A well-organised kitchen is an essential part of any functioning household. If there’s chaos in the kitchen, you can face an almost unlimited list of potential problems. You spend so much time there and, since food is at the heart of any home, you must take care to ensure you organise your kitchen well.
The room
How to layout a kitchen is the most critical decision you can make with the room. For example, should you keep the kitchen table in the kitchen or have it as a dedicated food preparation area? It’s essentially dependant on size and available space; if it’s large, it’s nice to be in the actual kitchen, as the cook can quickly move back and forward for serving purposes. If you have the time and budget, consider renovating the kitchen to make it more as you’d like.
Shelves & racking
Storage is key to a functioning kitchen; if we have clutter all over the worktops and the table, it will never work. Shelves work better in the kitchen than in any other room in the house. Why is this? Well, items in a kitchen are more often used than elsewhere; consider how often we use each of our books compared to pots, pans and utensils. If we have ample pantry space, it’s advisable to put up shelves or racking in there.
Food rotation
One thing that can throw a kitchen, and therefore your life, into chaos is poor food rotation. It’s the height of frustration to plan a meal, set up your prep area only to discover that one or more of the ingredients is out of date or going off. To prevent this, you must remain vigilant with your stock; treat it as if you were running your own mini supermarket. No less than weekly, you should check all cupboards, fridges and freezers, especially your long-life ingredients, as these are the ones that slip under the radar and go bad without you realising it.
Time management
We hear many of our friends & family groan when we mention the fact that we still keep a paper calendar in our kitchen, but we still swear by this method of self-organisation, and we can make it a bit personal to us; check out this great Irish calendar as an example. It’s also essential to time your cooking and baking accurately, and there are several ways of achieving this. A simple kitchen clock, either wall-mounted or on your stove, will work. There are various types of dedicated kitchen timers on the market as well. But the method we like to use best is using a smart speaker; the advantage being that hands are often messy and sticky when cooking, and using a voice-activated device seems perfect.
Weights & measures
We also ensure that we have a good solid set of measuring spoons, cups and jugs handy, as well as accurate manual or digital kitchen scales large enough for use with mixing bowls, pots and pans.
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