One thing that drives me crazy is a disorganized fridge or pantry. With ten or more people living in our household, everybody has a different approach to putting things away and different ideas where things belong.
As a card-carrying OCD Kitchenaire, I believe that everything has a place, and every place has a thing. I’m getting a bit better about not melting down when I can’t find things, but it still does happen…much more frequently than I would like to admit!
We’ve also been trying to eat healthier, and that has led us to offering salads at many more of our dinners. We have all sorts of differing appetites for condiments, meaning that we have all sorts of salad additions that are hauled out to the table. The first challenge is that the condiments have a tendency to be scattered throughout the pantry and fridge. This makes the setting of the table more difficult than it had to be. Furthermore, when we cleared the table, the condiments were often returned to different places, making the next usage that much more difficult.
Honestly, I don’t remember who had the idea, but one of the kids recommended that we put the dry pantry condiments into a basket and bring that out to the table each time we had salad. We put the croutons, craisins, walnuts, raisins, dry tortilla strips, and other condiments into a basket and started bringing it out with each meal when a salad was present. It took a few seconds to locate the basket, and even less time to put it away. Frankly, it resolved some of the battles about putting things away when clearing the table.
We are now in the process of implementing the same idea for the refrigerated condiments. We’re going to stow the salad dressings, bacon bits, shredded cheese, feta cheese, and banana pepper rings in a basket in our fridge. I’m currently looking for a basket that will hold everything, fit on our refrigerator shelves, and has sides large enough that the dressings don’t fall out when we carry the basket.
So there you go, it’s not much of a kitchen trick, but it’s something that really made a difference in our dinnertime routine. The implementation of this trick has made salads a lot more pleasant to have at our dinners…and if something is easy and pleasant to have, we’ll have it more and more often.
Make it a great meal!