If the spring weather hasn’t yet reached you, there’s still a way to feel like it's spring… spring cleaning! Roll up your sleeves, put a smile on your face and get ready to give your gluten-free kitchen a good cleaning and re-organization. If nothing else, with a clean kitchen, you will feel better and eager for the new season.

First of all, open your windows wide and let in some fresh air for inspiration. Try to enlist your family members to help and listen to some lively music to keep your motivation going. Maybe you can split the chores over a couple of days to help make the job more approachable.

Pantry
Empty the entire pantry onto your counters and clean the shelves well.  Check the dates of all your products to ensure that they are still shelf-stable. (Call or email companies when in doubt of what the codes mean.) Toss out any out-dated product. Replace all the items back into the pantry, keeping the older foods in the front for quicker consumption and ideally, the gluten-free products separate from the rest. Or use a marker/pen and write ‘gluten-free’ in big letters on the front of the package to help even the youngest gluten-free family members choose well.

Fridge
As with the pantry, empty the contents of your fridge onto your counter to assess what’s worth keeping. Throw away any out-dated food and use a marker/pen to write ‘gluten-free’ in big letters on the front of each item. Try to buy squeeze bottles of condiments to avoid cross-contamination issues or keep separate bottles but write ‘gluten-free’ on them to avoid problems. Have a second butter dish (labeled g-f) to keep those gluten-laden knives away. Any plastic containers of leftovers can be labeled with a piece of masking tape with ‘gluten-free’ marked right on. If possible, have one shelf in the fridge also dedicated to gluten-free foods to make things easier for the whole family.

In General
Empty the kitchen drawers, vacuum out any errant crumbs and keep those drawers closed during food preparation! If you don’t have a dedicated gluten-free toaster or toaster oven, clean it very thoroughly, or invest in a few inexpensive Toast-It bags to avoid cross contamination issues (and reduce cleaning time). Keep in mind, while you can safely share many pots, pans and other non-porous kitchen tools, make sure to have a different colander/strainer for your gluten-free pasta. This is one item that is almost impossible to thoroughly clean, since the gluten from regular pasta is gummy and sticks to the strainer holes.