The Organized Kitchen: Keep Your Kitchen Clean, Organized, And Full Of Good Food and Save Time, Money, (And Your Sanity) Every Day!

by Brette Sember

An organized kitchen is the salvation every busy cook needs! You'll save yourself time, money, and stress—all while whipping up delicious, healthy meals your family and friends will love.

From aprons to zesters, this book provides an A-Z of simple shortcuts that will make all the difference, including:
Shelf and storage strategies
Five-minute kitchen feng shui
When to clean what—with what
The right tools for the right tasks
The truth about freezing food
Meal plans that really work
Ten foolproof, must-know recipes—with endless variations
The good-enough stocked pantry
Leftovers you'll really want to eat

With tips and tricks from master chefs (think Julia Child's pegboard) and real-life home chefs (think Grandma's ingenious pasta pots), this is the only kitchen/food/life organizer you need to streamline your kitchen—once and for all!

The Organized Kitchen: Because you can minimize cooking time and maximize good taste!

Genres: Nonfiction, Cookbooks, Reference, Cooking, Food, Self Help, How To

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2011

About the author

Brette Sember is the author of over 40 books about food, family, business, pregnancy, law, finance, travel, divorce, education, parenting and more. She is a former attorney and mom of two. She loves cooking, travel, reading, dogs, and kayaking. She loves to read chick lit (ahem, "women's fiction"), mysteries, and biographies. She blogs at http://PuttingItAllontheTable.com.

Reviews

[Dianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. The first part of this book was all over the place; it was too random for me. Read some reviews and decided to move on.

[{erika} · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would say 3 1/2. Definitely not bad for a free Kindle book. There was a lot of good information in here and I made a lot of highlights. There were topics covered that I had been wanting to know more about such as feng shui and we were presented with some of the basics. There were some good organizational ideas and tips that I liked.

However I felt that some parts of it were really only applicable if you were "older" with a) a house, b) children and preferably c) homemaking as your full-time job. This book was primarily geared at that audience and so those were less relevant to me. I also found much of the cleaning schedules to be unrealistic even for a woman who is a stay-at-home mom. Some of the weekly cleanings seemed so redundant and I find it hard to believe they are necessary and achievable with that frequency by anyone other than a 1960s Stepford housewife. That aside, it was worth a look see and I plan to refer to some sections in the future.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. A lot of her suggestions were extremely obvious (keep all spatulas together) and others a little too crazy (save butter wrappers in the fridge and use them later to grease pans to avoid buying "expensive" cooking spray. What?! Pretty sure a fridge full of empty butter wrappers would not make my kitchen more organized.) There were some useful tidbits scattered throughout, and as I read it I found myself using the organization tips in other parts of the house as well. Overall, it was worth the read.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was all over the place. The first portion had information about organizing the kitchen, but then it veered off into meat cooking temperatures, recipes, once-a-month cooking, FlyLady, and many other peripheral directions. I didn't get any new information, unfortunately; but it's a quick read that could possibly be helpful for a novice in the kitchen.

[Denise · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nothing new, terrible "tips" like "put small things in baskets" and "put the oldest foods before the newer foods." Also not a single picture or drawing for interest.

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really helpful. A few neat ideas buried in a lot of advice that was either goofy (hiring a professional Feng Shui consultant) or common sense (clean up clutter). I was hoping for inspiration!

[Fourkid · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about the book. I wavered between 2 or 3 stars, but ultimately decided to go postiive with the 3. It made more sense to me after I read that the author worked for Martha Stewart. I think Brette's forte is very detailed and precise advice making no assumptions as to what we already know (meant in a positive way). I was not captivated with the first half of the book (really basic information - but there are some that may need to know this if it was never taught to them as they were growing up; like if you are a princess.) But I determined that I would read it all. I liked the last half better. If you want a very thorough (exceptionally thorough) book on how to manage your kitchen and food, this is a really good book.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had some good overall tips and concepts and covered a range of issues and was very systematic. I don't know that I got anything super helpful - except perhaps justification on my way of loading the dishwasher - further proof that I am right for my partners and my battle on loading the dishwasher!

[E G Melby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing new here for me. I suspect that people who haven't kept house before or new to cooking will find this very easy to follow.

[Jacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few good tips

I found this book interesting. While it offered a few good suggestions (I have several lovely baskets now) it wasn’t the comprehensive guide I expected.

[Melissa Borsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book, lots of great organizing and decorating tips and a helpful meal planning and recipes section.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much there there

[Natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good thing this was free. Very little of this book was actually about organization and what was there was pretty basic. For instance 15-20% of the book is recipes for basic things like Meatloaf or Lasagna. Random decorating tips, cleaning schedules and feng shui was in included but surprisingly no pictures. Maybe I'm just used to really great organizing blogs, but I figured at least a few nice pictures of storage and organization ideas would be included.

[Monique · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a free kindle book with tons of information. I already knew a great deal of I information but there were many items that made me to hmmm. The recipes were simple and I have several I plan on cooking. The organizing tips make sense and I plan on incorporating as I design my new kitchen.

[Tulsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty common sense. The only caution is make sure to follow manufacturer instructions before following generic advice. One quick tip was to have hot soapy water ready and as cooking just put the pans and such in the water to facilitate clean-up. I know my cookware explicitly states to allow all pans to cool completely to prevent warping.

[Elizabeth Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are worthwhile tips here on organizing and streamlining one's kitchen, but there's also a lot of padding with nutrition information, lists of suggested condiments to keep on hand, cooking substitutions, and the like. I'd still recommend it, but with the caveat that a lot of it is skippable if one owns any basic cookbooks or has ever read an article in a cooking or women's magazine.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

My biggest issue is how unnecessarily vague the book was. For example, use the space behind the toe kick at the bottom of cabinets to store flat pans (paraphrased). No mention of how (make it a drawer instead? rip it off and hope for the best?).

There are some helpful tips, but they're really buried in there.

[Cheri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like organization books. They give me great ideas and hope of one day being organized like Martha. :) This one, however, I didn't finish. It was at the point at which kitchen organization required hiring a feng shui consultant that I realized that this was not the kind of organization I would ever have.

[Carrie Mason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't really impressed too much with this book. The ideas in this book weren't new or overly creative. I personally didn't gain anything from reading this. I gave it 3 stars because it could help someone brand new to putting together a kitchen.

[Suzanne Skero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth it!

Worth it!

I thought that I knew a lot of this already but I learned several new things from this book. It also inspired me to better organize my kitchen! Definitely worth your time!

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good. Not really useful for an apt. Need to find something better. But I will pull this book out when we are setting up our next place.

[Tamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat basic. Nothing more than common sense and information easily picked up from magazines or your mother

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very concisely written.

[Stephanie]

Kindle Fire

[Deyara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much really stood out, and I didnt make many notes, but it was still a worthwhile read.

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty elementary. Maybe good for someone
Who is out On their own for the first time.

[Jaime · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book made me want to buy a lot of kitchen stuff. While it did help to motivate me, it wasn't very helpful in de-cluttering or organizing.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome - and I so need help in this area.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a lot of meat to this. Vaguely helpful, I guess.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surprisingly unhelpful. But I've been using kitchens for a long time now. There may not be all that much left to learn.