How To Organize Your Kitchen

Years ago, when Doordarshan and television were synonymous, a reputed home appliance company ran an advertisement for a washing machine, in which they showed a little girl opening a wardrobe only to have all the clothes fall on her. If your kitchen reminds you of that advertisement, take the bitter pill of accepting that it finally needs an overhaul. Without being too specific, there are sure to be knives and forks strewn around the cabinets, items that you use once in a decade, coming in the way of items that you use ten times in a day – in short, the state of total disarray rules. What is meant here is that, if you have been putting off organizing your kitchen for a while now, it might do you some good to invest some time now, so that you may waste less time, looking for stuff later. After all, as someone rightly put it, the right time, is right now! Read on to know the tips for organizing your kitchen.

 

Throw The Clutter 

Clutter will consist of every item or appliance that you have not used for more than a year. These items are often kept alongside other items that we put to use every day and come in the way. If you regularly use a mixer grinder for grating coconut, give away the manual one to your mother or granny – they are better at using these things (and also mortally scared of electrical appliances!). As young professionals who earn well, you may have brought every new item that promised to make cooking easier for you, but ask yourself, do you really need both an OTG (oven-toaster-grill) and a microwave? You can easily do away with one of these items.

If the handle of a certain pressure pan is wobbly, fix it or get it replaced. Check the gasket of your pressure cookers and pans. Check all the kitchen knives to see, if any of them has gone blunt. If so, get it sharpened or buy a new one.

Store Frequently Used Stuff Within Easy Reach 

All items that come in handy ten times in a day, are to be kept within easy reach – all those pans and kadais, that you use each day for cooking, should be kept close to the stove, so that they can be reached easily. So should tablespoons, ladles, kitchen knives, and cutting or chopping boards. Those that are used infrequently like the stand for making idlis, etc, should be kept either in storage spaces, or at the far end of the cabinet. Electric rice cookers, if used infrequently, should be relegated to the storage space above the kitchen, from where only your husband can take it down! Utensils that are used for microwave cooking should be kept separately, preferably near the microwave itself. You could of course make an exception, with glass items that are used inside the microwave – they should be kept at a place from where they may not fall and break.

Clean With Soap 

All those jars that you use to store kitchen item must have accumulated a lot of dust. Empty them and clean them, within and outside, with warm, soapy water. Let them dry and fill them with their respective items once again.

Order! Order!  

Keep all your spices and other ready-to-use powders in such a way, that they only make cooking easy and pleasurable for you. If you don’t make pav bhaji too often, keep the instant masala packet in one corner or, better still, in the refrigerator. Items like salt, tea/coffee, sugar, turmeric, chili powder, etc come in handy every day and thus should be kept within easy reach.

Ready to eat food items, that have crossed their best-before date, and snacks that have been lying around for too long, because no one is interested in them, should be done away with immediately. They do you no good, and are an open invitation for insects and pests.