Organize, Organize, Organize

Organize Yourself; Prepare Every Needful Thing! (D & C 109:8) Shelley invited mom and I to a class a few weeks ago, it was taught by Anitra Kerr who started the company simply living smart. The class was all about meal organization and organizing your pantry. She is big on premixing some of the food you use on a regular basis and storing it. She gave us recipes for some pre mixed rice, biscuit mix, pancake and waffle mix, onion soup mix, basic cookie mix, cake mix etc. The big benefit to making these mixes...ONE, it's less expensive and TWO, you are leaving out all the bad stuff....the fillers, MSG etc. Anitra goes into homes and charges quite a bit to organize pantries, storage rooms, offices, or pretty much anything you need. I didn't want to pay someone to get me organized and thought I probably could handle this on my own. I came home anxious to get myself and our pantry a little more organized. Nicole is always up for a new project so the next day we were off to gather containers and ingredients that we might need to make some of these mixes.



The pre mixed rice takes the place of buying rice a roni....etc. it is really quite tasty and so easy to make!! How about some fresh ground cornmeal? You then use the cornmeal with your pre mixed bixcuit mix to quickly make fresh cornbread!! Yummy! Use the onion soup mix just as you would Lipton Onion Soup....sprinkle on your Sunday roast etc. It is so much cheaper. Easy as that!



These containers help keep the cereal fresh and its great because know exactly how much you have left......besides it looks much nicer and organized don't you think? Those cereal boxes take up so much room.



I think this is my favorite thing I did. I always have a hard time grabbing the right tool for the mixer. I found some little hooks and decided this was the answer....it will be so much easier to grab the one I want.

Just in case anyone is interested I thought I would share one of the rice recipes with you. This is probably my favorite one. Give it a try!

Chicken Tarragon Rice Blend

4 Cups uncooked long grain white rice
4 Tbl. instant chicken bouillon
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. dried tarragon
2 tsp. dried parsley
1/4 tsp. white pepper

Add all ingredients in a container and mix. Bingo you are done!! Now just cook it like you would any rice..... 2 cups water to 1 cup rice, add a little butter. Put the recipe on the container so that when you run low it is right there to look at and mix up another batch.

I worked really hard on getting this all organized. It made me want to cook and find new ways to use these mixes. Megan's response to the new look in our pantry....." The food doesn't even look appetizing anymore..it looks too healthy like we just eat powdered food!" WHAT?? After all that hard work... It may not look appetizing to her but it seems like she doesn't have a hard time cleaning her plate. Healthy is good!!