It All Started with Putting Away the Groceries...!

Pine Nuts! I couldn't find any to put in the stir-fry I made a couple of nights ago. I have a drawer in which I keep various dried foods - nuts, seeds, fruits - and things like amaranth seeds and raw cacao nibs, which I saw in a recipe once and never found again.

Quite a bit of stuff like that in that drawer! Wishing now I'd taken a 'before' photo! But I was just putting the groceries away! Why didn't I have a marked container for the pine nuts as I do for other things? Why are there little bags containing a few raisins/dates/chopped walnuts - about a tablespoonful! Why is this container empty and that one unmarked?

Out it all comes. Got to be sorted NOW so I can finish putting the groceries away. Oh look! A little baggy thing of pine nuts! Bother, could've had them in the stir fry after all.
Definitely time this lot was sorted, properly contained and properly marked - and the few bits of dried soup mix and the odd raisin lining the back of the drawer vacuumed out!

Once the drawer is cleaned I need some more decent containers, so into the TUPPERWARE cupboard I go, searching. (NB. I used to be a Tupperware dealer and am what my daughter likes to term a 'Tupperware Slut'! I think it should actually be  'Plastic Slut' cos I've never managed to confine my needs to just Tupperware! Sorry - but - plasticcontainersaresousefulokay!!! )

To find what I want in the cupboard in the corner under the bench where I keep the smaller containers I have to pull everything out! (NB. Walking sticks are useful for this!) It was all neatly organized once - probably when we first moved in a few years ago! (I digress!) As with all good organization, there are goblins and gremlins who delight in discombobulating it! Well, I sorted that and beware all goblins and gremlins who dare to enter said cupboard hereafter!



And OMG, there is still a mess of stuff on the bench waiting to be put away in the dried foods drawer! But having found some suitable containers and their lids (along with some other pieces of Tupperware I'd thought lost and now gleefully retrieved) I can label them and store stuff in them and arrange them neatly in the drawer.

You know, really, you need to get among some of this stuff and use it instead of just buying more and poking it into the drawer on top of everything else! Actually, the drawer is a bit of a commentary on various healthy food fads we've thought we should try. Went through a stage of cooking a lot with various seeds until we both found them to be rather indigestible - or maybe we were just eating too much of them! So we stopped!
What am I to do with all these sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds? I can't quite bring myself to dump them in the pig bucket or feed the birds. Better go and Google some likely recipes. Armed with about three, I return to the kitchen...

Oh, that's right. I was tidying the cupboard. Yes, and the drawer! If you make that slice recipe and add a bit of this and that like you usually do (so it rarely even resembles the original)  you could use up quite a bit of stuff which would mean less to sort and store. Good idea. Double the recipe while you're at it! The final result is edible, though a bit dry. Might be quite nice broken up and dowsed with milk for breakfast... or if all else fails there are the pigs and the birds...

Now, to finally tidy the cupboard and then the drawer - where it all began!

The sense of satisfaction now it's all so tidy is gratifying and so far the g&g's haven't had time to mess anything up! But I'm a writer and such domestic activity is not usual for me - and I haven't written a word today! In fact, the whole thing has been a bit of an odd departure - blogworthy even.

Ah, yes, now I'm happy. Writing...
(Evil cackles. Goblins and Gremlins are watching her settle into her chair at the computer, and skipping and sidling gleefully into the kitchen. She's oblivious. Where to start? Where to start? Cackle, chortle...)