Cleaning the Pantry Challenge

We are very fortunate to have a dear friend who comes to visit us every few months from Sydney.  Each time he stays with us, he cooks a beautiful meal for us (and I make a dessert).  Tomorrow he will be here again, and will be cooking Osso Bucco with Gremolata, served with mashed potatoes.  Yum!

Anyway, yesterday I decided that I would have to allocate some time today to clean my pantry, as I would be too embarrassed for our friend to see the terrible state it was in.  Always the procrastinator, I sat down to the computer this morning instead of getting straight into the task at hand and had a good laugh when I saw Rhonda Jean's post today on her Down To Earth blog, where she set a Cleaning the Pantry Challenge!

Nothing cures me of procrastination better than a good challenge, so I got to work straight away.

Here is the embarrassing before shot of my pantry:

An hour or so later, it now looks like this:

What a transformation!  I'm just amazed at how much space I have in there now.  I didn't have to throw much out, so the space is created by taking the food out of it's packaging and putting it in stackable containers.  I now even have space to put my food processor away so it's no longer taking up space on the kitchen bench, so I am very happy about that!

So, challenge completed!  I encourage you all to clean out your pantry this weekend as well, it really is a worthwhile exercise :-)