Making Space and Sharing Space

An occupational hazard of letting the Big Kids use your kitchen is that on the (rare) occasions when they do clean up and put things away, things are not necessarily put away where you usually keep them.

Last night I practically tore this drawer apart looking for the meat fork.

I never did find it.  This drawer was getting so bad that it wasn't always easy to open or close.  Something had to give.

So I dumped the contents of the entire drawer on my kitchen table, cleaned out the inside of the drawer and the baskets, and started fresh.

I found a few items that were duplicates (and who needs two "push-me-pull-yous" for oven racks?) so I put those aside for Big Brother to take to his college apartment in the fall.

Some other items, like the pancake turner, are used so frequently around here (grilled cheese and tomato, anyone?) that I didn't want them back in the drawer.  But they didn't fit in the oatmeal canister that I use for a utensil crock.

Then I remembered the coffee can from Cafe du Monde that I'd saved.  It brings back memories of my trip to Louisiana during my own college days, when I was my school's delegate to a campus ministry event.  I sanded down the open end with some coarse-grit sandpaper, cleaned the can, and tossed some ladles and pancake turners in there, as well as a few other things.

The kids will be able to find things easily, and they might even put them away in the right place when they clean up.

I have coffee-can lids on the bottom of both of those cans to prevent rust.

I'm still working on the arrangement of the rest of the drawer, but at least it's cleared out enough now that it can be opened and closed without things getting stuck.

Like my fancy paper-tower-tube holder for my cooking tongs?  Yes, it looks junky, but it takes a lot of abuse.  Eventually I will use up the last paper towel on the current roll, and then I'll have a whole new holder.

It's a little change, but it should make a big difference in a kitchen that is no longer a one-mom operation.

Now the issues involved in sharing a 10 x 10 kitchen with 3 kids (2 of whom are taller than me) and 1 husband are a different story.  We trip over each other a lot.  It's a traffic nightmare, but that's a project for another day.

Organizing the Shopping List

There's something to be said for good old pencil and paper sometimes.  Sure, I've got tech gadgets--and there's an app for just about everything these days.  But my best planning (and meal-planning) tools are my planner, a spiral notebook, a binder clip and a pencil.

I get the planner through Family-Centered Press, and it's got space for everything.  Monthly grid, plenty of weekly space, and even menu or lesson-planning pages (I use the lesson pages for lists and reminders).

I get the spiral notebook at the supermarket during the back-to-school notebook sale.  I haven't had to pay more than 15 cents for a spiral notebook in years.  And I get about a year out of a notebook--doesn't get any more frugal than that!

Last week while I sat at the rehearsal for the play Little Brother is in, I was busy with my calendar, planning out dinner ideas for December.  I needed to work around his rehearsal schedule, his sister's schedule for a different play, Cub Scouts and a couple of church events.  I needed to include meals that were easy to make, and I wanted to make some favorite dinners for Big Brother when he gets home from college in 2 weeks.

So I sat there with my pencil and planner and figured all this out.  And today when I went to the grocery store with my notebook, I wished I'd had that planner with me so I could look for deals on things I'll need to make those meals for the month ahead.

While I stood on the checkout line--of course, the slowest line ever--I figured out a way to bring the menu plan along even if I'd left the planner at home.

I printed out the monthly menu calendar at Canny Women and trimmed it to fit the inside cover of my notebook, then just taped it in.  After that, I penciled in all the dinner choices and even started listing groceries I know I'll need to make those meals--though I've got most of it already in the freezer and pantry.

There's a reason for the pencil--it's erasable!  That's important when things suddenly come up and get in the way of the plan.

I can't forget to bring my menu plan to the store if my shopping list is written in the same notebook.

Spices: Rack 'Em Up!

I don't have a spice rack in my kitchen. For one thing, there's no counter space to put one (though I have considered a wall-mounted one, and that's not out of the question.)

For now, I've got them in dollar-store baskets in the cabinets.

I tied index cards to the baskets so I can see at a glance what spices are in which basket. That saves a lot of time when I'm gathering stuff up to cook. I don't even have them all in the same cabinet, but I think I'm going to rework that so that they're all together. (As long as I don't move my husband's coffee, no one around here cares where I put stuff in the kitchen).

I do have a couple of big containers (parsley, oregano, basil and cinnamon) on other shelves because they're too large for those baskets.

It's not the prettiest solution, but it works for now. Where do you keep your spices?

Spice It Up

I was flipping through a back issue of Real Simple (which should more appropriately be titled Real Expensive) when I came to an article about how someone reorganized her kitchen. Since I'm working with a 10 X 11-foot space myself, I'm always interested in articles like that.

One of the "trouble areas" was the homeowner's spice pantry. If I had a separate little cabinet just for spices, no one would be touching it. There's never enough room for spices. But it was clear that either magazine editors or kitchen designers are not cooks, because it was mentioned that the homeowner had 23 spices. Evidently, 23 was too much.

Are they kidding me? That's not the half of what I have in my kitchen, in various baskets. In fact, I counted them all, and I've got 49 spices (not including a couple of jars of homemade spice mixes like Pumpkin Pie Mix, Taco Mix and Italian Mix.) Wait, make that 50--I forgot to count the box of Bell's Poultry Seasoning that's sitting on my kitchen windowsill.

I imagine that anyone who reads this blog also enjoys cooking. How many spices do you have? Would 23 be too much?

A Whole Pan of Tea

My neighbor has this lovely wooden box in which she keeps tea bags. Her dad made it for her, and it's a beautiful storage space.

I like to keep a variety of tea around as well, but I don't have a lovely wooden box to keep it in. And a wooden box wouldn't necessarily work for me; because some of the tea I enjoy comes in untagged, unwrapped bags, I'd have a lovely wooden box full of Mystery Tea if I just dumped it all in there.

How would I be able to tell the Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger from the Bewley's Irish Breakfast?

I have a couple of glass jars on my counter where I keep black tea. The small jar is for decaf tea and the larger one is for regular. Only unflavored black tea goes in these jars, so it doesn't matter if brands are mixed up.

Beyond that, my cabinet was getting overrun with boxes of delicious-flavored tea bags. Chai, Zinger, and Bengal Spice boxes were everywhere. And being short vertically challenged, I had a hard time reaching the tea that was on the back of even the lowest shelf.

So I found a way to repurpose a baking pan. A 9X13 baking pan is the perfect size to hold several boxes of tea. I've got plenty of 9X13 pans in varying conditions--so I used one that's a little past its prime, a little scratched and battered, to hold my tea bags. Tea bags don't care if the pan is no longer completely "nonstick." I can keep my tea-bag pan on the second shelf or even the top shelf; when I want a cup of tea, all I have to do is reach up and slide the whole pan out. It's neat. It's tidy. It didn't cost me anything. Win!