With the fall approaching, I’m already staging and stocking our kitchen with the appliances, cookbooks, pots, pans, utensils, decorations, and table/island settings.
So here are a FIVE tips to help set up your Kitchen for the new season:
1) Wash CrockPots, InstaPots, Dutch Ovens and Woks. If some of these appliances have been stored for a while, it is a good idea to give them a good deep cleaning and store them where they can be more easily accessed.
2) Make room in your freezer for freezer bag foods – soups, stews, sauces. So often in the cooler months, I tend to make enough soups, stews and sauces for a family of 10!! So, we always have so much left after a meal or two. So storing in good food grade quality freezer bags (food grade silicone bags) is a good idea … especially if you have one of those days when there’s just not much time to cook and you need a quick meal. OR you want to take a freezer meal to a friend.
3) Simplify your cabinets. This helps so much in ‘thinking through’ what you really need for the cooler months ahead. Is there summer dinnerware in the cabinets that can be stored away? Or maybe an abundance of tumblers? Take inventory of your inventory and simplify to just those items that will be used even more in the coming months.
4) Simplify your utensils. Now is a great time to throw out those serving utensils that are rusted, stained, broken or they simply do not serve their purpose very well. Also, find a good place in your kitchen for storing ladles and long-handled service pieces.
5) Decorate for warmth. Out with the summer and in with touches of fall! Before decorating for Christmas, let’s enjoy, really enjoy the season of Autumn. It’s actually one of my favorite seasons because of how it tends to slow everything (and everyone) down. So, let’s select warm colored bowls and dishes – even if they are neutral, consider a warm white or a creamy beige. Colored glassware like hunter green or smoky gray always makes a table feel warm and inviting in the fall. Table place settings and what you place on floating shelves or in glass front cabinets can all be touched with subtle specks of autumn joy, … thrift stores and antique shops have great finds this time of year, too! Just look around and be creative. Find how you can take your summer kitchen and transform it into a “Welcome Autumn Haven” for your family and guests.
Celebrating seasons is such a wonderful way to worship God! “He made the moon for the seasons; The sun knows the place of its setting.” Psalm 104:19
The LORD GOD made the earth (Genesis 2:4) and all that is in it and when we slow down and really recognize and celebrate the changing of the leaves, the cooler breezes, the fallen acorns, and the growing seasonal foliage … we can worship Him who created it all!
Have fun!
lisa
