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VIDEO – Organizing the Utensil Drawer

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How to Organize a Grab n Go Drawer in Your Kitchen

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Video: How to Organize Your Tupperware

For the daily cook, an organized kitchen is a must. If you are in your kitchen everyday, there are some basic rules that I feel are necessary, so that you can get meals cooked fast and make clean up a breeze. Who knows – maybe more people would become daily cooks if their kitchen was organized in a way that really worked for them instead of against them.

When I organized my kitchen from what I learned by reading Confessions of an Organized Homemaker, cooking was more fun than it had ever been! I could cook a delicious and healthy meal in under 30 minutes and I could clean up as I prepared the meal, which made clean up no big deal.

Here are some basic rules that are important for the daily cook to follow when organizing the kitchen: (Information gathered from Real Simple Magazine, Organizing from the Inside Out and Confessions of an Organized Homemaker.)

• Keep necessities within easy reach
• Use under-cabinet space
• Put the walls to work
• Center your kitchen
• Only keep items that you use
• Use the right containers

Let’s start by going over what “centering your kitchen” means. (You can use these tips for the other cooking styles, that we will go over in the coming weeks, as well.) This one little rule of thumb that I learned several years ago, changed the way I cooked. Previously I always organized my kitchen with how the kitchen was set up. I never really took the time to organize it how it would work best for me, which possibly meant storing some items in unconventional places.

Here are some different centers that the daily cook might have:

• Mixing center
• Sink center
• Refrigerator center
• Cooking center
• Food serving center
• Food storage center

So, the first thing you need to do is decide what centers your kitchen needs. Then get some boxes and label them with each center. As you are purging and sorting items in your kitchen, the items you decide to keep will go into these separate boxes. You should also have several other boxes: goes in another room, donate, sell, throw away. If this seems like way too many boxes to you, instead of having separate boxes for the centers, you could put a blanket down and designate separate areas of the blanket for the zones. It’s up to you.

Now on to purging and sorting the kitchen. These 2 steps can happen simultaneously.

Go through every drawer and every cabinet and as you look at each item ask yourself some questions:

•  Do I really need this? – It’s easy to collect things in the kitchen, like having 5 can openers, 7 whisks, 22 spatuals, etc.. Only keep the items you really use. Also, get rid of the bulky appliances that when you first bought it, you just knew you were going to love it and well, you ended up using it once.
• How long has it been since I used this? If you use it once a year for holidays, try storing it elsewhere so you can free up some extra storage space. If it is used a few times a year to daily, then keep it in the kitchen.
• Which center does it go in? If you decide to keep it, decide which area it is used in and put it in that box or spot on the floor for that center.

It really helps to have someone do this with you. It will make it go so much faster. You purge and then when you figure out where it goes, hand it over to your organizing partner. They can do the leg work for you, while you do the decision making. (Bribe them by promising to make a fantastic dinner after you are all done!)

Here is Julie Morgenstern’s No Brainer Toss List:

• Chipped or broken dishes, glasses, and mugs.
• Duplicate sets of items.
• Pots, pans, untensils, and bakeware that are burnt or rusted.
• Excess stemware.
• Excess plastic containers, bags, and jars.
• Ugly souvenir glasses and mugs. (My side note: unless you love and use them. We have a few of those and nobody better toss them!)
• Plastic tumblers, if your kids are all grown up. Save a few for the grandchildren is you have any.

She also suggest getting rid of fantasy items, and storing sentimental items. If you were dreaming of becoming a gourmet cook at one point in your life and then later realized that’s just never going to happen, then get rid of the items that you bought which you know you will never use. As far as the sentimental items, you do not have to get rid of those, but if you never ever use them, then store them safely in your attic or garage. They can still be special, but there is no need for them to take up precious kitchen space, which is often so limited in the first place.

Here are a few other basic kitchen rules that are good to follow:

• Try to keep counters clear of decorative items for the most part. This will simplify the preparation and the clean up. Who has time to clean and dust all the nicknacks in the kitchen when they get splattered with oil and food. I sure don’t!
• For items you use daily or several times a day, store them with the one-motion storage rule. Meaning that you can open up a drawer or cabinet and it is right there. You do not have to move anything out of the way to get to it.
• Store things at the first-point of use. Let go of what you are use to: storing all the food together, all the pans together, all the dishes together. It will save you time in the kitchen if you think outside the box a little.

Now on to centering the kitchen. I will list some possible items that you would have here and also the best place in the kitchen for the specific center to be. Now all kitchens are different, so you will have to play around a little.

The Mixing Center - It should contain anything that you use when preparing food for baking, or oven food that requires some mixing first.

• containers of flour and sugar
• baking powder
• baking soda
• spices (the ones you mainly use for baking)
• extracts
• seasonings
• powdered sugar
• brown sugar
• shortening
• a mixer
• food processor
• measuring spoons and cups
• spatulas
• wooden spoons
• mixing bowls

The mixing center is best set up between the stove and the sink. Why? Well for a number of reasons. When you are done with the mixing spoon, you can easily drop it into the sink of hot soapy water you already have gotten ready. (This makes for super easy clean-up!)

The Sink Center - Think of all the things you need the sink for. The daily cook spends a lot of time at the sink for things like washing fruits and veggies, filling up the juice pitcher with water, cleaning (obviously ). The sink is pretty much the center of the kitchen where alot of things happen. Most likely most people don’t put a whole lot of thought into this area, but the sink should be just as organized as the rest of the house.

Here are some items you might consider storing near the sink: (Remember, these are just ideas. Do what works for you!)

• knives and peelers for veggies, cutting boards
• can opener (for opening soups, juices, etc.)
• teakettles, saucepans
• glasses,pitchers
• colanders
• cleaning supplies
• you could store the veggies that do not need refrigeration in baskets or bins near the sink
• dishtowels
• bowl for collecting scraps and trash (Rachel Ray does this on her show. What a great idea. I love her!)

Here are some miscellaneous tips that I thought were very helpful:

• While you are preparing dinner, have the sink filled with hot soapy water. When you are done with an item, throw it in the sink. It will start washing itself and make clean-up a snap!
• One thing I really disliked doing was clearing the table after we ate, then I read this tip. Use a dishpan to set the table and clean up. Before dinner, load all the plates, silverware, napkins, etc. in the dishpan and take it all to the table at once. When it’s cleanup time, load all the dirty dishes into the dishpan. This eliminates extra trips back and forth. It also makes it easy for hubby and kids to help!
• Try to start dinner with an empty dishwasher. Either empty it first thing every morning or while your dinner is baking.

The Refrigerator Center - This is another area that I didn’t put much, okay any, thought into organizing. I mean who organizes their refrigerator?! Well, now I do and I wouldn’t go back.

Here are some refrigerator organizing tips:

• Designate different shelves for different things. Like top shelf holds dairy products, bottom holds leftovers, etc.
• Make a sandwich making kit. (I love this tip!!) Just get a square rectangle container (that you have already checked if it will fit) :) and fill it with all your sandwich making stuff - like condiments, lunch meat, cheese. We started doing this years ago and it is so easy to pull out the container, make a sandwich and then put it back.
• Use the same size containers to store leftovers. They will stack easier and neater and make more room for other items.
• Put apples or oranges in a bowl in the refrigerator instead of the little bins. I had to do this so that my kids would actually SEE the fruit. They kept telling me they would forget the fruit was there. Well now, they have no excuse. I also did a little expermient to see if the fruit lasted longer in the bin as opposed to the bowl and for my fridge, there was no difference. Ofcourse mine does lean on the cheaper side of the refrigerators.
• Make a point to go through your refrigerator once a week, preferably before you go to the store.

The Cooking Center - This center is at the stove (I know, duh!). It is best to have this center right by the mixing center, but it may not work that way for you. Just be creative and work with what ya’ got!

Here is a list of items you might store there:

• pots, pans, skillets
• cooking utensils (wooden spoons, whisk)
• bakeware
• potholders
• cookbooks
• griddles
• cooking spray and veg. oil
• spices used for stovetop and oven meals
• salt, pepper
• cookie sheets
• muffin tins

As you can see there are several items that you will need in the mixing center and the cooking center, which is why it’s ideal to have them next to each other. You will whip up a batch of cookies in the mixing center, but then you’ll need the cookie sheet to bake them. Just do the best you can.

The Food Serving Center – If you have a buffet then that is the obvious best choice. I don’t because of space issues, so I use the second pantry in my kitchen.

Here are some items you might store here:

• serving platters
• place mats
• napkins
• tablecloths
• serving utensils
• breadbaskets
• salt, pepper shakers
• candlesticks

The Food Storage Center - This could be a pantry, cabinets, or a cabinet you bought because your kitchen has no storage (believe me, we have moved 5 times in 7 years. I’ve had some awful kitchens!).

Items that go in this center are:

• canned goods
• boxed foods
• bottles
• paper products
• cereal
• snack foods
• bread

 Well that does it for the centers. I’m going to go ahead and stop here since I have given you alot of information. Next week, I will discuss some items that are great to have in the daily cook’s kitchen. Then after that, it’s on to the Sunday cook.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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