Smart Kitchen Organizing for the Holidays

​Smart Kitchen Organizing for the Holidays 
With Thanksgiving coming up, keeping your kitchen organized is a must! On top of looking nicer, an organized kitchen makes everything easier to find when you get down to cooking. Here are a few tips that can help you reorganize your kitchen for Thanksgiving Day and all the upcoming holidays.
 
Tip 1: Know Your Essential Cooking Items
 
My first tip is to know what needs to be in your kitchen to cook a delicious meal! With all of the interesting gadgets available for your kitchen, it’s important to understand that sometimes less is more. Downsizing can make your life easier because no one wants to be sifting through a pile of junk to get to the knife you use all the time anyway.
 
I like to follow Jamie Oliver’s (from The Naked Chef) recommendations in his book Cook with Jaimie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook (p. 14). One of the basic essentials Oliver recommends is nesting mixing bowls in various sizes. I use them all the time.
 
Here are additional sources for more ideas:

• https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/essential-kitchen-tools/
• https://www.bonappetit.com/story/10-essential-kitchen-tools-beginner-cooks

 
Tip 2: Group Similar Items
 
My next tip is to group kitchen tools by their uses and to place them near each other. These groupings can be sorted in any way that makes sense to you, but some examples of what I like to do is to group all of my knives together or to group my wooden spoons together. If you’re looking for more ideas, check out these websites for more:
 

• https://www.theorderexpert.com/organize-kitchen-utensils/#:~:text=As%20a%20very%20basic%20example,mainly%20on%20stove%20top%20burners.
• https://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/organizing/organizing-kitchen/smart-ideas-kitchen

 
Tip 3: Keep the Items in Easy-to-Use Areas
 
My final tip is to keep those grouped items in easy-to-use spots. Doing this will eliminate the time of searching for what you need when you need it! When I was organizing my daughter Jessica’s kitchen in June, a couple of ideas I used were to put all of the coffee mugs and supplies near the coffee maker (there’s nothing worse than looking for a coffee filter before your first cup!) and organized all of her pots and pans in the lower cabinets near her stove.
 
Items you don’t use often can be stored up high. You probably have some holiday dishes and platters to get down from up high or maybe they are stored in a basement closet. Go ahead and donate holiday dishes that you are not fond of anymore. Don’t save them for another year or more.
 
That’s it for my November Tip! Hopefully you find them useful and until next time. An Organized kitchen is a smart kitchen.
 
Adele Gross
Simple Solutions Organizing LLC
[email protected]
706-714-1314