Dishcloths and Kitchen Towels

Our kitchen towels and dishcloths in organized drawer.

As a continue with my New Year's Resolution here on day eight, I have cleaned out and organized the drawer in which we keep the kitchen towels and dishcloths.  There were a few pot holders that were in this drawer that I moved to the appropriate drawer.  Other than that not much to do except to tidy up a bit.

I decided to throw all the cloths and towels into the washer for a quick hot wash and then into the dryer.  I tend to use the ones that are near the top all the time, so I will try to rotate ones from the bottom of the stack each time I replace them. 

Ready for the wash.

I still use the hand crocheted dishcloths that my mother made.  During her last five or six years when she couldn't crochet more complicated items, she crocheted dishcloths.  My sister and I have enough to last our lifetime, and enough to give our children and grandchildren.  They are great to use, and they give me happy memories of Mama when I use them.

Dishcloths hand-crocheted by my Mama. 

I try to change the dishcloths for washing and the ones for drying as well as the hand towels every day.  I throw the used ones in a plastic bag and keep the bag in the freezer so they won't mildew and become "smelly".  I wash these once a week by themselves in hot water and dry them on the hot cycle in the dryer.   We have paper towels on hand, but we try to use cloth as much as possible for environmental reasons. 

Hand towel on door of oven. 

I usually keep one hand towel on the door of the oven, a hand towel and a dish towel for drying on the bar at the end of the kitchen counter.  The dishcloth for washing I keep hanging over the faucet. 

Hand towel and dish towel for drying.

Dishcloth for washing.

This drawer was easy to organize. 

Drawer Seven: Can you identify these utensils?

Our organized utensil drawer. 

This morning I tackled the kitchen utensil drawer where I keep our occasionally used utensils.  The frequently used ones I keep in containers on the counter near the stove.

The frequently used utensils I keep close at hand on the counter.

This drawer was rather cluttered to say the least.  I emptied everything out and put all through a good washing in hot soapy water and then drained them before I dried and sorted them.

Everything out of the drawer, washed and rinsed.

I had read that cork drawer liners are great for utensils because the utensils don't slide around as easily when you open the drawer.  They tend to more or less stay put.  So this drawer I lined with cork.

Roll of cork liner.

There were some things that I stored elsewhere.  The vintage pastry blender I put in the drawer with the pastry cloth and rolling pin.

The vintage pastry blender was moved to the drawer with the rolling pin and pastry cloth.

All the cookie cutters I stored with the other cookie cutters in the pantry.

Cookie cutters went to the pantry.

I'm going to give you a little quiz to see if you can identify the use for the following utensils that live in this drawer. (Answers at end of blog.)


Question 1.  Please identify this utensil.

???

Question 2.  Do you know what this is used for?

???

Question 3.  How about this one?

???

Question 4.  I really like this one.  Do you know what it is?

???

 Question 5.  I bet you don't know this one, but if you ever use one you will like it.

???

Question 6.  What are these little steel-wool looking things?  Not the teaspoon.

What are these?

With the cork liner keeping everything more or less in place, this drawer looks pretty organized now.

Kitchen utensil drawer lined with cork and organized.

I'm having a bit of fun with this year's New Year's Resolution. On to drawer eight.  Only four more days to go.  I think I can make it. 

Answers to above questions:  1.  zester for citrus fruits  2.  fish server  3.  Gadget to remove the hulls from strawberries  4.  Spaghetti tongs.  Great for serving spaghetti noodles.  5.  Garlic cloves peeler.  Just put the garlic clove in and roll around and it comes out smooth as can be and your hands are free of garlic odor.   6.  I hope you might know, because I have no idea, and please let me know if you recognize them.  They look like they might be some kind of filter for something.  Anyway I have saved them in case I discover their use later on.

Two in One Day

I had plenty of time today to work on the kitchen cabinet drawers that I am decluttering to keep my New Year's Resolution.  So I did two drawers, one for the 4th and one for the 5th.  I can have a day off on Monday. 

I'm working on the smaller drawers to the left of the oven. 

Drawer 4 ( the top small left) was a rather big mess, but it didn't take long to straighten it out.  This drawer is where we keep our napkin rings and butter pats.   There were things here that didn't belong. 

Drawer four cluttered. 

Napkins, pot holders, hot pads belong elsewhere.

Two napkins, two pot holders, and more hot pads were moved to where they belong.  I found that I had so many cork hot pads that I decided to put some in the box for the Thrift Shop.  

There was also some fabric that I plan to use to make dish towels.  This reminds me to get this done. 

Dish towel fabric.

Drawer four organized.

I organized the napkin rings in plastic bags.  The butter pats are in a small box, and the large oven mitts fit better here than in the drawer where I keep most of the pot holders.

What do candles and candy have in common at our house?  They share the same drawer  (Drawer five the middle left drawer) in our kitchen.

Candles, candy and chewing gum in the before photo. 

I determined we have too many candles, especially since we now use battery operated candles a lot.  I know real candles give a nicer ambiance, but battery ones are safer and last longer than real candles and you don't have to worry about wax getting on your surfaces. And the battery candles look so real now.  Consequently, I'm adding a bunch of  candles to the box that will be going to the Thrift Store.

Candles that will be donated to the Thrift Store.

With some of the candles out of the way, I have room to add our Bic lighters to this drawer.  It seems the logical place for them.

I've added the Bic lighters to the candles section of this drawer.

In the candy part of the drawer I noticed that we were out of Werther's and low on chewing gum.  So I've replenished them. From the time the grands were very small, they knew where the chewing gum drawer was.  Even now that they are almost grown (Zach is grown) they will occasionally ask "Grandpat, can I have a piece of chewing gum?"  They didn't often have chewing gum at their house, so it was a treat to get some at Grandpat's house. 

Dan and I like to have a bit of chocolate on hand as well as Ricola cough drops and Werther's hard candy. 

The candy, cough drops and chewing gum organized.

 I can take tomorrow off, because I am one day ahead with my New Year's Resolution. 

Day Two of my New Year's Resolution

Here it is January 2, 2015, and so far I have kept my New Year's Resolution.  Today I cleaned out kitchen drawer number two, the drawer to the right of our refrigerator.  I was able to discard a few things from this drawer and others I moved to a more appropriate drawer.

This is the before photo:

Kitchen drawer two before decluttering.

Here is everything from drawer two.

I don't even know what some of these things are nor where I got them. They look as if they were hand craved (even have the name of the maker on them).  I think they were utensils for opening or eating something we had at a restaurant but I can't remember what or where.  Guess I just decided to bring them home because they were pretty.  Anyway I have jettisoned them. 

Unknown utensils from some meal at a restaurant. 

The skewers belong in the drawer that I did yesterday so out they go to that drawer.

These skewers belong in the drawer I organized yesterday.  Over they go.

I tried this egg timer once with poor results and the egg timer made the water smell strongly of the plastic  from which it is made.  This will be thrown away.

Useless egg timer in my opinion.

The cookie cutters for making dog biscuits---some are shaped like bones---will go to the pantry with the rest of the cookie cutters.  One Christmas I made dog biscuits shaped like bones for all the dogs in the family.  They were a great success.  I had forgotten I had these.  See what you might find if you declutter!

Cookie cutters for dog biscuits.

The little cheese board with spreader made in New Zealand was a gift from Joe and Alice after their trip there.  And the little cheese holder (not part of their gift) is great for holding cheese as you cut it.  It is especially helpful for soft cheeses.

This stays in this drawer.  I always know where to find it when I need it.

I use the pastry cloth whenever I make pies.  I decided to move the rolling pin (the one my Mama had) to this drawer since I had room for it and this seemed the logical place.

Vintage rolling pin that I moved to this drawer.  It needs to be with the pastry cloth.

Perhaps my prize possession in this drawer is the Thermapen instant digital thermometer.  I always use it when cooking meat to determine the degree of doneness and it never lets me down. This is a rather expensive thermometer, but I think it is well worth the price.  We've had this one for over five years.

One of my favorite kitchen tools.  The Thermapen thermometer folds up and fits in a little leather case.

They  have produced a backlit Thermapen that would be great if you grill outdoors at night.  Check out this Youtube.

 Here is what drawer number two looks like reorganized.

Drawer two decluttered and organized.

I'm on schedule with reorganizing my kitchen drawers for the New Year.  Looking forward to day three. 

My New Year's Resolution

Our kitchen drawer that needs to be decluttered.

I haven't made New Year's Resolution in the past number of years because I never seem to keep them longer than maybe a month or so.  This year I'm make a Resolution for the first 11 days in the New Year.  In our kitchen we have eleven kitchen drawers that are in need of decluttering and reorganizing.  So I'm hoping this resolution will get the job done.  I resolve to clean/organize one kitchen cabinet drawer a day through January 11th.  And I will keep you posted from time to time.

Today I did the first drawer: the drawer to the left of the refrigerator.  As you can imagine I found things that simply needed to be discarded and others that belong somewhere else---not in this drawer.

Here are two before photos:

Before layer one.

Before layer two.

Here's everything that came out of the drawer.

Everything that came out of the drawer.

These are things that belong somewhere else, but not here.  Goody bags, can opener, Scotch tape, drinking straws, post ems, Ricola, mini whisk, owner's guides to various kitchen appliances. 

Things that belong somewhere else.

Here's the drawer organized.  Now doesn't that look nice?  The cake rounds and doilies belong here, but organized.  Party picks and skewers, shopping list tablets, hand held magnifier (if I need to read the ingredients on a product or read a recipe from the newspaper), and my kitchen scales.

The drawer organized.

Some things I definitely use a lot are in this drawer.

Salter digital kitchen scale.

Our digital glass kitchen scale by Salter.  It is so easy to use and so accurate.  If you need a reliable kitchen scale I recommend this one. I've found that for many recipes, baked goods for example, it is more accurate to weigh the ingredients than to measure them in measuring cups.

I like to have party picks and two sizes of bamboo skewers on hand.  I especially like the bamboo skewers for making meat or fruit kabobs.

Bamboo skewers.

One drawer down and ten to go, but I have ten more days.  Stay tuned.