HGP 2016 Week 8, Kitchen Week

[HouseElf]

Week Eight sees us down and dirty in the heart of the home: the kitchen. It's Kitchen Week at the Holiday Grand Plan!

This week, we'll clear the decks for the holiday cooking to come with a kitchen clean-up and declutter. Routing out the year's dirt and disorder gives us a fresh, clean start for holiday cooking to come.

In holiday prep, it's Checkpoint Week and time to make plans for Halloween night.

Ready? Let's get organized with Kitchen Week in the Holiday Grand Plan!

HOLIDAY PREP

• Make one batch of Holiday Goodies.
• Make one extra meal for freezer again labeled HOLIDAY MEAL.
• Buy two canned food items from menus (get 2 of each item, one to use and one to donate to food drive).
• Buy 1/8th of TO BUY gifts. Save all receipts, note return policy before buying. Ask for gift boxes.
• Wrap and label packages. If needing to ship, get some shipping boxes now and store packages in them.
• Work at least 1 hour a day on homemade gifts.

Checkpoint Week! Evaluate Your Progress:

• If unable to find an item for a person on list contact them or their family for ideas.
• If a homemade gift is not going well, set it aside for after Christmas and decide on another gift.
• Buy pumpkin for Halloween.
• Review costume plans with children.

 

[HouseElf]

Wow! Week 8 already?! It's amazing how fast these days are passing. My kitchen sees a lot of use and traffic! We have three young adult sons living in our home, plus myself, my husband, a black lab and a tabby cat. It is not often this room has no one it!

Now that Thanksgiving has left us in a very happy pie place, it is time for me to purchase items for Halloween baking and cooking, plus candy for the trick or treaters! I have a few items already in the freezer for our haunting day (like werewolf ribs) but still need to pick up bat wings, and cans of sea spiders for dip.
Apples in all their glory have hit the farmers markets - so will pick up a couple bushels to dry for apple chips, make apple sauce and apple butters, carve/dry a few for shrunken 'heads' in the mulled cider (use cloves for eyes), and of course caramel apples!

Our food drive box is empty again, donated before Thanksgiving so now ready to load as we gear-up for the next set of food drives.

CHECKPOINT Week! My black garlic was a bust. Very sad face. looks like it was going great at the midpoint, but something went wrong and I ended up with a bunch or partially fermented but fully dried out garlic bulbs. Neither appetizing or useful. Switching over to vanilla! Bulbs are in stores now so will plan on picking up some to 'force' later. Two large pumpkins are sitting happily on our porch. Costumes, my oldest is the only one I think that needs some work on his costume. Will head to the thrift store and pick up a black dress jacket - he has a top hat that we have added a glitzy skull to and lots of big orange flowers; will add more flowers to the lapels of the dress coat (think Day of the Dead).

 

[HouseElf]

Kitchen spices was the task I set myself this afternoon. Expired spices are replaced and the few I need are added to the master grocery list.

 

[luludou]

Kitchen cabinets were finished last week the rest of the kitchen was deep-cleaned in the spring. Need to redo oven & fridge. Jennair was washed last week.
seems we won't need halloween costumes after all... think we have a family supper at the same time as the Halloween party.. need confirmation.
tomorrow I'll work on bathroom cabinets + cold supplies and need to make bacon-wrapped sausages

 

[AuntJamelle]

I am getting so behind!!! This weekend was a blur! Did some freezer cooking though - got 1 batch of Chunky Chocolate Gobs in freezer, one batch of PW Bacon Appetizers and one batch of Bacon Wrapped Pinwheels.

Never did get started on kitchen tasks yesterday as planned

We did take a trip to KMart though and I spent some time scouting the toy aisles. Found a really cool spaceship toy that I think I'll go back and get today (since DS won't be with me).

Also noted several other toys he showed interest in to add to his Wish list for family, etc. to choose from. I've been working on sprucing up his Amazon wish list for that purpose! Now I need to pester DH to update his and then do my own!

We have DS's Halloween costume but haven't tried it on yet - need to do that soon but I think it will be fine.

Kicking into high gear on camping prep! Little over a week until we'll be there! Will try to fit in Kitchen Tasks as possible during the evenings this week!

 

[Minta]

When we moved in last year I purged a lot of kitchen stuff and purged even more over this past year. I do have a couple drawers I do need to reorganize, I am thing some small tray inserts maybe needed for them. Over the summer I bought stand alone pantry cabinet that I use that to store my assorted typed of flour, sugars, corn meal, baking chips etc. All are stored in see through plastic containers with screw on lids and all are clearly labeled. I have a kitchen cabinet filled with assorted pastas and again these are stored in containers too.

I do have to go through my baking spice cabinet and make a list of spices I need to replace or need more of. I know I am running low on cinnamon, baking powder and chocolate chips.

I regularly clean out the fridge, toaster and microwave however the oven is another story. I really need to give the inside of the oven a good cleaning and soon.

 

[AuntJamelle]

Your pantry sounds awesome, Minta!

My ovens are ok, but the fridge has a date with me TONIGHT! I normally keep on top of that but it has gotten away from me! I keep the toaster and microwave under pretty good control. I did dust the vent hood over the range too - that looks much nicer now!

I'm going to focus my efforts on the things that REALLY need it. Certain drawers, certain tasks that I've been putting off for this week on the HGP. Some of it I'm just not going to get to and I need to make peace with that!

Follow up from my note before about going to KMart today - good thing I looked it up but the toys I was going to get were a LOT cheaper on Amazon Prime. One toy alone was half the price! So glad I checked! Ordered those puppies!

Note: We tend to get quite a few things for DS in the ramp up to Christmas because of the price deals - then we put half aside for his birthday at the beginning of February! It's nice to have the shopping done ahead!

 

[AuntJamelle]

Got the inside of the fridge all nice and clean - MUCH better!

Also got the ceiling fans in our room and DS room dusted/wiped clean, had that leftover from previous week lists.

Hoping to work on wiping down cabinet fronts and appliances tonight!

 

[AuntJamelle]

Have made some progress on the kitchen finally!

Cleaned off the top of fridge, dusted well and took items up there to trash or appropriate place as needed.
Dusted the pendant lights over the island
Cleaned the microwave inside and out
Cleaned the fronts of all cabinets, wiped down the hardware, etc.
Emptied and organized all the drawers including junk drawer - SO much better now!

Cabinets are in pretty good shape, but there is a little bit of straightening to do in one. We have so many that they aren't really overfilled and that makes it easy to keep them neat.

I have plenty left on my list but it feels nice to have made a dent!