Making Your Kitchen Work For You (and less the other way round)

Hello!

Vanessa here this week supplementing Karen’s lesson about the Efficient Kitchen. I want to say right off the bat that my plastic container cabinet looks 100% NOTHING like the photo accompanying this post, lol. It’s basically a duck-and-cover situation when we open that particular cabinet door.

That blip notwithstanding, I do value efficiency in the kitchen and I am here for you to share some of my favorite efficiency tips. For me, that looks like keeping my most used cooking utensils next to the stove, keeping my knives in view on the counter on a magnetic block and keeping the foods I reach for most often from my pantry at eye level while keeping foods I reach for less often on higher or lower shelves. 

I also am a big fan of cleaning as I go and starting a cooking project with a clean(ish) kitchen. Luckily, I have a spouse who knows how much I value a “blank slate” when I start cooking, so he helps by washing up any dishes left behind during the day. We also make sure to not leave dishes overnight so that breakfast is easier to prepare.

But my absolute favorite tip is “the trash bowl”. If you don’t feel like lugging your kitchen trash or compost container to your prep area, why not instead use a bowl to catch kitchen scraps, twisty ties and other detritus that tend to accumulate while you are preparing a recipe? Then, as you are cleaning up, you can bring the bowl to your trash/compost/recycle and separate its contents as necessary. A lot easier than moving or making countless trips to the bin.

Could you see yourself using these tips? Or do you have tips to share with the group? We wanna know!