I said enough in a comment about scaling down kitchens that I figured it deserved to be a post

[christopher575]

My salad spinner is great, but it could also be replaced with a clean cotton pillowcase or a cleverly-folded larger towel. However! The inner part also doubles as a strainer, so if you want a salad spinner you can use the space where your strainer once went, and it's hardly possible to go through life without a strainer at all.

Look for duplicates. You probably have several each of spatulas, wisks, and large spoons. Keep the best one of each.

I'm pretty sure everyone everywhere owns too many coffee cups. Usually because they get them as presents or pick them up as souvenirs. Keep enough for everyone to use one each day if you can commit to dishes every night. If there are more that you can't bear to get rid of, repurpose them in other areas of the house like the bathroom or the office.

Get cool-looking kitchen stuff and hang it instead of stowing it. There are very stylish cutting boards and tools out there. You have to use it a lot if you're worried about dust.

Pull everything out and organize it and put it back away. I usually end up getting back 1/3 of the space in cabinets when I do this. You also have to commit to patiently putting it all back to maintain this.

Do you have a desk anywhere close to the kitchen? Paper files are mostly unnecessary these days, you might be able to grab a drawer or two there.

Is there room for a cutting board in your silverware drawer under the cutlery tray?

Wisks are great but you can often use a fork for the same thing.

Almost every kitchen has a junk drawer. That stuff can go in a plastic bin.

Be inventive. I use plastic storage containers and martini glasses for mise en place.

Nest as much stuff as possible, even if it's a pain to get it out and put it away. I have to be very careful grabbing plates and bowls, but I've got tons of them stored in a very small space.

Consider putting a sheet on your kitchen floor and spreading everything you've got out for a photo, I'd love to have a look at it.

Comments

[crushdmb.livejournal.com]

This is funny because I'm in the process of trying to UPGRADE my kitchen. What little I do have (which isn't much) is just old and nasty. I finally replaced my chef and kitchen knives, and threw out the old one. I need "steak" knives but that can wait. I could use some better spatulas, etc, but I'll make due with my old, slightly melted ones for now, haha. Just replaced a few pots and one pan because my old ones were bad, bad.

Everyone should own at least one cast iron pan, imo. I use it a lot. I also really, really want this fantastic cast iron Pizza Pan I saw, which you can also use to bake cookies or biscuits on. But it's $35 and I'm poor so it'll have to wait. But I wouldn't need a cookie sheet if I got that! Multi-functional, yeah!

[teh-dirty-robot.livejournal.com]

Great tips! It seems like I don't have enough room in my kitchen for everything but if I was able to eliminate the stuff I don't use and organize the whole thing better, I'd have room for the stuff I actually need.

[scunnerred.livejournal.com]

This time next week I'll be living alone for the first time in ages. I can't wait to have the kitchen how I want it. First thing I'm doing is getting rid of the microwave (never use it) so I'll have more space to get all my ace stuff out on display, I hate a minimalist kitchen.

I like your mise en place idea. I somehow have ended up with about ten ramekins so I tend to use them for mine.

When it comes to sorting everything out I'll try and take a photo of my, er, equipment for you.

[my-ophelia.livejournal.com]

I use this Salad Spinner (http://www.chefsresource.com/collapsible-salad-spinner-progressive.html?siorigin=pla) and won't ever look back. It's got the basket strainer, plus it's a spinner, and even with both parts together, it collapses flat. We bought a bakers rack to store some of our bigger appliances since we have no room in our kitchen. That's full too now, so I know we need to downsize. Or upsize the kitchen.

[christopher575.livejournal.com]

I couldn't do without the microwave. Hell, I think made a three component meal where all three things were from the microwave the other day.

[scearley.livejournal.com]

I even dumped my KitchenAid. It was my dad's from his second restaurant. I realized I wasn't using it, so I stripped it, painted it with glow-in-the-dark paint, then realized that I wasn't using it still, and gave it to Goodwill.

There's nothing you can do with a kitchenaid that you can't do with a hand mixer, or just your hand.

If it were up to me I wouldn't even have a dishwasher.

Total appliances: 2 coffeemakers (darkkatpouncing is taking one to her office as they have none), 1 microwave, 1 crock pot, 1 fuzzy logic rice cooker/tofu maker, 1 soymilk maker, some electric water kettle that Kat brought home from the office that boils 12 cups of water so damn fast I drink tea like mad now, four burner electric stove, fridge/freezer, dishwasher. Oh, and the sink disposal. The sink disposal is used the least, followed by the crock pot.

I used to have only four plates, four bowls, four udon bowls, and four place settings of silverware (only 2 steak knives), but then the ex dumped a bunch of silverware on me via Anna and Kat went and bought an IKEA box of plates/bowls to replace the Goodwill ones I had. So now it's 6 dinner plates, 6 salad plates, 6 bowls (and the four udon bowls).

The one thing I thought I could do without but took me forever to realize I couldn't was a peeler. I used paring knives but the peeler, once one found its way back in, was too fast for the job to ignore. Cooking chopsticks are also a-freaking-mazing. I need more cooking spoons, both slotted and full.

Other stuff:

2 9/13 baking pans, 2 silicon bread pans, 2 steel bread pans, 1 9" sq silicon baking pan, 2 tart pans (removable bottoms), 4 springform pans (2 10" and 2 13"), 10 gal stock pot, 8qt pot, 6 qt pot, 4 qt pot w/steamer, sauce pot, two flat griddles, 1 12" frying pan, 1 curved bottom 9" frying pan.

4 cutting boards - 1 glass, 1 restaurant plastic, 1 superthin flex plastic, 1 bamboo. I should get rid of the glass one.

Assorted knives - chinese cleaver, cleaver, couple chef's knives, a watermelon knife (? that's what it says), blah. Oh, a few microplanes. MUCH better than the usual shredders.

...I was also just reminded I have a foreman grill, which is BRILLIANT and a food processor, which I use just enough to keep me from getting rid of it. Otherwise I have the electric hand mixer and the crank hand mixer.

I think I use the kitchen "work" items enough to not eliminate - I really try to prevent bringing them into the kitchen in the first place. It's the plates/glasses/mugs/etc battle I lose.

[nicolemarieh.livejournal.com]

ZOMG i am so sad about your kitchenaid. dont you know how many people woulda prolly bought that from you? :)

mayyybe you can make whip cream or marshmallows or cookie dough by hand, but i sure dont wanna try.

i agree with you about the peeler and did the same thing. i figured i could just use the paring knife but.. yeah, the peeler goes way faster.

[nicolemarieh.livejournal.com]

cool tips! but i have to disagree about this one:

Look for duplicates. You probably have several each of spatulas, wisks, and large spoons. Keep the best one of each.



i used to say the same thing to my ex, and he would disagree with me, saying that when you cook a lot, you often need at least a couple of each, for each pot/pan, otherwise you're constantly washing them off and theres just not time when trying to cook. i didnt believe him, but then when i moved out, i only took one of those sorts of things. i saw that he was so right within a few months, and had to go get more.

now in our house (granted we have 4 ppl) we have prolly ~3 of most things, and still you run out and sometimes have to wash some while cooking. BUT, we cook a ton, and i can see how if you very rarely cooked more than one item at a time, or more than one meal a day, then you probably wouldnt need more. if you have a small household like the two of you have, then this approach makes more sense, though it still didn't work for me when i lived with just one other person.

id probably agree with you on the whisks though. i use those mainly for eggs, but we have 3 of them. but then again, usually 1-2 of them are dirty. so my roomies must use them for other things but i dont know what off the top of my head. oh actually, we use them for pancake or waffle batter most weekends. THATs why we need a couple of them lol... one is usually in the egg bowl while one is in the batter bowl.

[nicolemarieh.livejournal.com]

even though i know its sooo much more expensive, i always buy bagged salad. i dont bother to rinse it (whether you should or not) so i dont need a salad spinner type thing. my ex and i used to use one a lot, but only because i would rinse the bagged salad mix id buy. then i got lazy and stopped doing that. and didnt die. so i just kept not doing it.

[entropic-system.livejournal.com]

Nicole is tiny, but wise. If you're just making spaghetti or something, it's very true, but if you're making a complex dish (or one of my cakes), I usually have 2-3 bowls going at once and mixing whisks can lead to weird baking results. But I do agree with the general premise that most people have too much crap in their kitchen.

I'm certainly guilty of that.

[nicolemarieh.livejournal.com]

last night i totally used the kitchenaid to slice a bunch of cheese for grilled cheese sandwiches :D :D i was halfway through before i realized i was using the kitchenaid for yet another thing, without even thinking about it ;)

[jccub1.livejournal.com]

You speak wisely - great tips indeed.
The coffee mugs rings true - my fella has dozens and dozens of one off/pairs of mugs or cups and saucers, some dating back 20yrs. At the moment they take up an entire top shelf in our pantry which could be used far more effectively.

I don't think I could bear to lose the salad spinner though...it's part of the family!