Tasty Tuesday - Developing a System For Your Kitchen (Part 4)

Just a few tips for you today!

Keep your trash can close to where you work.
We had moved our trash can across the kitchen (we have a fairly big kitchen) for a Christmas party and just finally got around to moving it back a few weeks ago. It really does save a lot of steps!

Use freezer bags instead of freezer containers.
It is amazing how much faster things thaw when they are only 1-inch thick instead of 3-4 inches.

Buy in bulk.
I always try to buy my meat in bulk (only when it's on sale, of course). I then divide it up into appropriate amounts and cook or freeze it that way, so it is ready to pull out when I need it. I portion my ground beef into 1-lb freezer bags. Sometimes I cook it first; sometimes I don't. I flash freeze my chicken breasts and then put them all into a large freezer bag. Portioning before you put your food in the freezer saves on waste. (I.e. "All I needed was 1 lb of ground beef - now what am I going to do with the other 2 lbs?")

When you're in a hurry, use aluminum foil.
I don't know about you, but I HATE doing the dishes. Since I typically don't put my pans into the dishwasher (mostly because they don't fit), I try to wash them as little as possible. I do this by lining the pan with aluminum foil before I bake anything on it. We do this with cookies, fish sticks, french fries, garlic toast, chicken....well, ok - you get the idea. Pretty much anything frozen (or NOT frozen). Obviously this is the most economical route, but it sure saves me the hassle of washing dishes!

Arrange your kitchen to suit your needs.
Don't put your glasses across the kitchen from the refrigerator and your plates right next to it. There are very few things that you pull out of the fridge or freezer and stick directly on your plate. On the other hand, you probably will do that with your drinks. Also, keep in mind the placement of your dishwasher. Since dishes are probably your heaviest item in the dishwasher, you don't want to have to drag them all the way across the kitchen. Put them in a cupboard close to the dishwasher and save time when you unload.

Save your grocery bags.
Ok, first go through and see if you can find any that don't have at least 3 holes in the bottom. Once you have done that, stash those bags away for when you need to throw out a chicken bone or some rotten produce and trash day is still 4 days away. (Make sure you tie the bag up well! This is where the no-holes rule comes into play). This is much cheaper than using a ziploc and must more pleasant (to your nose) than not using anything.

Hide the appliances you rarely use.
Don't clutter your countertops with them. If you only use them once a month (or less), put them in a bottom cupboard, a basement, or your garage. You will learn to love your open countertops and find that they are much more efficient when it comes time to cook.

Buy two at a time and buy before you need to.
If there are items that we tend to use often, I try to buy two at a time. If I notice that we are low on applesauce or oatmeal, I will buy two or three so we are well-stocked. I keep an "extras" box on the floor of our pantry.

What are your tips for maintaining and organizing your kitchen?

Tasty Tuesday - Developing a System For Your Kitchen, Part 2

Tip of the Day: Don't pay for someone else to do what you can do yourself.

You've seen them. The 100-calorie snack packs, the single-serve Pringles, the individually wrapped Cheesecakes, the toddler-sized containers of ravioli, the mini cups of diced fruit, the pre-portioned celery and carrots sticks with a mini serving of dip.....the list goes on and on. It's ridiculous what Americans will buy when they are perfectly capable of doing the exact same things on their own for a lot less money.

I think the main problem is that Americans are gluttons. Myself included. If we open a can of peaches, we're going to eat the whole can. (Okay, maybe a healthy food wasn't a good choice. Let me start over). If we open a can of Pringles, we're going to eat more than the recommend 13 1/4 chips. Like they say....Once you pop, you can't stop!

In an attempt to curve our all-American gluttony, we have opted into a whole new line of foods: individually portioned menu items. Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with these. In fact, I think it's an excellent idea! The problem comes on the pricetag.

Example: You can buy one toddler-sized ravioli dish for about 89 cents. I'm going to estimate that there are about 8-10 pieces of ravioli in that container. -OR- You can buy a large can of ravioli for $1.29. Total number of ravioli pieces: closer to 40. Now, I don't know about you, but 10 cents seems like an awful lot of money to pay for one little piece of ravioli - especially when I know I could be buying them for about 3 cents a piece and simply pulling out 10 pieces for my toddler to eat at lunch.

By now, you're probably wondering why I'm talking about the cost of each individual piece of canned ravioli. Aren't we supposed to be talking about how to develop a system for your kitchen? Why, yes we are. And I'm getting to that. I just had to get all the preliminaries out of the way first. :)

Instead of buying all those pre-packaged individual servings for everything, just learn to do it yourself. If you have a baby around the house and you purchase baby food, I highly recommend the Gerber plastic containers. (They are worth a few extra pennies in my opinion). These baby food containers are about 2 inches x 1 inch x 1 1/2 inches and they are absolutely PERFECT for toddlers - but also for adults. If you don't have a baby in the house, simply purchase some small plastic containers (or save them if you buy something that comes in them). Yogurt containers used to work well but now I believe they are all without actual lids. Anyway, just find some small containers to store your food.

You will find that this method is more efficient for your kitchen because it keeps you organized. If you use clear containers, you're more likely to see what you have and use it. You can also pre-portion things that are not yet sold individually to grab as a snack on the way out the door (i.e. pretzels, peanuts, etc.). It's more efficient for the environment because you're using reusable containers. And obviously, it's more efficient for your wallet.

In case I have completely lost you in this whole process, I will post a picture of a few things that I have pre-portioned this week:

Since I have toddlers in the house, I try to keep easy-to-grab snacks on hand at all times. You can see that I have some cheese cubes in one (cut by yours truly), pretzel sticks in another, and that steamy-looking one is blueberries. I plan on taking all 3 of these containers for our weekly Tuesday sack lunch at the church.

The other containers are mini cheesecakes. I bought a box of cheesecake mix at Aldi yesterday for $1.29 and made 8 serving-sized containers like this. Total cost: 16 cents each! Quite a bit cheaper than those individually wrapped Cheesecakes in the grocery store, huh?

If you have kids in your home (and even if you don't), I encourage you to give this a try - especially if you are currently buying serving-sized items. See what kind of difference it makes in your time and your checkbook! :)

Tasty Tuesdays - Developing a System For Your Kitchen, Part 1

I have decided to start a series on how to develop a system to make your kitchen work for you. I have found several things in the 4 years that I have been married (2 of those being a SAHM) that have really helped simplify my life. Since my friends sometimes comment on certain things that I do, I wanted to share with you those things that have made my kitchen work for me.

Today I want to talk about prep work. I know that, as a SAHM, I should have plenty of time to get dinner started and going on any given day but I still find it difficult to get myself motivated sometimes. One thing that I have found which helps me tremendously is to get the prep work for my meals taken care of before the actual day that I need the food.

Something I have begun to do is put all of my dry ingredients (for certain food items) into a ziploc bag, thereby forming my own mix (similar to Bisquik). I write on the outside of the bag in permanent marker what ingredients are in the bag, what ingredients need to be added, and cooking/baking instructions. (I personally recommend quart-sized freezer bags. They tend to be just the right size and are much more "heavy duty" that the average zipper bag). Here is an example of a cornbread mix:

Right now, I have mixes for pancakes, waffles, cornbread, and herb batter bread. I try to keep two of each on hand. Since the bags are sturdy freezer bags and they only contain dry ingredients, I can use them over and over again. When I have some free time (haha), I will check the pantry to see how many of each we have left. If we are running low, I will fill a few bags.

This idea can also be done using a large container and mixing for several batches at a time. I tend to think that I would not mix everything well enough and would therefore end up with a lopsided loaf of bread or cornbread that tastes like it has no sugar, so I use the bag method. I also like to do it this way because I can always see exactly how many bags I have prepared. In addition to those reasons, bags stack well and are, of course, very versatile when it comes to storage space.

I have several more things that I am excited to share with you in the coming weeks. What do you do to keep your kitchen organized? Blog about it in your own blog and then leave me a comment letting me know about it. I will post a link to your blog next week when I continue this series.