Functionalizing Small THM Kitchens

Functionalizing Small THM Kitchens is just a chronicle of my attempts to make the little kitchen in my cabin more useful for healthy cooking.

If you have any useful hints or how-to’s that have helped you flourish in your small  THM kitchen be sure and leave them in the comments below, I’d love to read them.

My earliest and fondest childhood memories involve hanging out in kitchens with whoever I could find to allow it; while standing on stools and chairs and watching food prep happen. In my early teenage years I called a friend of my grandmother and asked for my first recipe, which she gladly shared!  

I have spent the remaining 40 plus years building a huge recipe collection which I am now in the process of converting to a healthier eating plan. 

My earliest and fondest childhood memories involve hanging out in kitchens with whoever I could find to allow it; while standing on stools and chairs and watching food prep happen. In my early teenage years I called a friend of my grandmother and asked for my first recipe, which she gladly shared!  

I have spent the remaining 40 plus years building a huge recipe collection which I am now in the process of converting to the diet plan that I have embraced for life; Trim Healthy Mama!

NOTHING in my cooking experience prepared me for the day, a few weeks into this eating plan when I realized that I dreaded walking into my kitchen!  

At that point, I decided that I had not really committed myself to this way of eating, because I had never committed the reorganization of my kitchen to suit it.  

I was still going into the pantry and digging around for coconut flour and sweetener to make a mug cake while the more conventional ingredients sat unused in canisters on my cabinets.  This had to change if I was to be successful on this diet long term!

A few years before this we had sold our 2100 square foot house on 25 acres of land and moved into an 800 square foot cabin on 1/2 acre of land.  At that point I packed up my large, beloved, walk-in pantry and resized the kitchen gadgets and such to fit into our new lifestyle.

Cooking on the scale that I prefer can be challenging under normal circumstances in a small kitchen, but added to that I suddenly found myself with a completely new way of thinking about food preparation and brand new ingredients to use.  All the while my loved ones begged me to make their old “favorites” again!

If you find yourself in a situation similar to this, or even if you are a beginner cook working in a small space, I hope the following pictures and tips will help you launch into your new cooking adventure in a small kitchen that functions at it’s best!

I hope you find my take on Functionalizing Small THM Kitchens useful and I invite you to leave a comment with any ideas that you might have on the subject too.  Notice I titled this “functionaliz-ING not functionaliz-ED”.  My kitchen set up is a process, not a finished product.

1.) As in any small kitchen, my cabinet space is precious.  

Just to the right of my stove I keep the oils, spices, and drink mix ingredients that I reach for on a daily and/or weekly basis.  I find that keeping these items close at hand is essential when cooking so often.

Make the morning coffee on the run, stir up a half gallon of GGMS or brew up the Shrinker right here with most of your ingredients super close at hand!

2.) Just above the stove and to the right of the drink station I keep some of my most useful jars and other glass containers.

The quart jars are handy for mixing up the GGMS and Shrinker drinks, but I also keep my “grab and go” 24 oz jars that fit in my car holders here. Although smaller canning jars can be used to store syrups and salad dressings I find that using the distinctive carafes, as shown, help me store and find them more easily in refrigerator shelves.

 

3.) Short on space and money, but with lots of ingredients to store? My daughter and I found ourselves in this position last Christmas so we bought each other these quick sealing, super stack-able containers and they have been such a blessing.

4) Shown here are some of my lesser used, but still very useful, baking ingredients that are normally kept under my cabinet in a corner with shelves that rotate for easy access.

If I did not have a cabinet like this I would store these items in my pantry or another cabinet in the dark and away from any heat sources as they (except for the chocolate) are more perishable than more conventional baking items (due to natural oils and a lack of preservatives)

If these items are not used often in your kitchen, please take special precautions. Also shown here are my sweetener grinder – a repurposed coffee grinder- and my invaluable Cuisinart Mini Processor. This processor NEVER leaves my little countertop!

5.) I do not use most of these flavorings, often but when I need them they are invaluable, so I keep them all together in a closed plastic container in the pantry for easy reach, but out of my way. I do keep my high-quality vanilla extract handy at all times, though.

Before THM I was never much for canned foods and I use them even less now. I find that my cute little red cabinet on the back porch is the best place for them.

I use canned salmon for dips and making salmon patties so having it on hand is very helpful. Many of the E fruits are highly perishable and hard to find out of season so I make sure and get the 100% fruit juice packed and drain them very well or rinse before serving with a protein source.

Canned tomatoes are super handy to have around as are these other E and FP veggies needed for adding to soups and stew or as sides.  

Do you have an unusual, or underused place to store these goodies in a non-kitchen area of your home?  I once knew a lady that stored her canned goods under the sink in her spare bathroom!  

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Check out my Recipe Page for a frequently updated list of all my THM Friendly Recipes!

If you need anything from the Trim Healthy Mama Store it would be a help to me if you could use my link and at no extra cost to you. Thanks for helping me keep producing and offering these free recipes. 

 

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