Making a kitchen handbook - Part 1

For a while now I have kept a handwritten book of my favourite recipes in the kitchen. This has worked quite well, but there is more to the kitchen than just recipes. I wanted somewhere to record not just recipes but also shopping lists, cleaning schedules and more.
There are numerous blog posts online about home management binders and this is sort of the same thing, only I'm concentrating on just the kitchen for now.

The first step was to find a suitable place to keep everything. I decided to use an ordinary ring binder with plastic wallets. This keeps everything in one place and I can shuffle the contents about as needed (unlike my handwritten recipe book!).

For today, all I'm putting in there is information about the electrical equipment I use in my kitchen. I've put all of the instruction booklets in there and have also drawn up a cleaning schedule for the equipment.

The cleaning schedule is very straight forward, it is simply a table with a list of the equipment, how often it should be cleaned and how it should be cleaned.

You can download my cleaning schedule from Google Drive and edit it to suit your own purpose if you wish.

Ready for Christmas?

www.christmas-graphics-plus.com

With less than three weeks to go until the big day, many people are panicking about Christmas. I know a lot of people who really enjoy the festive season and love picking out presents for people, decorating their homes and really getting into the spirit of things.
Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people! Maybe it comes from working in retail over the Christmas period or maybe it's the fact that I'm not religious at all. But I really do not see the big deal about Christmas. People waste money they don't have on things they don't need. People work themselves up into a frenzy and panic about which mass-produced tacky gift to buy their aunt who they only see once a year.
Of course, a lot of people say that they don't want an extravagant Christmas, they just want to spend time with their loved ones and enjoy the holiday season. But how often does that actually happen in reality? This year I'm working everyday except Christmas day, and I know many people have to work on Christmas Day too.

My boyfriend has bought presents for all of his family, but I haven't bought any presents and won't be pressured into doing so. My family will understand my views when I explain that I don't wish to waste money on a gift for them that they'd probably never use anyway. I might give them a token gift such as some homemade cakes or a book that I know they want. But I refuse to buy gifts for someone just for the sake of it.

I also think that the amount of food that goes to waste is absolutely shocking! I work in a supermarket and I see people leaving with two trolley-loads of food. Of course, they might well have a huge family who they are having over for dinner. But do they really need all of that food? Nobody wants to be still eating Christmas food halfway through February so have a bit of common sense. If you are cooking for family, plan your menu and only buy what you need.

I didn't mean for this post to turn into a rant, so I will try to end on a positive note. This is the ideal time of year to do something charitable. Donate some of your unwanted gifts to a charity shop, give some food to the food bank or volunteer at a charity. Christmas can be a difficult time for many people and anything you can do to help would be a benefit.

Merry Christmas and enjoy those mince pies!