A number of kitchen hints and tips help when it comes to staying organized

To a very large group of us, going into the kitchen can be a somewhat intimidating task. We all want to be the next Emeril Lagasse or Julia Child, but then we take a step into that particular room and lose all our nerve.

One of the ways we can actually feel comfortable here is to follow a couple of very simple kitchen hints and tips that will keep us well organized and ready to go when we need to start cooking up a storm.

The fact of the matter is that the least fun part of cooking is hunting around for the right ingredients or utensils. If you’re not an experienced cook you can actually ruin a meal by spending time looking for something while you are already cooking. If you spend too much time you can overcook one portion or another and undercook another.

The first way to make sure you know where everything is, is to come up with a kitchen organization system you can not only remember, but that is simple and straight forward for those times when you might need some help. Time is lost when you are searching for something. That same time is lost when you have a helper who doesn’t know where anything is and is either going through every cabinet and drawer looking for it, or you have to take time out to walk them through it.

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A successful system can be as simple as making sure all your plates and bowls are in the same cabinet or the same shelving level. It just has to be something that makes sense for you, ultimately you don’t want to have to try and remember where you stored one thing or another. Finding something should be second nature.

One way to stay organized is to use the space you are allocated as well as possible. Not everyone is going to have a huge kitchen. Even people who have a large kitchen are going to run into storage space at one time, especially if they are people who enjoy cooking and using their kitchen.

If you don’t have a lot of shelf space, there are still plenty of ways to store quite a bit. Employing something like a tiered storage rack in your shelves means that not only do you have a little more room, but you can quickly and easily see what is on your shelves.

You can also find storage space where you didn’t think of having storage space before if you choose to go with something like an over the sink storage shelf. You can also find particular microwave ovens that will actually attach to the bottom of a cabinet, leaving you more room to store things under that microwave.  

Storage and finding things easily is just part of a set of kitchen hints and tips that will make you happier and more effective when you are planning a dinner party or just a family dinner. The biggest way to make your cooking that much easier is to make sure you have everything you will need to make the dish at hand.

Knowing where everything is located is great, but you should still have everything ready to go before you light the burner or preheat the oven. Have everything sitting out and, if possible already measured out. By doing this you will save yourself a ton of time by simply needing to poor the ingredients into the recipe. Knowing where you store the stuff means that your prep time will be reduced and that will help, but getting ready to start, before actually starting will make your cooking time less intimidating and less annoying.