Archive for the ‘
Kitchen ’ Category
Every year, my cousins host a Valentine’s Day pizza party. They order in pizzas, set up a huge salad bar on their counter, and people bring wine and desserts to round out the celebration. Last year, I made heart shaped brownies and although they were good, I wanted to get a bit more creative.
For inspiration, I walked into a store near me and found all types of cool looking confections including pretzel rods decorated with yummy-looking sugary stuff. I thought to myself, “I could make those!” I even had a feeling I owned a recipe for it and lo and behold, I did.
I had a ton of tasks to get done the morning I was making them so I turned to a basic organizing principle to help me accomplish my goal: to create chocolate-dipped and decorated pretzel rods in a short amount of time with a minimal mess in the kitchen. This basic organizing principle I utilized, well known to those in the world of cooking is:
Mise en Place
You may be asking, ‘What does the phrase Mise en Place mean?” According to TheReluctantGourmet.com, the phrase is pronounced MEEZ ahn plahs and means ‘to have all of your ingredients and cooking tools prepared before you start cooking’. Literally translated, it means, ‘to put in place.’ I think it’s French for ‘Get your stuff organized before you cook!’
Mise en Place takes the stress out of cooking and makes it a more pleasurable task. There’s no searching for the garlic press when your oil is hot. There’s no such thing as , “Uh, oh–I’m missing an ingredient.” Mise en Place (or ‘meez’ as the professionals say) allows you to be focused and prepared for cooking.
Here are the steps I took to Mise en Place–create an organized environment for my pretzel rod project:
1. I read the recipe and made notes as to what ingredients I needed. I added them to my shopping list, purchased them and kept them together in one bag so I they would be in one place when I was ready to make the recipe.
2. I cleared my counter space and unpacked the pretzel rods, chocolate chips and sprinkles. I set up two bowls for melting the two flavors of chocolate chips, two spatulas (for stirring the chocolate chips and spreading them on the pretzels) and three paper plates for the three pretzel toppings.
3. Next to my counter space, I set up a baking tray covered in wax paper and placed a wire rack on top of it. This is where the pretzel rods would relax while the chocolate was setting.
4. I placed half a bag of each type of chocolate chip into a bowl and put a spatula in each bowl. I placed a half cup of sprinkles and mini chocolate chips into each paper plate.
Now, I was ready to begin!
And, voila! The finished product…
Here’s the recipe I used. Try it–and don’t forget the Mise en Place. It will make creating these decorated pretzel rods so easy, you’ll want to make them for every occasion. Green sprinkles for St. Patrick’s Day? Red, white, and blue for Fourth of July? My cousin also hosts Mother’s Day. If you have any sprinkle color ideas for that day, I’d love to hear them!
Recipe: Decorated Pretzel Rods
One bag of Rold Gold Pretzel Rods
Half a bag of Nestle Mini Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chip Morsels
Half a bag of Nestle White Chocolate Chip Morsels
Multi-colored sprinkles
Pink and white sprinkles (Tip: sprinkles purchased less expensively in the ice cream aisle rather than the baking aisle…)
Follow Mise en Place steps 2-4 from above.
1. Melt mini chocolate chips and white chocolate chips in separate microwave safe bowls. Microwave for 30 seconds and stir. Microwave another 30 seconds if necessary and stir until smooth.
2. Start with one flavor of chocolate. Dip pretzel rod in chocolate and spread with spatula. Let any excess chocolate drip off and hold pretzel over plate of sprinkles.
3. Using a spoon or your hands, drop sprinkles onto chocolate part of pretzel rod while turning the pretzel so all chocolate is covered.
4. Place on wire rack to cool and set.
5. Repeat with all toppings until chocolate is finished.
6. Repeat all steps with white chocolate.
7. Taste one to make sure they’re OK…
8. Pack carefully to take to someone’s home. Yum!
How will Mise en Place make your life easier?
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Take a look at your kitchen. Are the cabinets overflowing? Can you see your countertops? Can you find what you need when you need it? If not, you’re in luck. Our guest blogger and Feng Shui Consultant and Expert, Ann Bingley Gallops of Open Spaces Feng Shui is here today to offer us the steps to take to create a kitchen that nourishes us in more ways than one.
Did you know the kitchen is considered the heart of your home, symbolizing health, wealth and abundance from a Feng Shui perspective?
The food from this room not only sustains you, but also fosters prosperity in your life. Creating meals and cleaning up afterward are important to show how much you care for yourself and your loved ones.
Your kitchen must be an appetizing place, which is why keeping it clean and clutter-free is so important. Sending this message of wealth and abundance will make your life easier and happier, besides!
Here are my Top-Ten Feng Shui Tips for making your kitchen into the “healthy heart” of your home:
1. Clean everything inside & out. And I mean EVERYTHING: drawers and cabinets, appliances, walls and counters. Shelves should be lined with fresh liner paper, and the floor will need a good scrub. This requires you to take everything out of the cabinets, leading naturally to step 2.
2. Assess what you really use. What do you use, need and love in your kitchen? As you remove things from cabinets and drawers, ask yourself, “When did I last use this? What’s what the likelihood I’ll use it in the future?” If you must keep an item you seldom use, put it on a higher shelf or into deep storage.
3. Clear the counters. Small appliances can take over your counter space, preventing you from having adequate space to work comfortably. So remove everything, wipe down all surfaces and replace only the things you use on a daily basis.
4. Put like with like. While sorting through your cabinets, make life easier by putting similar things together. For example, separate sweet baking spices from savory ones, and store coffee filters near your coffee mugs.
5. Adjust shelves to maximize storage space. As you put things back into the cabinets, separate tall items from shorter ones and adjust your cabinets’ shelf-height appropriately.
6. Use “shelf helpers” for convenience and efficiency. Anything from tray racks to lazy susans can make your kitchen easier to navigate and, quite frankly, change your life. Don’t forget to measure your cabinets and drawers before heading to the store!
7. Get good Chi energy flowing by making sure everything works. Broken things must be fixed and doors should swing freely. If you have chipped bowls or glasses, replace them. Be sure to sharpen your knives.
This is a crucial step in Feng Shui — things that are well cared for signify your intention to take the very best care of yourself, too!
8. Recognize the importance of your stove. The stove symbolizes Wealth and Abundance in your life. In Feng Shui, the stove is the centerpiece for the “Heart of Your Home.” It must be treated with particular respect. Keep it clean and use all the burners regularly to draw more positive Chi into your life.
9. Use mirrors to create more wealth. Since the stove burners symbolize Wealth, you can symbolically multiply it by placing a mirror behind the stove. This mirror will also reflect activity behind you, so you can relax and focus on your cooking.
10. Balance the elements. Four of Feng Shui’s Five Elements already exist your kitchen: Fire, Water, Metal and Earth. If Wood is missing, simply bring in a small plant, bowl of fruit or a picture of these. With balanced elements, your space will feel great.
Ann Bingley Gallops is a Feng Shui expert and the owner of Open Spaces Feng Shui in New York City. She offers private Feng Shui consultations for homes, offices and business, helping clients achieve their personal and professional goals by balancing the elements in their spaces.
Her services include long-distance consultations, space-clearing and blessing ceremonies, and Feng Shui design with a modern, practical approach. Ann also works with interior designers, architects and home stagers to maximize the beauty and value of any space.
Ann practices Feng Shui with an MBA from Columbia University, a Practitioner’s Certificate from the Western School of Feng Shui, and Red Ribbon Professional membership in the International Feng Shui Guild.
October is Kitchen Organizing month at Organized Artistry’s Facebook Page. Every Friday I post a tip based on the monthly theme. My first tip was…
“Got deep cabinets? Make your kitchen items easier to see, access, and organize by installing pull-out drawers. No more surprises in the back of your cabinets! (This comes from personal experience–I love my wire pull-outs!)”
I really believe that up there with the label maker, pull-out drawers for cabinets are one of the greatest inventions designed for getting and staying organized.
Here’s how I came to love my pull-out drawers…
Our kitchen was built in the 1950’s. It’s about 10’x10′ and didn’t have much cabinets and countertop area. Hubby and I had a piece designed by Home Depot that doubled our counter and cabinet space–hooray! In configuring the cabinets to hold our kitchen items, I realized that the bottom shelves of these cabinet were going to be a challenge to access. I didn’t want to waste that valuable new space. But how was I going to make the most of it?
I decided to look in my local Home Depot and there they were–wire pull out drawers. I knew they would do the job–and they were the perfect size, too! I brought them home and installed them myself in a few hours with the help of a pencil and an electric screwdriver.
I use one pull-out drawer for frying pans…
And one for storage containers…
Why are pull out drawers so great?
• They increase your storage space
• No getting on your hands and knees to look for what you need
• Never lose items in the back of your cabinets again
Hubby and I have talked about redoing our kitchen one day. Mark my word–if that ever happens, there’s going to be a large amount of money in the budget for pull-out drawers!
I mentioned last week that I would be revealing October’s topic for my Facebook Tip-of-the-Week. Here it is: It’s all about the kitchen in the month of October!
Why the kitchen? Well, I thought it would be a good idea to offer kitchen organizing tips this month because the holidays are coming. And what do holidays revolve around? Food! And where do we prepare food? In the kitchen. And what room do many of our guests gravitate to when they come to visit? The kitchen.
My first Facebook Tip-of-the-Week for the month of October has to do with cabinets. Read about it and check back for a blog post on my own experiences with this week’s tip.
Have any kitchen organizing tips that have worked for you? I’d love to hear them!
Between raising a family and being a business owner, there’s a lot going on in my brain. If I need to remember something, I have to write it down or else it’s as good as gone. I’m a visual person so I like post-its and pads of paper for quickly jotting down ideas, to-do’s and lists.
With four people in our household, we go through a lot of food. When we run out of something, I add it to my shopping list (my main supermarket is ShopRite). But, I shop in four or five different markets depending where I’m driving past that day and what food item I’ve run out of. I needed a central place to keep track of all our food needs. That’s when I came up with the Master Shopping List.
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| My Master Shopping List |
I went to Michaels and purchaed a magnetic pad with lines and stuck it on the side of my fridge. I wrote in the names of stores I shop in often–ShopRite, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Fairway, and Costco and left room underneath to write what I’ve run out of. When I buy the item, I cross it off my list. Sometimes I’ll circle an item if I need to purchase it later or at another store.
Keeping this list close to the fridge or pantry makes jotting down items a quick and easy task. If you don’t like to or can’t hang items on your fridge, store your Master Shopping List near your refrigerator. Don’t like the note pad? Create something similar to this on your computer.
The master list is not just for food. Use it for drugstores, big box stores–wherever you shop often.
This master list has made my life much easier. If I notice we are running low on an item from a particular store, I grab my pen and write it under the appropriate store name. If I know I’ll be passing by a certain store after working with a client, I’ll jot down from the master list (onto a separate piece of paper) the things I need and cross items off them off the list when I return home.
I guarantee–creating a Master Shopping List for your family will work as well for you as it has worked for me. Give it a try. It’s all about making our lives easier and having what we need when we need it.
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