washing my Nalgene is a pain I need to use a serving spoon to push the sponge into and wipe down the inside of it. The Alex Bottle is innovation. The twistable break in the bottle makes deep cleaning within reach.

For flavoured water, this pitcher from CB2 looks good and does the work.

On my recent trip home, I brought the few wrinkled clothes I had set aside for ironing and had the househelp iron them and took them back. Tsk tsk tsk. How about My Little Steamer for My Most Neglected Chore? I’d use this on bed sheets, too.

Kale Chips

Kale is often in the list of "Healthy Foods" in any health and lifestyle magazines I read. Here's an easy peasy.

Wash and pat dry the kale bunch. Rip to pieces. Add glugs of olive oil, salt and place evenly on roasting pan. Bake at 350F for 10minutes.

Crispy kale are the best! Even the kids will love them.

Trust In Yourself. Do Your Best.

I used to have a binder to compile the quotations, poems and short essays that I had saved through time. Nowadays I save them in a subfolder in my Inbox. Anything I’d see at random places, I would jot on my notebook or Post-its and stick it up here.

I know, this is ancient. And I need more room. That's my next project. Meanwhile, aren't these wall art clever?

Gotta have it.  It's now up on our kitchen wall. Some good constant reminders.

Yesterday Sushi was having a bad day from school. I asked him to read what's up there. And he felt much better.

My Kitchen

The kitchen is the busiest room in my house. Not only it is my throne. It is the hub of all other things non-kitchen – mails, calendar, homework, office supplies, gadgets, and whatnot. So... A place for everything. Everything in its Place. This is my mantra.

What used to be an empty wall, we put up a collage. We had IKEA’s Spontan magazine rack  and magnetic board as the focal point, and filled the rest of the space with assorted frames in the same silver scheme.

All paper trails from school and elsewhere go into those coloured folders. Kids' school/daycare calendars, grocery list, library book list are pinned on the magnetic board, making it disappear in the background. Good!  The frames hold memorable family photos and kids’ artwork, which we constantly update one frame at a time.

We kept the MARKOR sideboard even if it doesn’t match the kitchen’s new theme. It's hard to let it go, after all the hours we put into the assembly. Besides it provides ample storage. On top, a breadbox, a tray of glass jars & vitamin bottles, the tired rice cooker and cereal boxes.

This drawer keeps an assortment of tea which we drink a lot of especially at Fall/Winter, noodles, yummy instant noodles, and pasta.

I have saved the emptied babyfood jars knowing someday I will make good use of them. Now they uniformly house my spices.

Beside the stove I have all the cooking sauces.  In lieu of a drawer liner, the aluminum tray catches all the drip if any.

This drawer is for all the disposable wraps and bags. I use an empty box to keep grocery bags we later use to line the trash cans.  I snatched the small red container from the kids for my rubber bands.

This is the bento corner, for the Tupperware®, lunch and snack boxes. The lids and all the bento tools are in the plastic bins from ONE’s.

An organized space makes life more organized. Especially in this high traffic space.

Chyrsanthemum Tea

Chrysanthemum tea is good at releasing the qi from the body, especially when I am having some acne outbreak, dry eyes, itchy throat and what nots.  My brother has this handy when he eats potato chips =]

I would love to get this RIKLIG teapot from IKEA $9.99.  It can hold 1.5 liters of tea, which you can serve hot or cold.

Before I get ya, I am using the French Press for now.

Safari Lunch

Brought our own

Octopus hotdog, fish tofu, crabstick, bed of romaine, broccoli, tomatoes & jello

Love how the hotdogs curl on boiling water.

Broiled Chicken

This is an attempt to make Chicken Inasal, and my first at broiling.


I am using my broil pan for the first time. The pan was so easy to clean afterwards.

The oil that would have clogged my arteries if I had not broiled.

Ingredients: chicken legs, rice vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, brown sugar, S&P, annatto, olive oil; serve with sinamak vinegar, soysauce, chili

Cucumber Juice

Cucumber juice out of my handy dandy Breville Compact Juicer. Cleansing and refreshing.

Cucumbers, among many other vegetables and fruits, have a wide range of health benefits, from promoting healthy skin and hair to fighting high blood pressure, constipation and cancer. There's a reason why slices of cucumbers go with the eyes in the world of skincare. Cucumber will now always be on my grocery list.

Ingredients: cucumbers, apples, lime, basil