Kitchen Tools and Tips

There are so many kitchen tools that claim to help you but only seem to make your life harder. There is a lot of advice out there that really does not make any sense. There are a lot of old habits that people have that really slow them down in the kitchen.

Here is a list of tips and ideas for you to consider to make your kitchen run better and that will make your life a lot easier:

1) Always go with white appliances if you are buying new or you have the choice. Appliances that are black or stainless steel are really not that great of a kitchen tool. It is harder to see the spills and mess on those colors so you end up wiping the entire thing, or straining to see the spills or worse, not wiping them up at all. Then since you have left a spill it gets harder and harder to clean. It gets baked on. My ex-wife loved the look of stainless steel and black. All of our appliances were one of those. I could never really see a spill on them. If I got really close I could tell that they were filthy and needed to be cleaned. But from a distance I could not tell. I have white appliances in my apartment now. It is so easy to just wipe up the stove now during and after cooking. It only takes a few seconds. With a black or stainless steel stove you will spend many minutes. It is a total waste of time. If you have the choice; go with white.

2) Avoid buying and obtaining all kinds of specialized knives as kitchen tools. Most people end up with an excessive number of knives. Knives seem to be one of the hardest things to throw out. You really only need about 4 good knives to cook with. A small knife, a bread knife, a medium knife and a big knife. Don't be afraid to throw out knives.

3) Avoid having excessive kitchen gadgets. People's kitchens are loaded with all these things that look so good on TV and in the store. The claim is that these types of kitchen tools will speed up our cooking. The reality is that they are just one more thing to store that rarely gets used. My ex-wife loved all the gadgets. It was her hobby to collect them. They took up an enormous amount of space in our cabinets and she rarely used them. They are just so difficult to use and a real pain to clean if you ever do use them. I didn't give her a hard time about this though. I could see that she really loved those types of things and I didn't want to be mean about it. If that is your passion, go ahead. But if you want to live an organized, easy life you will have hardly any gadgets or kitchen tools.

4) A smaller kitchen is a better kitchen tool than a bigger kitchen. Ideally, you want to be able to prepare a full meal without hardly any walking. Your time in the kitchen should be spent cooking, not walking back and forth. Those gigantic kitchens are a huge time waster. They may look great but are totally inefficient. The best kitchens are the U-shaped or at least the L-shaped kitchens in a modern apartment or smaller house.

5) There are two good ways to keep your kitchen clean all the time. The first is to be careful while you are preparing meals. Which means that you avoid spills and use the correct size of pot or pan for the food you are preparing so the food does not slop out over the pan. The second is that you clean up as you are preparing the meal and cooking. This really helps to minimize the time you are in the kitchen. If you time it right you will only have to wash the actual plates, glasses and silverware on the table after a meal. You will have washed everything you used to cook and prepare the meal while you were cooking and immediately before you eat. This is not that hard to do because normally the hot food off the stove needs to cool slightly before you eat it. I just use this cooling time to wash the pots and pans from the stove.

6) Use a dishrag for washing dishes. This kitchen tool is still the handiest cleaning device ever. It is much better than a sponge or an abrasive pad. My ex-wife insisted on washing dishes with one of those yellow, somewhat abrasive cleaning pads. She thought that this would help to get the dishes cleaner. The problem would be that this tool, while good for washing dishes, does not work at all for wiping up spills on the stove or for wiping up the counter. She would then need to use paper towels for this or not do it at all. It is so much easier to be doing dishes with the dish cloth, wiping up spills as you go and wiping off the counters. The dish cloth will be good for a few days and then you just wash it. You can usually buy 2 or 3 for a dollar. So you could get a lot for cheap. I do have the yellow abrasive pads handy for cleaning stuck on food in pans, but most of the time I just use the dish cloth.

7) Don't go overboard buying different kinds of spices and sauces. These kinds of things really clutter up a kitchen. If you have lots of sauces, your refrigerator will be filled with these and you will have no room for real food. Whenever you buy something that needs to be refrigerated after opening it should be the smallest size you can find. You may want to just use what you need for preparing that meal and throw the rest away. It might be months before you use that sauce again.

8) Eat up your leftovers within the next day or 2 at the most. If you make a big meal and there are a lot of leftovers, you should plan on having those until they are gone. The other option is to freeze it for a future meal. Having multiple containers of leftovers in your refrigerator is really a pain. It looks bad and will smell bad soon. Plus if you make it a practice to not have too many leftovers you will not need to have very many containers that clutter up your cabinets. You should cook smaller amounts of food at a time anyway. It is less expensive, much easier and faster. I think everyone prefers a freshly cooked meal to leftovers anyway. A fresh simple meal is better than leftovers from even the most elaborate meal.

9) Keep your kitchen tools and small appliances in your cabinets as much as possible. I only keep my coffee pot out. I use it quite often. I keep my toaster in a cabinet since I do not eat toast that much. Having most of your countertops free of clutter will make your kitchen look a lot better. If you don't have room in your cabinets for most of your appliances then you will need to toss out enough other things to make room.

There you have it, nine simple ways to make your life with kitchen tools better.

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