cures for the kitchen

A few weeks ago I signed up for a genius thing called the Kitchen Cure on the lovely site the Kitchn, which has provided me with so many good recipes and tidbits in the last couple of years. The cure is basically a challenge to purge, organize, clean, and spruce up your kitchen in four weeks. As my primary "workspace" these days, and the center of our home, my kitchen takes so much abuse. There are smoothie splatters on the blender and goldfish cracker smashes under the stove and all my equipment feels like it is covered in gooey film of kid-ness and cooking grease. Its not that I don't clean my kitchen. I do. I just don't normally go deep. I maintain and never force myself to face the toaster crumbs on the lazy susan or the goop by the waste basket or tossing out the package of rice flour from 2004.

These past fews weeks I've been following along with the cure assignments: cleaning out the fridge, freezer, and pantry of old and under used food, de-cluttering drawers and shelves and finding all those random kitchen tools and appliances that I never use or are not in good working order, and then deep cleaning everything including the appliances. It has felt so good! I think every room in my house probably needs a monthly cure every so often. Breaking big tasks (like undoing and then redoing your whole kitchen) down into weekly assignments is such a smart way to efficiently and effectively tackle them. I haven't felt overwhelmed even once and I easily complete each assignment because I have a whole week to finish. And frankly, being the pleaser that I am, I really like being "assigned" tasks because I love to relish in the glory of completing them. I'm a list maker at heart and take freakish amounts of satisfication in those little checks and x's.

The cure did make me appreciate two things that I have started doing in my kitchen this past year that allow for easy maintainence and order. Awhile back I started labeling all the left overs in my fridge. I have a thin roll of masking tape I keep in my utensil drawer and whenever I put leftovers in a container I write the contents on a strip of tape with a sharpie and stick it to the side or the lid. It is nice to open the fridge and know what's in it at a glance. Things don't get lost in the shuffle and mold anymore! And I've found that I now eat pretty much all of our left overs because if I read on a label that there is chicken tortilla soup, I am way more likely to eat it, especially when I'm starving and feeling the "we don't have anything to eat" dilemma which seems to strike me at lunch when I'm very vulnerable to the pull of the Oreos or chips.

The freezer inventory is the other trick I'm really keen on. I started it back when I was living on the $15/week budget and needed to know exactly what food I already had to work with. Basically all I do is keep an active log of what I put in the freezer (meat, berries, butter, dino nuggets, phyllo dough, ice cream etc.) and I cross things off when the items are gone and I add them back when I've repurchased. It may seem silly to inventory your freezer but between my small freezer capacity which forces everything to be crammed in disorderly piles, and places like Costco that encourage buying big portions of things at once, I find it is a pretty useful way to make sure you aren't wasting completely useable food. I also find the inventory to be an amazing meal planning tool. If I see I'm heavy on ground beef and pork then I know meatball time has come. After all, ingredients I have on hand can and should direct the meals I decide to make. Its budget conscious but its also waste conscious.

Part of this week's cure assignment is to beautify the kitchen space through a special project like fresh paint, hanging art, or keeping a vase of fresh flowers. I haven't decided on mine yet, but honestly just going into the kitchen and opening the ordered, clean drawer has made it feel more beautiful to me. Good stewardship clearly has a beauty all its own.