kitchen utensils | organised castle

Those of you who know me well or have been following this blog for an extended period of time will be aware that shopping is not a great love of mine. For the most part, I have pretty well everything I need. However, my plastic spatula which I have owned for at least 20 years met an untimely end courtesy of the blades of the blender. I realised that I definitely needed one so checked online and found that Big W had Pyrex brand large and small silicone spatulas on special so when we were out and about on Tuesday I attempted to get one of each size. The small ones were sold out so I will look again another day as GMan is keen for a small one to use when making sourdough.

In the meantime, here is the new addition to my collection of kitchen utensils.

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Coincidentally, I had planned to clean out the utensil jars and drawer. Each time I do this there is usually something which I decide is no longer required but I have culled my collection of utensils to a point that everything is worthy of its place in the kitchen.

Like all decluttering/streamlining projects, there is no ‘one size fits all’ as we all have different needs in the kitchen.

I have 2 utensil jars. These hold the majority of frequently used utensils.

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Here they are laid out on the bench.

The hand beater lives in the side of the regular cutlery drawer.

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The contents of the utensil drawer. These are generally too small or too sharp to stand in a utensil jar. Some, such as the vegetable peeler and measuring spoons are used every day while most would be used at least once a month and a few less frequently.

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I have an expanding bamboo divider which helps to keep them in some sort of order. Once I had wiped the drawer and the divider, I replaced all of the items.

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There is one item missing from these photos. The pie slice which GMan is revarnishing the wooden handle.

I have not shown the sharp knives which I keep separately in a knife block.

I have multiples of a few things – measuring spoons, tongs, wooden spoons and pastry brushes but these are all used.

What are your essential kitchen utensils? Have you reviewed or reduced what you have recently?

Apart from consumables such as food and to a lesser degree clothing, I do not have a need to buy a great deal of stuff. Household items sometimes need to be replaced and I think this purchase falls into that category.

I bought a set of two china mixing bowls from Aldi for the princely sum of $10. It bothers me a bit because how something can be produced, transported across the globe and sold at a profit defies logic. Someone is losing out and I suspect it is the worker. This is a good reason to minimise your purchases, particularly of cheap, imported products.

They are to replace these two bowls which have seen better days.

The white bowl is a Tupperware one which came to me from my grandmother about 37 years ago. The surface is crazed and discoloured. The yellow bowl (36 years old) is more of a salad bowl and not ideal for mixing and it has a crack in the surface which makes it impossible to clean properly. It is time for them both to go and make way for my shiny new bowls. I hope they stand the test of time as the others did.