The kitchen

Winchester

In the kitchen with my cookies
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In the midst of a cooking session...I am not a neat cook and I usually have stuff everywhere. Drawers and cabinets open, so I can just walk around and get what I want. Dishwasher is open, so I can rinse and put utensils in for washing. It's probably a good thing I can't keep the fridge door open!


But from the mess, I made a bowl of macaroni salad, the sugar water and then the iced tea. I had some lemons leftover from last week's lemon meringue pie, so I made some fresh lemonade. A pan of peanut butter and chocolate brownies. 

And these.....OMgoodness, they are so good. Sourdough soft pretzels that I tried to shape like hearts. There was an option to brush them with melted butter, but I didn't because we're going to be pulling them apart and dipping them. I was going to try sourdough bagels, but my BIL's sourdough starter died, so I took some of my unfed starter and put it away for him. Well, then he called me this morning and decided he'd rather wait until next weekend for his starter and it was too late to try bagels because they're a 2-day thing, so I thought I'd try my luck with soft pretzels, using the unfed starter. 
And as of now, the kitchen is cleaned, counters are wiped down, and I'm working on laundry.
 

blueyedgirl5946

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Thanks for posting the picture. Now we all know what a #1 Chef's Kitchen looks like when they cook. :lol3:
 

LotsOfFur

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Love your kitchen! Wish I liked to cook :/

Those pretzels look wonderful! [emoji]128525[/emoji]
 

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I love your kitchen.  I am the same way when I cook.  My ex mother-in-law was the opposite, no drawers or cabinets left open and the only thing left out on the counter was what she was working on at the moment.  She  was one of the types who always had something negative to say so she had a lot to say when she saw me cooking.  The only thing I would stay caught up with was the dirty dishes and utensils, I can't stand to face a lot of dirty dishes when I can keep them caught up as I go along.
 

misterwhiskers

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That is a gorgeous kitchen!!! And soft pretzels.. With sourdough. They came out great!! Nice color!!!

I'm from the Philly area originally and oh boy, do I miss soft pretzels!!!
 
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Winchester

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Thanks! I love our kitchen; we just remodeled about 3-4 years ago and I'm pleased with the way it all turned out. It's very small, but it gets the job done. The only thing I really regret is not having enough room for an island. I would kill for a true baking island. As it is, I don't have a lot of room to roll out dough without moving a bunch of stuff around.

I have lazy Susans in the lower corners and I used to keep the baking Susan open, too. (The lazy Susan under the microwave holds all my baking things: baking chips, colored sugars, baking powder and soda, corn syrups, molasses, flavorings, rubs, etc. so I get in there often.) Until one day after I cleaned up, I went to give the cats lunch and couldn't find Mollipop, I knew she was in the house because I hadn't been outside all morning. Then I heard muffled meowing. I kept walking around the kitchen. Well, here somehow she had gotten inside the lazy Susan on the bottom shelf and I didn't know. So I shut the door and poor Miss Pop couldn't get back out (she has also gotten caught inside the bathroom closet because I didn't know she was inside investigating). I opened the door, Molli popped out and chirped, "Here I am! Where's my lunch?!" 


I am a messy cook. I try to clean up as I go and I try to keep things neat. But well, I do tend to keep all the doors and drawers open; that way I can just walk around and grab what I need. I do rinse and wash as I go, too, but I also toss stuff in the dishwasher. It's just easier that way.

Denise, my MIL was the opposite of yours. She had a minute kitchen and everything was open as she worked. And she made terrible messes....it was really hard to clean up after her because she didn't clean at all as she cooked. 

The pretzels were really good. The best part is that I could use the unfed starter that I'd normally be throwing away....I hate the thought of throwing perfectly good sourdough starter away, so I try to find things to make with it. Rick loved them, but he's a big sourdough lover as it is. I dearly love soft pretzels.  I'll be making them again, but I don't think I'll be trying to shape them like hearts.
 
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rubysmama

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I love your kitchen too.  Especially the wall colour.  I think it might work in my kitchen.  Do you happen to remember the brand / name?
 
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Winchester

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Thanks, rubysmama! The wall color is Light Sage and we got it at Lowes. I think it was either a Valspar color or it might have been an Olympic color. Hang on til I get home tonight and I'll look through our kitchen album. I think I still have the chip.
 

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Those pretzels look amazing. They do look like hearts. So cute. I want that fridge. 
 

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Nice kitchen
Are those glide out shelves in the cabinet to the left of the fridge? Were they custom made / installed? Do they work well? I have this weird cabinet in the kitchen that it bascially a hole where things get lost in. It's tall split into an upper and lower section with doors, narrow (a little more than a foot wide), and very deep (if I stick my arm in I can't reach the back)
In order to get anything out I have to take out like 30 things get what I need, and then put everything back
Big PITA.  Glide out shelves would be ideal but the cabinet doors are weird in that the door frame is half an inch smaller than the interior width of the cabinet itself. So I lose at least that much cabinet space.

The pretzles look yummy 
 
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Winchester

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Thanks!

LTS3, my husband works for a kitchen cabinet manufacturer, so we got our cabinets at an excellent price. That cabinet to the left of the fridge is one huge piece; the bottom four drawers do glide out and back and, they're the best things on earth. Before we had that, I had a dark closet with not nearly enough shelf space. And I had to do what you do.....every time I needed something, I had to pull out 30 things to get what I wanted and then put everything away again. It made me crazy. This is so much easier; all I do is pull a drawer out, get what I want and then push it back again (or not push it back, as the case may be). It's wonderful. The top of the cabinet is three shelves; I usually end up having to jump on a chair to get to the very top shelf, but it's OK as I keep things up there that I don't use that often.

When we did the kitchen, we kind of worked with a kitchen designer. The reason I say "kind of" is because I liked the overall concept in the kitchen. I liked the work triangle and I liked the way things were set up. But it was this dull, dingy, dark cave kind of place. So we talked to a designer and he put it all together for us, including spacers (because there were some spaces in between some of the cabinets to get them in fit properly in the space we had). I wouldn't have been able to do. But I wanted to keep the same overall concept.

That pantry cabinet works so well, in fact, that when we do our bathroom over, Rick wants to put one in the bathroom, too, for storage space. Right now, we have a double closet in the bathroom, but it doesn't have nearly the space that he thinks a pantry cabinet would have. There is an incredible amount of wasted space in closets! He is trying to figure out what cabinets will work in the bathroom as it's cheaper to buy them through his work than it is to use bathroom cabinetry. And they have some beautiful designs for their cabinets to use in bathrooms, using drawers and China cabinets with the pantry cabinet, so it will work. Right now we have one sink and the rest of that wall space is taken up by this huge double closet that is in the way more than anything. It takes up an incredible amount of space and our bathroom is small to start with. In the bathroom, the very bottom of that pantry cabinet will be a place for one of the cats' litter boxes. And a complete shelf overtop, so it should be OK. There will be a hole for the kids to hop in and out. 

Another of Rick's ideas was to put more drawers in the kitchen. One of my pet peeves was that every time I needed a pan or Dutch oven, I had to get down on the floor and root around in the cabinet for the pan I wanted and, 9 times out of 10, the pan I wanted was in the very back of the cabinet, so again, pull everything out to get what I needed. Those drawers at the end of the kitchen are for pots and pans. The top drawer is one of my silverware drawers and the bottom two drawers hold pans. All I need do is pull out the drawer, grab the pan I want and go. It's so much nicer. I'm 61 years old now, and it's getting more difficult to get up off the floor some days when my back is really acting up.

We probably should have put in drawers instead of the cabinet to the right of the fridge. The top drawer there holds my rolling pins, candy thermometer, dough bench, and measuring spoons. That cabinet has two shelves for storage containers and, once again, I find myself on the floor, rooting around, looking for the storage container that I want. (Usually with a cat or two, or now The Beast by my side or searching through the cabinet for.....whatever. I don't what it is about furkids who think that their mom on the floor is loads of fun! 
 )

ETA: I love my fridge. Gosh, but I love my fridge.
 
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MoochNNoodles

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The builder put lazy susans in the lower corner cabinets in our kitchen and the top corner one.  They are SO helpful!  I keep my pots and pans in the one closest to the stove.  Baking dishes, mixing bowls and things go in the one next to the island.  I keep spices and some baking things (like baking powder, cocoa powder) in the top one.  I think I have some tea in that one too; on the top level  I need to do some rearranging because I've got more tea in the next cabinet over where I also keep medicines and knives.  We put a magnetic lock on that cabinet; to keep the kids out.  I also have one section that is 3 drawers instead of a draw and a door.  I keep the kitchen linens and some things like my silicone pastry mat in the bottom.  The middle is utensils and cooking gadgets. The top has an extra large unit for silverware and things like that.  It's VERY functional!!

I like the idea of the pantry cabinet in a bathroom!  That could really make things easier!  I had a leak under my bathroom sink and I pulled out all kinds of stuff that got lost under the cabinet.  I have baskets; but even with them; things get "lost."  My kid's bathroom has a nice deep closet. DH wants to make a space for the litter box in there too.  Possibly accessed through a "cat door" in the wall to the hallway; but opening the closet for cleaning.  If/when you get that closet done; I'd LOVE to see pictures!!  

Those pretzels look AMAZING!!
 

rubysmama

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Thanks, rubysmama! The wall color is Light Sage and we got it at Lowes. I think it was either a Valspar color or it might have been an Olympic color. Hang on til I get home tonight and I'll look through our kitchen album. I think I still have the chip.
Thanks. That would be great, if it's not too much bother.  It's hard to tell on the computer, is the colour more green or blue?

And, in admiring the cabinets, appliances and wall colour, I forgot to mention that the pretzels do look delicious! 
 

handsome kitty

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I also have those corner cabinets in the corner and I can't reach the back.  I purchased turn tables at Best Buy.  They have 12 inch, 24 inch and I thought they had 36 inch diameter.  It works great.  I have my glasses there and it is so easy to spin it to look for an empty spot or to find the glass I want.  It works so well I put one of the 24 inch turn tables in my pantry.
 
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Winchester

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Thanks. That would be great, if it's not too much bother.  It's hard to tell on the computer, is the colour more green or blue?

And, in admiring the cabinets, appliances and wall colour, I forgot to mention that the pretzels do look delicious! 
Thank you....they were yummy!

It is a very light green. We really like it. We had it in our bedroom. When it came time to paint the kitchen, I wanted green, but couldn't decide on a green. Bought a bunch of samples home and painted squares on one of the walls: too light, too dark, too yellowish, too greenish, too whatever. And then one night I was lying in bed watchg tv and it hit me....I want the Light Sage from the bedroom in the kitchen. That's what we did. (And now our bedroom is painted in Storm Cloud by Sherwin Williams, which is a gorgeous grey.)
 

rubysmama

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Thank you....they were yummy!

It is a very light green. We really like it. We had it in our bedroom. When it came time to paint the kitchen, I wanted green, but couldn't decide on a green. Bought a bunch of samples home and painted squares on one of the walls: too light, too dark, too yellowish, too greenish, too whatever. And then one night I was lying in bed watchg tv and it hit me....I want the Light Sage from the bedroom in the kitchen. That's what we did. (And now our bedroom is painted in Storm Cloud by Sherwin Williams, which is a gorgeous grey.)
Hmmm...  I'm looking for more blue than green.  I have a blue in the kitchen now, but I *think* I want a slighter warmer blue.    
 
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Winchester

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This is definitely a green. It's called Light Sage and it is an Olympic paint (Lowes)
 

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I'll have to look into getting some glide out shelves installed
I need 7 of them for my weird tall narrow cabinet. The top part has 3 non adjustable shelves and the bottom part has 4 non adjustable shelves. I wonder how other residents use their cabinet. Most of us have the same generic builder's kitchen. Sometimes there's an ad in the newspaper for a local company that does custom glide out shelves and there's a coupon or two for BOGO or 10% off installation. I'll have to look for the next ad.
 

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Thanks! I love our kitchen; we just remodeled about 3-4 years ago and I'm pleased with the way it all turned out. It's very small, but it gets the job done. The only thing I really regret is not having enough room for an island. I would kill for a true baking island. As it is, I don't have a lot of room to roll out dough without moving a bunch of stuff around.

I have lazy Susans in the lower corners and I used to keep the baking Susan open, too. (The lazy Susan under the microwave holds all my baking things: baking chips, colored sugars, baking powder and soda, corn syrups, molasses, flavorings, rubs, etc. so I get in there often.) Until one day after I cleaned up, I went to give the cats lunch and couldn't find Mollipop, I knew she was in the house because I hadn't been outside all morning. Then I heard muffled meowing. I kept walking around the kitchen. Well, here somehow she had gotten inside the lazy Susan on the bottom shelf and I didn't know. So I shut the door and poor Miss Pop couldn't get back out (she has also gotten caught inside the bathroom closet because I didn't know she was inside investigating). I opened the door, Molli popped out and chirped, "Here I am! Where's my lunch?!" :D

I am a messy cook. I try to clean up as I go and I try to keep things neat. But well, I do tend to keep all the doors and drawers open; that way I can just walk around and grab what I need. I do rinse and wash as I go, too, but I also toss stuff in the dishwasher. It's just easier that way.

Denise, my MIL was the opposite of yours. She had a minute kitchen and everything was open as she worked. And she made terrible messes....it was really hard to clean up after her because she didn't clean at all as she cooked. 

The pretzels were really good. The best part is that I could use the unfed starter that I'd normally be throwing away....I hate the thought of throwing perfectly good sourdough starter away, so I try to find things to make with it. Rick loved them, but he's a big sourdough lover as it is. I dearly love soft pretzels.  I'll be making them again, but I don't think I'll be trying to shape them like hearts.
When and if I bake, I get everything ready that I need, Whisky likes flour, and then the ex clears up my mess!
 
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