Still frugal February but I’m taking a blogging break

Hello everyone

I didn’t make a to do list this week. This is not a normal week with several family things happening.

And there isn’t really an opportunity to make blog post when extra things are going on, so I will be back after this week

Yesterday, to get ready for company, I baked a double batch of pancake and a batch of chocolate chip muffins.

I glazed part of the pound cakes , with lemon glaze, and part with chocolate glaze.

The chocolate chip muffins were pretty much devoured by some grandchildren who were here for an overnight stay. They ate them for dessert at supper and then they ate them with their breakfast the next morning before school. 

I baked pound cakes because I’m not sure when the rest of our company will be here and for what meals. Pound cakes  keep so I thought that would be the best thing to plan for a dessert. 

However, as soon as I tasted one of them, I knew I had made a boo-boo. I doubled the recipe and I doubled  all of the ingredients correctly………, except for the sugar.

It was not the worst mistake I could make. The cakes are still quite edible, but they are not as light or as sweet, as if they had the correct amount of sugar.

Oh well! We had some of the poundcake today with a few sliced strawberries on top, and it was still delicious.

There are plenty of peaches in the freezer so I may thaw those out when company is here and we will just call it peach shortcake

Hope you all are having a good week with no kitchen boo-boos. 

I’ll be back as soon as I can

❤️ Rhonda 

Frugal February 10- kitchen reorganized, no money spent

Hello everyone

Well, it was a big job and took a lot longer than I expected

  But I really think my work will pay off with cooking being easier and less frustrating.  

You saw I took everything out of the lower cabinets and also ripped out the old shelf paper and put in fresh - I used some shelf liner  I bought on grocery pickup way back during the shutdown. 

Over view of our kitchen- everything is where it is supposed to be and clean - except the floors need a super-deep cleaning and that’s going to happen soon. 

But one thing at a time, right? 

One of the most frustrating areas is the cabinet storage just over and under the mixer.  It’s in a corner and very hard to get things in and out.  

I’ve had grandchildren fish things out multiple times.  

So,  I tried to not use that corner space as much as is reasonable.  

I previously had cookware in the lower cabinet under the toaster.  

I decided to make it the extra stuff cabinet- stuff we use but not very often.

You’ll see I added a content list to most of the doors.  

The narrow cabinets on each side of the stove seem the most sensible place  to store cookware.

On the left is where that hidden space is. On the top shelf are our saucepans and to the left is nothing but the griddle that came with our stove top that we never use but I figured if somebody else lives in this house, they may want that built-in griddle. On the bottom is my medium-size Dutch oven And to the left of it are some ice trays and some extra drinking  cups 

In the narrow cabinet to the right of the stove are all our  skillets -  Nonstick skillets in the top basket and cast iron skillets in the bottom.

On the other side of the kitchen are two sets of double cabinets on top and bottom. 

This one has four pull out containers. One contains small Tupperware, one contains large Tupperware, on the bottom is a container of jars, 

and the red basket has a hand grader, a salad, shooter, and a vegetable chopper.

 

This cabinet has two crockpots and a rice cooker on the top shelf. On the bottom shelf is a basket of cupcake liners, egg coloring cups, little silicone cups, etc. 

Beside it are other large food containers.

  

Dishes in the left hand cabinet- on the top shelf are an assortment of disposables, because when we have big family meals, we use throwaways. 

This cabinet has travel bottles, straws, cups and glasses,  

a few cutting boards on the top shelf.  

One move that really cut out frustration was moving these big flat  things like pizza pans, cookie sheets, the biggest cutting board, muffin pans- to the pantry. 

They stand up like a library books, and they only take up a few inches in the pantry. But it is so easy to get one out and put the clean ones back.

Previously, they were in baskets in two cabinets and it seems like it was always hard to find the one I wanted and then to put the clean ones away.  

I did do some downsizing. My daughter wanted some things. 

There were some kitchen things that were things I’m not using, but I didn’t really want to get rid of like some nice pans and some extra silverware. I decided to store them on the guest bedroom shelf in case we hear of someone that needs these things.

And crazy as it sounds, we will have grandchildren going to college in a few years, 😱 and when they get apartments, they will need their own pots and pans and silverware.

And I have another container of things that I will put on the local Facebook Buy nothing list.

It’s Friday!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend

❤️ Rhonda