Spring cleaning time is here! Throw open your windows, give your kitchen a deep clean, and get organized with OXO! Compensation was provided by OXO in the form of free products. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of OXO.
Spring cleaning around here means deep cleaning, organizing and purging. No place in our apartment needs this more than our kitchen. When we moved to our new apartment, we lost a lot of kitchen real estate. We went from having 8 cabinets to about 3 and a half. We used to have TONS of counter space; now we practically have none. Did I mention the lack of a dishwasher? Yeah, sometimes I wonder what we were thinking, too.
Our ceilings are tall, which allowed us to install two shelves over our portable kitchen island. We re-purposed a TV table into more kitchen storage. But still, our dish drainer took up the only counter space we had. Then I received OXO's foldaway dish rack. It has a plate rack that folds up to dry plates upright, or folds down flat to accommodate large bowls or cookware. The cup rack and utensil rack fold in to create a compact rectangle that slides easily into our under-sink cabinet, giving me lots of counter space when needed.
Obviously, without a dishwasher, having good sponges is essential. We usually have one soft kind and one kind with a scrubber side. OXO sent us a sponge holder that fits neatly on the side of our sink, as well as a heavy duty scrubber with storage tray that has been a lifesaver. The heavy duty scrubber makes quick work of cleaning up even the worst post-dinner messes. Just look at my Dutch oven after I made chicken thighs braised in milk, and then after it's been cleaned with the scrubber.
One of Dave's favorites is the expandable utensil organizer. We had been using a cheap wire mesh organizer that slid all over the drawer. It also had a limited number of slots, so other essential kitchen tools that we use quite often were just sitting on the bottom of the drawer. Kind of gross. This organizer has a large compartment at the top, and when you expand the organizer, it creates another compartment on the side. We can easily store our most-used cooking utensils right next to the stove. And since we can expand it to the width of our drawer, there's no sliding around.
We also received 4 magnetic all-purpose clips (we keep one clipped to our metal overhead cabinets, and store a kitchen towel there); a water bottle cleaning set; a silicone sink mat; and a counter-top compost bin. As we live in an apartment, we can't have a compost pile. I looked into donating compost in Philadelphia, but couldn't find anything. However, I have repurposed the compost bucket. I used to use plastic produce bags from the grocery store to hold garlic skins and ends of produce as I prepped dinner. These plastic bags would end up in the garbage can. I now place the unusable produce parts in the compost bucket, which I then empty into the garbage can, so we can recycle our produce bags at the grocery store.
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Disclosure: I was provided with samples of kitchen cleaning and organizing tools mentioned above from OXO. I was not compensated for writing this post and the opinions expressed are my own. Thank you, OXO!
