 Organizing Your KitchenBy Brenda Prinzavalli This is the perfect time to prepare for an abundance of fresh veggies from the garden, relaxing and fun festivities in the backyard, picnicking, and barbecues. It’s also time to get your kitchen organized for more efficient food preparation and clean-up time. Here are seven tips to organize your kitchen to find more space and more efficiency. Tip 1: Get rid of miscellaneous glassware, cups, plates, etc. They don’t stack or fit together very well and can produce a scattered feeling where having sets produces a simplified feeling. Tip 2: Get rid of broken, unused or multiple products/gadgets with the same use. If you only use one at a time, keep the best one and donate the rest! Then get drawer organizers to keep your kitchen utensils separated by category in the drawers. Tip 3: Wash, chop, and then store veggies in plastic containers. Doing it all at once saves on the total amount of time cutting veggies each week. It also makes it easier to pull out the containers and prepare a healthy meal as most of the work is already done! Also, use square plastic or square glass containers instead of storing them in plastic bags. Bags take longer to wash by hand OR if you toss them with each use, they fill the landfills with unnecessary waste. Tip 4: Find one or two environmentally friendly cleaning products that do the majority of jobs. It will save space under the sink, time getting out and putting away different products AND save you money as we’ve all thrown away partially used bottles of products that just get old. Tip 5: Make a printed grocery list of your most frequently purchased items in the order you find them at the store. Then make multiple copies of the list and check off what you need for your next trip. (Even better, laminate it and put it in a folder. Then check off the items and wipe clean after shopping.) Tip 6: Clean out your recipe cards, cooking magazines and cookbooks. Sort through recipe books and magazines, then donate the ones your don’t use. You can also tear out the few recipes you use from a book and get rid of the rest of the book. Get a hanging file storage box or crate for recipes and sort them by type of dish. If you’re worried about not having new recipes to try, there is an abundance of recipes online these days so you can easily find new recipes for those times you want to whip up a new and fun dish. Tip 7: Here’s a fun little extra organizing tip that was actually started in our house by my husband. When you put silverware in the dishwasher place forks in one compartment, spoons in another, etc. Then when it is time to unload, you can grab a handful and they all go in the same place. No Sorting! Happy Kitchen Organizing! Brenda Prinzavalli is the founder of Balanced Organizing Solutions brenda@balorg.com 702-260-1284 |
