How to Keep Track of Your Food Storage - 3 Inventory Systems

This week's organization project is to create a food storage inventory. Over the past few years I have gotten pretty good at acquiring food storage, but have done nothing to inventory what I have. This has been a problem when a case lot sale comes around and I find myself staring at the cases of food at the store wondering what I have at home and what I need to buy.

I set out to find a good inventory sheet to use, and found some great ideas at the Prepared NOT Scared blog. Trish suggests 3 different systems that could work for you: 1. Having a binder 2. Using a clipboard(s) 3. Shopping lists. Click here for the post on these different systems.  Note that the files she lists in the post don't work in the links - you have to click on the folders on her blog at the top right hand side to find the files.  If I can figure how to link the files to blogger I will attach them for you.

For me, I have decided to use an inventory on a clipboard hung next to my food storage. This will allow me easy access to see what I have and what I've used at just a glance.  I will also use the shopping lists to help me be prepared when the case lot sales come around.  I have these sheets all printed out and ready to use! 

Next step, organize and inventory my food storage!

Anyone else out there have a good food storage inventory system they want to share?

Kelly

How to Organize Your Recipes, Plan Your Meals and Overall Save Your Sanity

This week has not be a good one for me. I have been totally down the last 2 days with a stomach bug and not able to get anything accomplished at all. Luckily today I have felt MUCH better, cleaned my whole house, and got around to accomplishing my first weekly goal for my 30 day project this month! So here I am to show you my best idea ever for organizing your recipes and planning your menus.

Let me start with a big shout out to The Food Nanny for the idea behind this project. A few months ago I started watching The Food Nanny program on tv and was inspired to 1. cook for my family more often and 2. be more organized with my menu planning. I have always liked to cook but with having such little babies in my home the last two years, it has been much harder to cook at home. I always dreaded coming up with a grocery list and figuring out what to make for a whole week's worth of dinners at a time. Sound familiar?!

The Food Nanny solves these issues with having a plan. She recommends having a theme for each night of the week. The themes I have chosen for my family are:

Monday - Soups & salads
Tuesday - Italian
Wednesday - Asian & Mexican
Thursday - Quick & easy
Friday - Pizza
Saturday - On the grill
Sunday - Comfort foods / new recipes

In our house the busiest day is Thursday, the day my daughter has ballet during dinnertime. This means she comes home from school with only enough time to have a snack, get dressed for ballet, and out the door. So I picked "Quick & easy" for this day to have dinner ready for when we get home with minimal effort for me. Quick & easy could be breakfast, crockpot foods, or recipes that I can prepare ahead. My kids love knowing that Friday nights are pizza nights (and homemade air-popped popcorn for movie night too)! My husband LOVES salad for dinner (he would eat salad for dinner every night if only I agreed to it), so having a salad & soup night was a no brainer for me. We love Indian curry, Asian stir-frys and Mexican food, so I lumped that all onto one day to rotate through those "exotic" flavors. Sundays will be a day for comfort foods as well as a day for me to try new recipes as I have more time to devote to cooking that day. Saturdays is a great day for grilling and having fresh vegetables.

Once you figure out what themes you like and what nights they make sense for your family, the rest of the preparation for this project is fairly easy. Check out The Food Nanny's website here for more ideas on themes.

Now, grab all your recipes lying around, a 3 ring binder, a labelmaker, a 3 hole punch, and some special tabed dividers (see below).


My stack of recipes just lying around, waiting to be organized.


First I took my tabed dividers, labeled them for the days of the week and the corresponding theme, and put them in the binder. THIS IS IMPORTANT: make sure to get some tabs that have a little pocket in the front. You will thank me for this! Get a package of tabs that have at least 16 or so. I used 7 for the days of the week, then made labels for new recipes, breakfast, dessert, veggies, starches, appetizers, and food storage. I got these tabs awhile ago, but I'm pretty sure I found them at Wal-mart. They are a kind that you can write on them with pen and erase them later, but I like the look of labels better than handwriting.


Take your stack of recipes and seperate by category and take a three hole punch to them. For recipes I had on small recipe cards, I made a black and white copy on my printer machine first so that all pages were a uniform size. This will help the book stay neat.


I placed a sheet protector in the back to house the hand-written recipes given to me from family members that I don't want to lose.


Ready for the part that will make you think I'm a genius?! Now that your recipes are sorted by theme, when you are ready to plan your week's menu, simply take out a recipe from a theme and place in the pocket of that day's tab. Now you can quickly find the recipe when it comes time to make the meal. You can even borrow (as long as you PROMISE to put it back) from the veggie or starch tabs and keep in the same tab pocket for the meal to be ready to go. Love it!!! No more loose recipes on my kitchen counter being grabbed by little messy troublemakers in my house!


I searched high and low on the internet for a stylish printable for the front cover of my 3 ring binder but could not find one. So I decided to pick a picture of my own to use. I decided on this one from my sister-in-law's wedding last fall. They had a root beer keg at their reception for root beer float making. When I look at it, it reminds me of all the good memories from that day. So if you can, find a picture of your family or a favorite meal that reminds you of something pleasurable to you.


The finished product!

What I love about this project is that I not only organized the loose recipes I have lying around, but it will be so easy to add to it as I cook my way through my other cookbooks or print out recipes I find online. As I make my favorite recipes, I plan on making a black & white copy from the original cookbook on my printer, then adding to the appropriate nightly theme. Pretty soon I will have a great stack of recipes to rotate through as I plan my weekly meals.

Enjoy!
Kelly

Primary giveaways / CTR subway block and zipper pulls

I spent the day today purchasing and preparing some goodie rewards for our ward's Primary children. We have been challenged by our Stake Presidency to read the Book of Mormon by the end of June, and as a Primary presidency we have developed our own reading program for the children to help encourage them to read either on their own or with their families. As they read, they receive one of five rewards.I thought I would share with you just a couple of items we came up with. I'll post more on the whole program later if anyone is interested in hearing it. So leave a comment if you do. :-)


We found a CTR subway printable here at Between the Craziness and made these cute blocks with them. I would love to do some in the blue color of the printable.


We also made these CTR zipper pulls for scripture cases, backpacks, whatever. I love love love the blue, yellow and red color combination! These are so cute that I might make a few extra to sell. Heck, I even want one for myself!

I can't wait to see how excited the kids are to receive these fun rewards!
Kelly

P.S. I figured out how to watermark my images - yay! I'm feeling so impressed with myself!

Kitchen organizing tips

In keeping with my February organizing theme of cooking, I came across a link for great kitchen organizing tips from Tidy Mom. I personally love the idea of the lazy susan in the fridge, as well as the tension rods in the cupboard and under the sink for a great space saver!

Thanks Tidy Mom!

Goodbye January, Hello February!

Where has the month of January gone? With several birthdays in our family, and our baby's latest achievement of crawling which requires extra diligence on my part, plus a last minute weekend getaway for our family, the month has passed by too quickly! As someone born in January, I love the month and all that comes with it - long winter days, new resolutions and beginnings, and a new year with a clean slate.

When I was pregnant with my second child, I was working full-time for a government agency with 10 hour shifts, and all day long I would dream about quitting my job and having so much time to do organize everything around the house that I wanted. Well, I did quit my job when my daughter was born, but I had to learn the hard way that the more kids you have, the busier you become! I'm still busier than ever after having yet another baby last year (yes, 2 babies in 2 years!), but now that I came up an organizing system to organize I know I can finally accomplish all the things around the house that have bugged me for years!

In December I came up with an idea. I call it "30 day projects". Each month I choose a theme and center a weekly organization project around the theme. January's theme was cooking. I have wanted to better organize my recipes, food storage and all around kitchen organization for at least 2 years. I also knew that if I was better organized in the kitchen it would translate to more good-for-you home cooked meals instead of the bad routine we had fallen into of going out to eat (have you tried eating out with 2 kids under age 2? It is more frustrating than relaxing, that's for sure!). I did work on some of my project, but haven't realized it fully so I'm making it my February project as well.

So for February, my theme is cooking and my weekly goals are:
Week 1: Recipes! Organize a system for quick & easy menu planning.
Week 2: Food storage! Inventory items I have on hand and items to purchase and store.
Week 3: Kitchen clean and organize!
Week 4: Develop grocery budget!



I'm a big believer in writing and posting your goals where they can be seen. For me, I have found that just writing goals down help me to accomplish them. So I'm posting my weekly goals on my chalkboard above my computer desk. I got my chalkboard for cheap at Downeast Outfitters, but you could also find a cheap framed canvas and paint it with chalkboard paint as shown here from the blog My Sister's Suitcase.

More updates to come as weekly projects are completed!
Kelly