From Our Kitchen To Yours

From Your Kitchen To Yours

Organizing your kitchen

We like to cover all bases here at the magazine so this is for the new cooks and beginners out there, lots of the things I do now I learnt going up, my mother was a cook who kept a well-stocked kitchen so I was lucky in that respect. Before you do anything else but one of those magnetic pads for your shopping lists or a bull clip to pin a list to the wall. If you spend enough time in the kitchen you’ll think of things now and again you’re running low on, this way pop it on your list and the shopping list writes itself.

For cupboards, we use lower cupboards for dinnerware and equipment and upper cupboards for food storage. We love having everything sealed away, you can reuse glass jars for this you can use plastics but with issues around chemicals from plastics leaching into foods during storage. We prefer to avoid the risk. If you’re wondering what I am talking about check out this article from the guardian on PFA’s and Food https://bit.ly/3uPBxln. We tend to put things we use regularly in the cupboards closest to the cooker. Once things are away we do a food inventory, this also helps with meal planning and shopping lists. Because we make recipes for both Gluten-free and regular diets, we have separate cupboards to avoid cross-contamination. If you’re low on cupboard space try a storage box.

Upper Shelves - cooked Food, 

Middle Shelves - dairy, milk, cheese, yoghurt - some people put their eggs here to keep them at a constant temperature (I don’t believe in keeping eggs in the fridge unless a recipe calls for it). 

Bottom Shelf - raw meat, fish, (it’s the coolest part of your fridge) keep well wrapped to avoid dripping juices and/or blood. The glass/plastic shelf provides extra protection against drips spoiling other food too. 

In the drawer - fruit, vegetables, fresh herbs 

The door - This is the warmest part of your fridge, you should keep jams, preserves, condiments, and pickles here. 

The coolest part of your fridge should be under 5 Celsius and we recommend you do a deep clean, once every 3-6 months. Keeping your fridge under 5 Celsius will keep your food fresh for longer. 

While we’re on the subject, your microwave should be cleaned daily for good food hygiene. Let’s move on to your cupboards.

The Baking Essentials, your baking cupboard should stock the following essentials: flours, plain flour is a good all-rounder, but you can consider bread flour, self-raising, cornflour, wholemeal/wholewheat flour, non-gluten flours and cornmeal. Adding polenta to the list is good too as it is so versatile. Your need leaveners too, Bicarbonate of Soda (baking soda in the US), baking powder, yeast. The sugars we keep in are, caster sugar, icing sugar, granulated sugar, light brown sugar (unrefined) and Dark Brown sugar we also stock golden syrup, honey, and molasses. The salt we are sea salt and table salt. Dairy - eggs, butter, milk, and buttermilk Fats - Vegetable oil, olive oil, beef dripping, butter, suet, coconut oil. Extract - Vanilla and almond. Spices - cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger and nutmeg. You can add in items like chocolate, condensed milk, nuts rolled oats, and dried fruit. After you’ve been cooking a while you’ll get used to what you need regularly. I always add the following herbs/spices to this for cooking cardamom, cumin, coriander, paprika, chilli powder/crushed chillies, turmeric, garlic, and lemon juice. And that’s it happy cooking till next time xx

Author: Melissa Belinda Ann Compton was born in Liverpool and raised in the West Midlands. These days she makes her home in Swansea, West Wales, a coastal town in the UK. Melissa is a writer and editor who's blogged about everything from romantic fiction novels and business to food. Creator and editor of The Foodie Manual She also holds a BA Hons in English and Media, as well as a Diploma in Nutrition.

Cooking with the kids