The Official Off the Cuff Tutorial on Kitchen Organization

An organized kitchen makes cooking more fun, and far more efficient

LONG POST AHEAD.  I'll try to break it up with my sardonic humor, and photographs. 

I have been tossing this around in my head for a while, and decided to create a separate blog post on how to organize your kitchen area and make it as functional as possible.  Cooking is a complete drag if you feel like it's a chaotic endeavor that requires a lot of running around.  And, of course, I have now finally come to a point in my life where I have lots of cabinets, an ample kitchen island and a spacious work area.  So lest I come across as condescending, talking about how to organize a kitchen, when many of you have tiny apartments and/or rickety old cabinets and lack of functionality, I just want to assure you that I have also lived in places with small kitchens and lack of counter-space.  My goal here is to provide you with as much useful information for making the best of what you *do* have. For someone endeavoring to make use of this kitchen organizing session, I would set aside a whole day, and remain flexible to tweak things after the fact, if you find that you under-assessed some of your needs.

Ultimately, cooking and maintaining your kitchen will be easier and more fun when there is a good groove and flow.  (Groove and flow.  Sounds like some new sub-genre of electronic music, doesn't it? First it was Drum and Bass, Jungle, Trance, Techno, and now it's Groove and Flow.  So on that note, crank up some good music and let's get to it.)

Tomatoes

This is all I'm gonna say-- do not store whole tomatoes in the fridge, never-ever-ever-ever.  If you've pre-diced some for your chili or salsa, or pasta, okay, fine, because they're cut up and you need to keep them from spoiling. But the whole ones? Room temperature.  Always. 

They will be so much more sweet, pleasantly textured, and not mealy, gritty and cold. It's an actual fact that cold temperatures make the cells in tomatoes burst, which is why they change texture.  I'm pretty sure most people who think they don't like tomatoes are basing that belief on having eaten mealy, pale, and unpleasantly bland tomatoes from a fridge.  Think about the peachy-pale colored ones sliced on top of the average hamburger, and you'll know what I'm talking about.  So remember: Tomatoes stay at room temperature. 

Otherwise, stay tuned for a yummy couple of recipes when time allows-- on deck, I have a potential recipe for eggplant-pork stir fry, brie-stuffed chicken breasts with cranberries and fresh herbs, as well as a segment on kitchen organization that I have been wanting to do for a while. 

Household tip: Non-Skid rubber liner and its uses

About a year ago, I found a bunch of remnant pieces of rubber shelf liner that my husband had used in his tool chest drawers in the garage.  This is the stuff I'm talking about here:



(Click the image link to access it on Amazon.com)

I have found multiple fun uses for it in the house.  For starters, I have cut some circles to size to put underneath my utensil-jars to keep them from sliding around on our counters.

I also keep a couple of 6" diameter circles in a drawer to help me open stuck jar lids.  It helps you grip the lid and get better traction.  I sometimes even use one for my left hand to grip the glass jar, and one on the lid to give me a little extra oomph. 

I cut a couple of these things to put inside drawers under those plastic flatware organizers so they don't slide back and forth either.

Chemical-Free Range/Oven Cleaning; A Tutorial

Hi faithful readers. Okay, I know... I'm quite delinquent on updating a recipe; our big summer project was getting some contractors to rebuild our retaining wall, and it is going on week 4 now. Thus, not much new inspiration for foods and recipes. However, I was on a cleaning binge today, and decided to show you how to deeply and thoroughly clean your stove/oven/ range combo, to keep your kitchen cooking area spic-n-span, for easy and low-maintenance clean ups.