Is Your Kitchen Ready to Cook?

Coming into the holiday season we are all spending at least a little more time in the kitchen. I’m spending a lot more time in the kitchen this week and I’ll bet you are too :-). I thought I’d take a few minutes today to check in with everyone with a reminder of the importance of keeping your kitchen ready to cook.

A clean kitchen is the heart of your home. It makes all the difference to how easy or hard it is to cook for your family. So developing good efficient routines to keep it clean is of the upmost importance! So let’s review the basics, shall we?

Declutter Your Kitchen

You’ll probably want to save this one till after the holidays though you could make a few inroads here despite the busyness of the season. The simplest thing to do to start with is clear your counters of all but the most commonly used items. You could stash the extra stuff in an adjacent room just until you figure out a more permanent spot for it. Clear counters make cooking so much easier! I could make some improvements here myself. Counter clutter seems to have a life of it’s own so it’s worthwhile to consider the usefulness of the items you find there pretty regularly. A couple of minutes here and there while waiting on something on the stove is all it takes. Make this one of your 15-minute tasks on The Granny Plan, even though it probably won’t take even that much time to do.

Clean As You Go

Make sure you are keeping up with the clean as you go step of The Granny Plan during this hectic season! If you’re doing a lot of cooking like I am this week it’s so easy to just let the kitchen go for a little bit. But every time you do you’ll need to spend that time plus a bit more because cleaning after the cooking is done takes longer than cleaning as you go. Things need to soak, you end up with sticky messes, the kitchen gets cluttered with things that are in some stage of the cleaning process, and before you know it the kitchen is too messy to cook without some serious effort!

So the next time you feel super tired and all you want to do is sit down, think of the extra work you’re creating for yourself and stick it out and finish up the cleanup.

Keep Your Pantry Stocked and Ready

During the holidays there are lots of panicked runs to buy forgotten items if my local grocery is any indication. You can avoid a lot of this by simply keeping a stocked pantry. Sure, there are things you’ll need for the holidays that you really don’t buy the rest of the year. This is pretty minimal though, and you’re less likely to overlook them if your pantry is already stocked with all the staples. Maybe a little late for Thanksgiving this year but keep in mind as you shop between now and Christmas.

How are Your Holiday Preparations Going?

Share with us in the comments below … We’d love to hear from you!