The reasons I preserve food are many. I like knowing what’s in my dinner (and if it’s too sweet or too puckery, I have no one to blame but myself). I appreciate knowing where the food came from and having a relationship with the people who grew it (even if that relationship is confined to Saturday mornings, a few words and exchange of money for goods). I also find it to be quite life affirming. Canning is a way of reminding your future self that she matters and that, barring any unforeseen events, you intend to be on the planet for a while longer.
There’s also something so cozy about having a stockpile of good things to eat. Lately, I’ve been enjoying seeing the ways in which people stash and store their home canned stuff. There was a period there where I was posting at least one link to the Food in Jars Facebook page a day, sharing the various pantry pictures I found or was sent. I was particularly tickled when I got to see Heather’s kitchen shelves in person when I was in Portland last month.
I figured that it was only fair that I finally share with you all where my own extended pantry lives. I’m reluctant to confess that when it comes to pantry management, I am not the most organized. I like to imagine that if I had a dedicated space in which to store these filled and sealed jars, I might be better about maintenance and categorization, but deep in my heart, I recognize that I will never be Martha-like in my devotion to scrupulous neatness.
At the moment there are three primary spots where my pantry resides. The first is in a dry sink in my dining room. That’s the piece of furniture you can see at the top of this post. It mostly contains jams and fruit sauces, although I do keep the pressure canned stocks on the bottom-left shelf. I think the jars like it in there, because it’s nice and dark.
The next place is our front-hall closet. We are quite fortunate in that though this apartment is just 1,100 square feet, the closets are nice and roomy. The one closest to the front door is large enough that I’ve entertained thoughts of cleaning it out and transforming it into a home office. However, if I did that, both the coats and my tomatoes would be homeless. So it remains home to all manner of coats, folding chairs, coolers that primarily serve as yogurt incubators, backpacks that only get used when we fly and lots of pickles, canned fruit and tomatoes. It always surprises people when I go to retrieve their coats at the end of an evening and also hand them a jar of hot dog relish for the road.
Finally, there’s the overflow spot, under my desk in the den. This is a space that is primarily Scott’s domain. However, he’s willing to share with me and so I use the built-in desk along the wall. When I’m not snapping photos of the space, I throw a dark towel over those jars, so that the light coming in from the window (not pictured but to the right of this desk) doesn’t prematurely age the contents of those jars.
Okay, now that you’ve taken the tour of my closets and nooks, time for a little giveaway. A publisher sent these two Better Homes and Gardens Cookbooks to me while I was still at Slashfood (nearly two years ago now), so they aren’t the newest cookbooks on the block. They are, however, still in brand-new condition (still in their original shrink-wrap and everything) and the time has come for them to move on to a life with a cook who will unwrap them and splash a bit of butter or chocolate on their pages.
If you’d like a chance to win the pair of these books, leave a comment and share a story about a pantry you have known (good, bad or otherwise). This giveaway will close on Friday, November 5th at 11:59 p.m.
I have a pantry! Maybe the first one I’ve ever had after 7 or 8 houses in 36 years. I wouldn’t call it walk-in but I can extend my arm all the way to the back of it….and then there are the cupboards in my laundry room that takes the excess…
I live in a old turn of the century farm house. It has a very large walk in pantry. (like a small bedroom!!!) I love seeing my jars lined up in there!
Our current pantry is our kitchen table. :). But we may try our front hall closet. Thanks for the idea!
Marisa, really? I missed that you started this site, I’ve been reading for awhile now but just this moment discovered twas YOU! Great work —
I have both a pantry story and a 19-year-old daughter who desperately needs those cookbooks since her repertoire is pretty much limited to top ramen and mac/cheese from a box. (This despite me cooking all her baby food and pretty much every meal since then from scratch–sigh.)
Last winter was cold and wet, which was a nice change from the record-breaking national-news-type snows Spokane got the previous two winters. Nice, that is, until my husband texted me one day: “Pantry ceiling collapsed. Dealing with it.” A roof leak had given the kiss of death to the pantry ceiling.
I use my pantry to the fullest. As my daughters would say, “We don’t have anything to eat–it’s all INGREDIENTS.” When I got home every single thing from jars to bags to bottles of 5 kinds of vinegar to crates of onions and potatoes was lined up on the dining room table, the kitchen counter, the floor, the cookbook bookshelf–you name it.
We went through weeks and weeks of trying to patch the roof with stuff that was supposed to stick even in the rain, waiting for rain to test it, learning they lied, trying again, learning they still lied…..
This saga started around MARCH of this year, if I remember right. It finally resulted in a new roof, no less. After a few weeks of cooking straight from the counters I managed to stash most of the food in various places other than the dining room table. My husband is still finishing up the pantry upgrade (adding a light, drywall, one more shelf, painting–hey, what can I say? I took advantage of the situation).
Someday I will have a pantry again. Someday.
@BarbChamberlain
I love your old dry sink. I would like to know how you manage to know what is where? I have a small room downstairs that my husband finished in for me. He built shelves on all the walls. I can have everything in one spot. I try and keep it organized. As for “Martha Like”,,,I don’t want to be her. I’m happy being me!
I have a serious lack of pantry, sadly. I do like my pantry cupboard with the pull out shelves, but they can’t take too much weight on them, so I have to store jarred goods elsewhere. I fantasize about having a real pantry someday.
I’d love these books for my college-age girl, who’s in her own apartment and learning how to cook. Thanks for the giveaway!
i got the bug (canning bug) just this past september. i’ve been canning instead of unpacking my newish apartment. i have stacks of jam and canned peaches and pears in boxes and under tea towels on various shelves and the floor. i want to build a dining room pantry like this to keep jars behind doors. http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/2009/03/billy-finds-new-purpose-as-pantry.html
My Mom’s pantry was in our kitchen there were lots of shelves all the way to the ceiling behind white cotton curtains. We lived in an old house and the shelves were very deep. Most years she canned the usual tomatoes, peaches, jam.
I bought my house because of the pantry cupboard in the kitchen! It is twice the depth of a regular cupboard, with a front set of shelves that fold up (like closing a book) to reveal another set in back. It holds a LOT of food, although if I get into serious canning (next year?), I’ll have to go ahead with my plan of converting part of the basement into a cold cellar.
My “treasure trove” (that’s where my canned goodies live) is a small cabinet that was originally intended to hold a wash basin and “po'”. A friend of ours who’s grandmother had passed on inherited it and did not want it (gasp) so he gave it to me.
I have turned my linen closet into my canning closet. The towels and throw blankets are squished on the top shelf and my laundry detergent & paper products sit at the bottom which leaves 3 shelves to be filled with the canned goods of the season.
We went from an apartment, with a room for a pantry, to a nice sized house, with very little storage…so, my husband got me a heavy duty shelving system that I use as my pantry and I love it! It is right next to my stove, so I can grab anything that I may need an it is open, so I can see my full inventory of canned delights! 🙂
We have a 1935 home with an old basement downstairs. Someone built a nice pantry area with shelves just tall enough for jars. Wonderful. Though all my canned goods are in boxes still because I haven’t cleaned off the shelves since we moved in (a year ago!) 🙂
The most memorable pantry I have known was my late grandmothers. She passed away 25 years ago but her pantry was in her basement. Behind that 1950’s handmade curtain were the lovliest jars of bottled golden peaches, ruby cherries, pears, beans, corn, and jeweled jars of jams and jellies from her raspberry patches, gardens, and orchards on her property. I hated sitting round her table with my mother and sisters and “canning”. Little did I realize at the time that I would yearn to be there with my beloved family round that table later in my life. I would give anything to go back and learn from her and just enjoy the company of the women in my family. Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have until it’s too late.
I LOVE your dry sink! I wish our house had room for a proper pantry. I have some things stored over the washer/dryer and the rest on shelves in the garage. Would love to have one of the books too!
I’d been using our basement as storage for my canned goods for years. It’s dark and stays pretty much the same temperature year round, but a pain to get to for a jar of tomato sauce because you have to access it from outside.
So this year while I was sorting through my goods, I noticed tiny trails of mouse poop, and then got totally disgusted when I found a mummified mouse under some old boxes!
So, this year I cleared out the cupboards in the den, and I’m very happy for the cleanliness, and easy access.
I have a semi walk-in pantry and have tried many times to be “Martha like” but after all my efforts it still looks as if a bomb has exploded in there. I have a house full of boys (even the dog is a boy) so it is always well stocked just not well organized. I guess you could say that mine fits into all categories good/bad & ugly 🙂
I ran across your blog about six months ago. It’s now one of my new favorite’s to read (also love 101 cookbooks). I’m afraid I’m hooked. . I made my first batch of peach jam in september , it’s so good. Applesauce in the crockpot, how easy and taste so much better than any I’ve ever eaten. Can you suggest the best type of apples to use for applesauce. My best friend lives on a farm in Switzerland. They keep all of their canned food down in a cool celler filled with cheeses , homemade salami and wine. I keep mine in the garage on a not so cool white shelf. I would give the book to my 23 year old daughter who lives and goes to school in Portland Oregon. Her major is sustainable living and wants to start canning.
I used to keep my big fermenting jars under my sink. Just a few weeks ago I went to grab one to start a new big batch of pickles only to find it was half full of funky gray water and cloudy growth. I quickly scrapped my pickle plan, cleaned all my jars thoroughly, and emailed my landlord.
My pantry at home is filled to the gills, but only 1 shelf of it has canned goods that i canned myself. I wish my pantry looked like yours! These cookbooks look awesome.
I love canning, but don’t do it enough. My pantry is a mess and I’m usually digging to find what I have. I’ll be moving to where I have a huge pantry and can’t wait to get organized and get my canning on. So excited!
Hmmm, well, I learned something from this post! I didn’t know you were supposed to keep your canned goods in a dark place… I guess the corner of my kitchen works for now as it’s fairly dark there. But when I put shelves in my laundry room finally I guess I will have to hang long dark fabric over it or something! I guess that’s my pantry story, I don’t have one!
at my old house, i had a pool house with a windowless room. it was amazing!
I haven’t always had a dark place to store my canning – used to be just on a shelf in a spare room. Many years ago my in-laws gave me a homemade tall cupboard. We call it the *white cupboard*. It has moved with us several times and continues to hold my canning, even if we can’t find anyplace to put it except in the family room.
I feel ya, I don’t have room for anything. Small kitchen, small pantry, both full. And I’m not the most organized either, being “Martha” will make you have OCD…
Like many 80’s kids, I find myself back at home. My mom has allowed room for some of the goods I’ve canned, but I do have about 5 dozen jars in boxes in my attic room — under my bed, next to the sewing cabinet, and stacked in with my books. Rather haphazard, but my sister and I joke that if ever we are trapped in the attic, at least we will not lack for jam.
we have a pantry, but it gets way toooo much light. hopefully, we will get curtains soon…for the shelves, not the windows.
The best thing about our small pantry has been watching it change over the past few years. Before we started canning and preserving our pantry was full of commercially canned goods, and overly-packaged, overly-processed junk! As our hobby has grown into a passion, our pantry has transformed from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. I love opening the doors and seeing all of our hardwork lined up nice and neat. We call it our “Army of Jars!” And it’s almost like art with all of the beautiful shapes and colors…you can really see the bounty of earth’s seasons! Also, like Marisa mentioned, I love knowing what is in my food and where it came from. One of the things that I like the best are that none of the foods have labels on them, and I don’t have to investigate the food before I eat it. No having to check the ingredients list, or count the calories because all of the food is healthy and fresh! Yes, I wish we had more space, but that will come in time.
Don’t beat yourself up, Martha has someone to organize for her. If had a person to do it for me I would be the most organized in the world too! Since I just started canning, I have a small dark place in the back of the pantry that keeps the 12 or so jars that I put up this year. Hopefully next year I’ll have put up some more.
We don’t have a pantry. If we remodel the kitchen I will have one put in. I don’t know why kitchens are built w/o pantries.
I don’t have a pantry, I have a whole room! We have taken a bedroom and turned it into our pantry and it is stuffed. One of the things on my to do list is get it better organized.
I wish my pantry was a little bigger, but I’m just glad I have one now. I’ve lived several places without one. It’s about as organized as I can get it for being small. There is no room to store all the stuff I’ve canned though. I have those jars in a different spot.
The best pantry was my grandmas filled with canned goodies from my paps garden but the best time to visit it was on the holidays it was filled with baked goods and candies a kids dream it wasn’t any help to have a pap that helped you sneak those goodies.
I have a pantry in my downstairs. It seems to be perfect for keeping the jars, as it is a cold room, also. I surely get my excercise running back and forth getting things, but it works. I would love an opportunity to win the cookbooks. Thanks.
I am an un-reformed “trash picker” (according to my husband). Several years ago I saw a beautiful, old chimney cupboard placed out for trash pick-up. I rescued it, cleaned it up and now it serves as my pantry!
I love your blog and hope to start canning next year. Since I am a newbie to it, I will be starting slow but hope to do great things!
I am also a novice cook so your giveaway would come in handy. My boys and dear husband are getting tired of hot dogs and chicken nuggets which are a staple at our house.
I have a great pantry which is a walk in closet. I love it because it has floor to ceiling shelves. Lots of storage.
Thanks for sharing these photos. They made me smile and remember my great-grandmother’s “porch” where she stored all her food. It used to be a porch at one time, but she closed it in so that she could store her deep freeze and other things there. She had a freezer full of strawberries and creamed corn, and she had canned goods of everything you can imagine. She very, very rarely ever bought anything from the grocery (except prune juice!). She passed away this past Dec 31st at 96 years of age, and I’m so glad to say that I took my first canning class the summer before she left us and was able to give her the first jar I ever canned (carrots).
My pantry is narrow, but tall. The standard contractor wire shelving. I can’t put too much weight on any one shelf, but I was able to add several more shelves up high to make the most of it. I just started canning this year, thanks to your posts. I have 2 toddlers and feeding them natural. healthy foods has really become a concern. I love how excited they get in the mornings now, when I take my homemade apple butter or peach jam out of the fridge! It doesn’t get much better than this. Thanks for the giveaway! I could really use the cookbooks. Thanks!!!
Previously, I lived in a small house that was over 100 years old. At 1800 square feet, I suppose it wasn’t all that small, but it was a former servant’s quarters for a 4500 square foot mansion, so it seemed tiny! The kitchen was so small that trailer depth cabinets had been installed & there was only one wall of them. I had only four cabinets (2 upper, 2 lower) to store food, so I typically bought food my the meal each day on the way home from work. Ugh!
When I was building my new house, I kept that old kitchen in mind and had a 4×4 pantry installed (Idespite my husband’s objections that it was too big) right in the 12×12 kitchen. It was fantastic…until I stared canning. Now I have installed cabinets in my laundry room to hold all of my canned goods & my husband is working on additional shelves. We’re currently planning our next house & I haven’t heard a peep from my husband about the 6×8 pantry I want installed OR the root storage room I’m insisting upon in the basement!
I just returned home from spending 2 days canning pears with my 86 yo mother. She lives in a farmhouse that is at least 125 years old. The basement is made of stone and is a wet dank place but it has these incredible arched opening built into it that used to be used to as a root cellar/pantry type of thing. She has ancient thick wooden shelves in another room that she stores all of her canned goods in. Beats my boxes of jars stuck in a closet any day.
currently all of my canned things reside on a wooden platform in the basement. We have yet to build shelves but at least they are up off the floor and in pretty rows!
My pantry had a large deep shelf dedicated to my summer canning but when the new roommate moved in, the canning got displaced : (
oh, how i long for a pantry! and one of those books! 🙂
I don’t have a good place in my house so I stash them in the linen closet and the pantry closet and the step-back cupboard and I’m totally stealing your coat closet idea. We have tons of storage in there that I can repurpose for this. Thanks for the idea!
My pantry has pull out drawers. It’s full and every so often I have of to really pull out the drawers to see what has fallen off the shelf and behind all the drawers. It’s always a fun surprise!
Although I do not have near as many canned items as you, I do store them in a pantry…along with empty canning jars that I SHOULD have filled.
I would love to have the books – especially the “Anyone Can Cook” one as they may not have come across someone like me that is rather limited in the cooking department…I can, however, bake quite well 🙂
And I store most of my well loved canned goodies under my beds when I run out of room on back porch. I have two twins in one room that have access to both sides so it is easy to store two boxes back to back from head of frame to foot of frame. I label the side of the box showing as to what is in the box so there is no real searching when I want a jar of pickles or a jar of jam. The last twin is in another room and it sits on heighteners that make it really nice to store quarts. So most of the tomatoes go under this bed alone from head to toe. This room stays nice and cool as that is the way I prefer to sleep and the other room is actually closed off and only used for visitors so it is not used much and stays very cool.
My grandmother had a walk-in pantry that was filled with jars of canned food and tupperware! It was so much fun to wonder in and see it all. There was also a make shift table that looks out a window, where she stood at and made biscuits once or twice a day (everyday)!
There is unusable space and open area above the closet in the hallway . . . not actually in the closet but like a loft area that you cannot walk on . . . this is where I store all the empty jars and there is a lot of them. The canned food is in the garage, in the closet pantry and in one cupboard according to type of food.
Love the books.
My “pantry” consists of our kitchen cabinets! Our house is only about 750 sq feet, with only one closet. Storage is always a problem, except for books: I have three bookcases that are regularly “purged” to make room for new books. Now that our daughter is an adult, I’ve been trying to expand our cooking repertory, so these books would certainly be welcome!
My teeny apartment doesn’t have a “pantry”, per se, but does have a hallway with some shallow open shelving. These shelves have become my pantry and are currently covered in curtain rods hanging bright pink Ikea curtains. While this works, I can’t wait for the day when I have a real pantry!
The most impressive panty I ever saw was of an older woman living in the Grampians in Australia. The family ran a sheep farm, and also grew most of their own fruits and vegetables. I was completely awe-struck by the pantry and embarrassed myself fully taking a ridiculous amount of photos of it. Unfortunately, those were the days before digital cameras, so I’d have to rustle through some old albums to find those pictures.
My current pantry are two lazy susan cabinets in my kitchen. I dream at night of a full size pantry!
Since moving out on my own, I’ve never had a decent pantry or a good spot for storing my canned goods… Right now, they live in the laundry room on a shelf next to the chest freezer. In our dream house, among other requests, will be a huge pantry with optimal storage for canned goods.
Like you, I have my “pantries” in several places. The front hall under the stairs closet holds Christmas decor and golf clubs in the back and I’ve got a metal rack toward the front that has jar storage. I also have canned goods in an odd linen half closet that is in the same hall. The kitchen has a pantry closet that used to have three huge shelves where I would “loose” items. I put narrower shelves on two sides and now holds all kinds of food.
Living in apartments makes storing pantry items quite tricky (and possibly inventive). Currently I’m just using 2 cabinets near the fridge, and they house my first apple butter. 🙂
FYI, Anyone Can Cook is a fun and easy book, but it relies a lot on some prepackaged foods (especially on the easy rated meals).
I also have a question about canning… Why are so many of your preserves without a ring holding the lid on? I guess I thought the ring was necessary or the lid would pop right off…
You are an inspiration to me, and I love your blog. I am learning a lot. I bought all of my canning supplies earlier this year in the hopes of putting up any number of foods, but have not yet done it. I was fortunate enough to make a new friend who gave me 2 cases of her well-loved canning jars. So I feel like whatever I end up preserving will be good. But I can always use a new cookbook!
My grandma had a walk in pantry and I used to just sit there and play with the packages when I was a kid(I used to pretend I was a little market and sell the goods to my imaginary customers)!
My “pantry” is a set of Ikea shelves in this huge walk-in hall closet I have in my Brooklyn apartment. I’d love to take over the whole closet, but my roommate might object.
When I was a kid, my aunt had a pantry that only today do I realize was the ur-Pantry space. It was a separate little room off her kitchen, with a whole wall of shelves and cupboards and COUNTER SPACE, and I think there may have even been a sink. She used it for some bulk food and the occasional overflow kitchen utensils. I didn’t have an opinion about it as a kid, but now…I have dreams about having an honest-to-God pantry like that.
My pantry is a cold room in the basement that was built as an addition to my house before I moved in…..I absolutely love it. It is my pantry, cold room, freezer room, storage room all wrapped up in one.
No pantry in my little house. Jars are stored in every nook and cranny… under the bed, behind the couch, under the bathroom sink.
My kitchen is quite small, so hubby put a not-needed anymore bookcase in the back corner. Not my dream pantry, but what a difference it’s made.
I don’t have a pantry (small city house) but my mother has a giant one. Every time I go home it blows my mind how much stuff is in there. It’s only her and my dad, but they could eat for years out of their stocked pantry!
I am lucky in that I have a second kitchen in the basement where I do all my canning and where I store my canned goods in the cabinets. It is wonderful and I’m not sure I would do as much canning as I do if I didn’t have this space.
My grandparents had the best “pantry” — an old-fashioned dirt floor cellar. It was lined with shelves and they were filled with rows upon rows of canned bounty. I never went down there much as a kid (scary!) and I regret that now.
Some previous owner of our very old house built shelves into the ceiling of the stairwell down to the basement. I’m not sure they were built for jars, but I like to think so, and that’s what I use them for. But since they’re suspended over the stairwell, I’m always nervous that the weight of all the jars will bring them crashing down one day!
I have taken a bathroom closet and turned it into a pantry. Gottal do what you gotta do to store all of that delicious food you’ve prepared and it’s comforting to know that I have delicious food/meals in the pantry.
I’d love to win the cookbooks and would give them much use!
we have a nice little closet area in our kitchen that is our pantry. It is now starting to get filled with jars of food since we have taken up canning. Looks a lot nicer and cleaner than a bucnh of cans that used to be stored in there.
My grandmother built a special room in her basement for her canning pantry when they rebuilt the old farmhouse in the late ’90s. Unfortunately it has some mystery goods-jars that not even she knows the contents of-we will spend a fair amount of time this winter discarding those to make room for the bounty of this year!
My family never were big on food preservation, but my grandmother was a world-champion at canning tomatoes. All summer long, she’d buy them from farmer’s markets and put them up for the winter, so we could enjoy them in stews and chilis. I miss her home-canned tomatoes.
How about sharing these photos for Other People’s Pantries? My readers are all pantry voyeurs!
I am loving my current pantry, 1970’s style folding doors and terrible location by a big window and all. Since moving to the USA and finding produce so much more seasonal than I was used to I have started to get into canning.
I still get a buzz when I reach into the pantry and see the 6 remaining little jars of strawberry jam that were the first thing I made. I am loathed to use them because they look so pretty.
I am comforted that you, like me, store canned goods in the coat closet! If I was more organized, I imagine I could find adequate space in my kitchen cupboards. But as a creature of habit, I hate the thought of relocating my jams and pickles! I would love to be entered into the drawing for the books. Thanks!
My Grandmothers pantry is easily the best and the most scary…. She is an excellent cook, baker, and canner but doesn’t understand basic food safety. She definitely stores rat poison next to her food in the pantry along with all her other cleaning supplies mixed in amongst the jars. Her haphazardness is so much a part of her personality, I wouldn’t change it. 🙂
This year my goal was to can, freeze and dry enough food for a year. I quickly out-grew the pantry space in the kitchen, moved to the storage area under the staircase and by September had added wall-to-wall steel shelving to an un-used empty downstairs bedroom! I love walking into that room with my basket and filling it up with a week’s worth of *groceries* and then putting everything in the kitchen cupboards…talk about reducing your carbon footprint!
I have a small house that was apparently built before the idea of storage was invented. Only one closet in the bedroom! and it isn’t all that large. I have a small cabinet off the kitchen that I store paper napkins, foil and such and have a couple of shelves for things I have canned. I am hoping to add some shelves in the kitchen to store some dry goods so I can free up more shelf space for my home canned goods. I want to add a pressure canner to my equipment so I can can more variety. I like having really good and special ingredients to cook with. I would appreciate any recipes you have on how to use canned potatoes and the like.
We don’t have a pantry…It seems to have been removed, so now there are high cabinets and a useless open are underneath that wouldn’t fit appliances. In a quest for storage, we special ordered an industrial wire rack for pots, pans, etc. I love it.
ah, the joys of a good pantry! i once moved into a co-op because of its pantry and spice rack. it was a 27 person co-op, and the pantry was like a small bedroom- lined with eclectically painted shelves with huge garbage bins of flour, sugar and rice. i made a lot of great food in that house, and to this day the memory of that pantry makes my fingertips tingle.
We have a really nice cold room in our basement… the only problem is, there’s no shelving! And I’m not sure why but my husband didn’t want to put up shelving, so instead he made some large wooden “crates” to put all my jars on… which still doesn’t solve the problem that you have the bend down to pick them up. Lol. I guess I can’t complain though 😀
One of the biggest selling points of our new house was the walk-in pantry. It’s amazing! There’s even a spice rack hanging on the back of the door… which is great under normal circumstances, but during July-September of this year while I was pregnant with my son I couldn’t fit through the door any way I turned! Not only am I glad to have my sweet baby out here to hold in my arms, I’m able to get back into the pantry and start eating all of the goodies I canned this summer (in cranked up AC since pregnancy in TX is hot!)
I’m using the space underneath the stairs (in the Living Room) to store most of my canned goods, using the assemble-yourself wire cube shelves. Works great and I use bungee cords across the openings just in case of earthquake.
Such a niche website! Reminds me of my grandfather making homemade pickles up in ny or my mother boiling and skinning tomatoes out of her garden in tx!
ryan
We live in a little 500 square foot postage stamp apartment. In order to store all of my canned goods I pack them tight into old fruit boxes and stack them in a corner of my bedroom. Its not the most romantic or convenient place but there out of the way and in the dark for the most part.
I have a couple of large crates piled on each other with the openings on the sides in the bedroom. It stays dark in there all day since we don’t open the blinds. I would give my 2 daughters the cookbooks. Oh wait, one of them doesn’t cook, so I will be giving it to her husband…lol.
I also live in an apartment, but am fortunate enough to have a walk in pantry.
I relocated across the country back to my home state of Michigan in August and have been canning non-stop ever since. I’m living in a renovated farm house and am blessed with a large pantry in the kitchen and a large laundry room that I plan to add shelving to for additional storage.
I turned a coat closet into my pantry! Our coats currently reside in storage boxes under the beds, or hanging from a mirror with storage hooks, but I would not give up my pantry space for anything.
My kitchen was built with a pantry (an oversized closet really) but I don’t store any of my canning in there. I store my store-bought goods in the pantry and my canned, “pretty” stuff is out in the open for all to see. I found a ‘crate’ furniture entertainment center at goodwill for $40 earlier this summer that houses much of our canned items…or so I thought it would. I ended up canning so much this summer that I found a 7 foot tall bookcase unit (again, at goodwill) that I put in my utility room and have already filled that up as well. I love how beautiful all of the canned items look!
We added a pantry when we put an addition on our house a couple of years ago and I LOVE it. For the first time this fall, it contains home-canned goodies and I have a flashback to my grandma’s pantry every time I look in. It was a rite of passage to be old enough to go to Grandma’s pantry and pick out the jar of pickles or relish to put on the table for family dinners. You were a “big kid” when you were tall enough to reach the shelves and old enough that she trusted you to get a glass jar to the kitchen without breaking it.
I’m glad to see your jars stacked. None of my canning books addresses if that was OK, but I had to do it to save space.
I remember my Nana’s pantry in a San Diego suburb called Normal Heights — it was to the right of the sink in the kitchen and went from the counter to the ceiling — the home built in the 30’s. It had heavy wire screen on the shelves and the cool air came up from underneath the house! I was lucky enough to win the last giveaway and have no prospects of winning this one — just wanted to add the comment and read the posts. . .
Ah, to have a real pantry! My husband and I are students, and jut had our first beautiful child. In our small apartment, our pantry is under our bed! It actually works quite well, and I love peeking under the bedskirt to see beautiful apple jelly and jalepeno jelly (the two most recent canning adventures). I have loved reading the comments and discovering where other people store their food!
I am seriously lacking in pantry space in my current apartment, but hope to get into canning soon… I will have to remedy something. My parents turned a closet into a pantry, though, because my mom is an avid canner. They built shelves on both sides so one side holds things like extra pasta, store bought canned goods, and extra cookies and the like and the other side is home to all of the home preserved goods. It’s very cozy and I love going in there to pick out what I’m going to take home with me.
Just moved into a very old apartment with some built in wardrobes that are serving as the pantry. Your storage plan looks comfortingly like mine.
Pantry. Hmmm. What we have for food storage seems to be remote locations throughout the property! Stacks of jars and some filled jars in the guest room. Some under the kitchen table. Some on shelves in the mud room. The only pace we DON’T have jars stored is the bathrooms!
I have a fabulous pantry with nothing in it. I’m a bit behind on my canning since our garden was pretty much a fail this year. So for now, I will admire your pantry and canned goodies!
I acutally have a pantry in my kitchen. I finally worked up the courage to reorganize everything in it and to my surprise, everything fits quite nicely! (Double and tripple stacked of course!) This winter my husband plans on expanding the pantry so I can really get to work, especially with another little one on the way.
I would LOVE to win these books!! My pantry about 3 months ago (when I was living alone) was amazing. Huge, organized, beautiful. Now, I have a roommate (a chef), and it’s a total disaster. Small, unorganized, too full to close the doors and just plain upsetting. I must fix this asap. I have to say I’m super jealous of your canning cupboard. It’s so delish.
I’m new to canning this year, but right now the majority of my jars are living in the extra linen closet in our guest bathroom. People are always horrified when I say bathroom (I know, the bathroom!), but when I open the door and show them the neat rows of jars, filled and waiting to be filled, they can’t help but smile.
My pantry story is my current coat closet. The floor has six carboys (each one being six gallons!) with wine fermenting. Any time we open it to grab a coat or bag the smell of fermenting fruits rushes out. It’s quite the conversation piece!