Spice Dump Time

August 30, 2024

Every fall, I like to prepare for the pending holiday season by a nice pantry purge and this time I added a spice purge too. Spices do age, and they lose their potency. I had so much stuff crammed in my spice cabinet, it was ridiculous, so I flew into action.

I got going early one morning and set aside an hour - and it was more like a half hour. I made quick work of emptying out the cabinet, grouping like and duplicate items, and then, checked with Alexa on how long spices actually last. The answer was, 2-3 years with the disclaimer that they can last indefinitely, but lose their potency at about 2 years.

I noticed I had written the year on some of them previously in sharpie, and had already started doing this again. I didn't remember doing that 3 yeras ago, but it shows that my logic didn't change much.

I made some more rules about getting rid of spices, besides the obvious expiration dates.

  1. Rule 1: The smell test. If it smells like hay with no discerning aroma, it's done.
  2. Rule 2: Solid state. Is it in a solid state? A few shakes doesn't free it? It's still a brick? Out it goes.
  3. Rule 3: WTF is it? I have no idea what it is. I have something with an unpronounceable name and have no idea what I made with it, when I bought it, etc. No date on the bottle either. Gone.
  4. Rule 4: Does it look scary? Definition of scary might be that it was once crystallized ginger - looked like nice rock candy or something and now its all grainy and powdery, breaking down. Gone.

This quickly filled a tall waste basket and emptied my cabinet. Great! As I put the spices back into the cabinet, another idea came to mind as I contemplated alphabetizing them, and thought to myself, "NO!" Why not have some sort of dry erase list right there on the door to write what is in there? Amazon to the rescue! I was able to find adhesive dry erase sheets that met my needs. I will be attaching a dry erase pen with velcro to it, or sliding a dry erase pen into the cabinet.

I also found a really nice app called Pantry Check that allows you to scan barcodes of your items. It inventories them for you and will remind you when it's time to replace them - it knows their shelf lives. How handy is THAT? I started to feel like The Jetsons...

So, I have gotten a bit of a handle on my kitchen again, but it has a long way to go. At least I can look into my pantry now and see what I have, and know that my spices are fresh. I had a lot of "haystacks."

Until next time...