Buying spices is challenging when you’re cooking for one.  The warehouse club, super sized spices offer a good price, but buying a 5 year supply isn’t a good idea since the spices will go stale.  At the same time, the smaller jars in the spice section of the local super market are seriously over-priced.  I’ve found that the spices in the ethnic food sections are priced much lower.  Buying a small bag of bay leaves is the perfect combination of lower price and larger quantity.  Combine that with online purchases and I found that my spice shelf had a mix of warehouse sized spice packs, regular spice jars, and a pile of bags.

My solution to this mess was to use some old jelly canning jars I had.  These are large enough to hold those oversized bags of spices, and if you cut the label off the bag and tape it to the jar they look pretty good too.  If you don’t have any, they should be in your local supermarket or Walmart this spring when the jelly & jam making season begins.