Last week, Andrea shared some of her favorite Simple Kitchen Quick Tips. Today, I wanted to add to her list with a few of my own!

Prepare Produce at the Beginning of the Week:

We eat a lot of fresh produce, topping our cereal with strawberries, serving dishes of pineapple with dinner, snacking on carrot and cucumber sticks, etc. Because life can get busy and hectic as the week wears on, I prepare as much as I can at the beginning of the week rather than waiting until it's time to eat!

Start with Dry Ingredients:

To cut down on the amount of dishes you dirty when cooking or baking, always start with the dry ingredients. We all know that measuring out vanilla extract and then salt will lead to a goopy mess in the measuring spoon, but you can avoid using double if you start with the dry ingredients.

Mix Wet Ingredients in the Measuring Cup: 

Similarly, for muffins, brownies and other small batches, I prefer to mix my wet ingredients directly in my measuring cup rather than dirtying yet another bowl.

For example, for my favorite chocolate chip muffins, I add 1 cup milk and then pour in the oil until the mixture reaches 1-1/2 cups total. Then, I add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and an egg. I beat the mixture right in the measuring cup with a fork before pouring it into the bowl that holds my dry ingredients.  

Refrigerate Grated Cheese Before Transferring to the Freezer:

Whether you buy bags of grated cheese or grate your own at home, put it in the refrigerator for several hours before transferring it to the freezer to prevent it from all freezing together in one big chunk!

If you do end up with a chunk, lay the bag on the counter and use the smooth side of a meat mallet to break it up. Just make sure you've gotten all of the air out of the bag and sealed it tightly first!

Create Your Own Freezer Smoothies:

These days you can buy bags of mixed fruit specifically for making freezers, but there's no need to pay extra for these when they're so easy to make.

Add 3-4 peeled bananas and several cups of fruit (frozen berries are our favorite) to a plastic freezer bag. Add in a tablespoon of frozen orange juice concentrate for flavor and seal well. When you're ready to make your smoothies, just dump the whole bag in your blender, add plenty of water and blend. YUM!

What else do you do to save time in the kitchen?

Although I’m really not a great cook — despite my best efforts and the fact that I cook almost every day for my family! — I’ve always loved cookbooks almost as much as I love kitchen gadgets. These days, browsing food blogs has replaced flipping through colorful cookbooks, but letting go of the dozens of cookbooks that used to line my shelves was not an easy decision for me to make.

In the end, though, with picky eaters in the house and the computer readily available, I found myself turning to my cookbooks less and less anyway and ultimately decided that I’d rather have the free space than keep storing the cookbooks.

Of course, there are still a few that I couldn’t part with, and it’s okay to decide that keeping your cookbooks is worth the space they take up. But even if you use your cookbooks regularly, there are probably a couple you could declutter to make space for more!

To get started, make sure that you’ve kept copies of any recipes your family loves or have become part of holiday traditions. I spent a few nights flipping through my cookbooks while we watched TV, flagging any recipes I wanted to save with a post-it note so I could easily find them later.

Next, copy and save those recipes somewhere where you can find them. I decluttered my recipes several years ago (before Plan to Eat even existed!), so I copied any recipes I wanted to save and put them in a binder. You could make a photocopy or hand write them, of course, but it’d be even better to enter them right into Plan to Eat so they’re ready to add to your meal plan and available to be printed.

Finally, be sure to find good homes for your cookbooks! Your local library may take them, or you could donate them to a thrift shop. Or if they’re valuable, you may even be able to sell them on Amazon.com or eBay.

Making the decision to declutter is never easy, but be sure to ask yourself the hard questions as you consider each cookbook so that you’re only keeping those that you truly value. Beware, though — the convenience of having your recipes all saved in one place (like your Plan to Eat Recipe Book) may just outweigh your attachment to the glossy pages of your favorite cookbook!

How many cookbooks do you have in your kitchen? Is the idea of storing your recipes online instead appealing or hard for you?

Photo by sling@flickr

Can I tell you a secret? I’m a terrible cook. I’m getting better the more I practice, but the truth is that I over think everything and have no gut instincts when I’m cooking, and I have this uncanny ability to ruin any meal. Kind of pathetic.

But what makes it even more pathetic is my love for all things kitchen. I’ve been asking for small appliances for my birthday and Christmas since I was 16. Smoothie makers, toaster ovens, quesadilla makers, waffle irons, dehydrators, pressure cookers, pizelle makers, panini presses, crockpots, latte makers – really, I could go on.

To make it worse, I not only had a Pampered Chef bridal shower (which really was an incredibly fun way to stock my kitchen!), but I also became a consultant for a while after we got married. Between all of those things, my kitchen was not just well stocked; it was overstocked. I had gadgets and gizmos galore, which might be okay for someone who
loves to cook and spends hours in the kitchen creating amazing meals. For me? Not so much.

A few years ago, I began the process of decluttering before we moved into our new home. I looked at all those kitchen accessories crowding my kitchen (and laundry room and, ahem, closet…), and I decided something had to change. Let’s just say I think I made quite a few people at the Salvation Army very happy that day.

Making Tough Decisions

But seriously, many of these small appliances and gadgets are useful, so how do you decide which you should keep and which it’s time to pass on?

:: How often do you use it? If you’re only pulling something out once every six months, chances are you could live without it. The exception to this would be something like a canner that you only pull out every six months but use extensively for a week or two before packing it away again.

:: Could you do the same thing without the appliance? I had a quesadilla maker for a long time that I rarely used, and I decided to let it go before our move. When my dad came to meet our newborn daughter just weeks later, he brought quesadilla fixins, expecting to use the quesadilla maker. Oops. Instead, he taught me how to make them on a pan, and I’ve never looked back.

:: Do you have more than one appliance or gizmo that serve the same function For example, there’s really no reason you need a blender and a smoothie maker. A smoothie maker is a blender with an added spout on the front for easy pouring, so go ahead and give away the regular blender. Use the same process as you
consider your gadgets and gizmos to decide which you really need to keep and which you could live without.

:: Are you holding on to it because you love it or because you’re afraid you’ll miss it? I’m going to address the elephant in the room for a minute. Yes, chances are that you will regret at least one decision as you go through this
decluttering process. For me, it’s my springform pan, which I didn’t realize at the time could be used for more than cheesecake.

But you know what? The peace of mind and simplicity that comes from decluttering my kitchen more than outweighs the regret over that little gadget. And if I continue to find more dinner recipes I think our family would enjoy that call for a springform pan, I can always pick up an inexpensive one to replace the one I decluttered.

Don’t hold on to things just because you’re afraid you’ll miss them! And if that’s the thing holding you back, pack up the extras and store them in the basement for a while before giving them away, just to make sure.

:: Would I use it more if it was stored in a different place? I think this is an important question to ask yourself because chances are there is at least one thing in your kitchen that you think about using all the time but rarely feel like pulling out. One could argue that since you’ve lived without it for so long anyway, it should go into the give/sell pile, but it’s okay to move it to a new home (in one of
the cabinets or drawers you’ve already emptied through your decluttering!) and see if that makes you more likely to use it. Maybe you’ll look back in six months and realize you’re still not using it and end up giving it away anyway, but you might find that you use it a lot more once it’s convenient for you.

Just Do It

Look at each and every item you pull out of your drawers and cabinets and think through the questions above. If you’re afraid of making the wrong decision, simply put them in a box and try living without them. My guess is that you’ll miss very little of what you pack away!

Be Careful What You Buy

One more thing. For those of us who are compulsive about our kitchen gadgets, it’s important to ask those same questions before buying any new gadgets or appliances as well. To be honest, I avoid Pampered Chef parties these days because I really do love their products, and it’d be easy to convince myself that I love and need any number of items from the catalog.

There is one additional question I ask myself before any purchase (or adding an item to my gift wishlist): Do I have a convenient space or something else that I’m willing to get rid of to make room for it? Keeping my kitchen and home uncluttered is important enough to me that I let it dictate the decisions I make in other areas, which makes it easier to just say no.

Do you share my love for kitchen appliances and gadgets? Is there something in your kitchen right now that you rarely use but
haven’t wanted to let go of either?

Photo by Colin Campbell