Never meant to be a show stopper, it has proven itself as the work horse it was meant to be. Recently I found myself in the midst of several tasks and thought I'd show you the process. Although I do tidy up the kitchen every evening and start clean every morning, during the day the space is usually chaos. All of the following pics were taken while standing on our staircase leading to the upstairs rooms.
Working from the left is our small refrigerator with semi dinky freezer on top. It needed defrosting, thus the open door and exposed towel to soak up the drips. To its right is our washing machine full of dirty clothes soon to be placed outside on the clothes line. Dirty clothes basket in bottom cubby to the right of that and bag of freezer items in Aldi's bag on floor.
Note the bag of flour on the counter, I was also making bread that day, and the beans in the sink drainer as well as freshly picked green beans in the sink itself are being washed. Later that afternoon the beans were all pressure canned.
The yellow box in another bottom cubby, contains all the regular tools we need for immediate house repairs, a hammer, nails, screws, a drill etc...Directly under the sink is garbage for burning. My blue "backsplash" is just painted on but the paint is high quality enamel and very easy to wash clean. Moving around the kitchen...
You'll see the stove on the far right. I had moved the green beans to the kitchen table for cutting, so I could wash the breakfast dishes before canning the beans. On the stove I'm heating water to fill the bean jars which will be placed on our homemade concrete counter top after I do the dishes and put them away. We run the gas stove with a small propane tank located just outside the kitchen. The tank is refilled approximately every 6 months when Keith hauls it to the local Big R store.
Everything I need is within reach in this kitchen, all my baking supplies for example are in the middle cubby just to the left of the stove. Looking at this picture, I am surprised there is not a visible path worn in the concrete yet, as most mornings all I do is go back and forth between frig, sink and stove.
I often use our oval shaped kitchen table as more counter space, right now you can see canning book resources on it, but even then I could easily use yet another 10 feet or more of counter. I make do some days by placing my large wooden cutting board on top my washing machine. It makes a great place for stacking up canning jars in wait to be filled. I can also stack pots and pans on top of our rocket mass stove, which also serves as a great cooling place for cookies, or hot bread since it is never used in the summer.
Moving to the far end of my food prep area...
you can see our rocket mass stove and more storage in the metal rack behind it. On the side of the gas stove I keep a barrel of honey and containers for composting materials which are emptied in our compost pile every day. Above the gas stove are the pots and pans I use everyday with my beloved cast iron pans on a small stand behind the honey barrel.
So there it is. An everyday homesteaders kitchen.
0 Yorumlar