All photos are by Aimée.

The following post is written by food columnist Aimée Wimbush-Bourque.

“In the childhood memories of every good cook, there’s a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot and a mom.”

-Barbara Costikyan

Ever wonder how your mother or grandmother functioned without all the modern day conveniences and kitchen gadgets that are now available?  You know what?  I’ll bet she did just fine.  In fact, she was probably just as efficient in the kitchen as the average home cook today.

Everywhere you turn, companies hawk every gadget imaginable, trying to convince us that this tool or this utensil will transform us into Martha Stewart on Christmas Day.  While I fully believe that having the right tool for the job can make cooking more enjoyable and productive, I also think that the typical kitchen is cluttered with useless gadgets.

Some of these gizmos, such as an apple peeler/corer actually take more time to assemble, use, disassemble,wash, dry and put away than if you were doing the job by hand with a paring knife!

I already had an idea for this article when Tsh announced her Back to Basics series, and in doing so, she confirmed that a roll call of useful kitchen items was, indeed, an important step in equipping our kitchens for back to basic meal planing and preparation.

It’s time to clear the clutter and trinkets that you seldom use, and invest in a few high-quality (but not necessarily high cost) items for daily use that will last you a lifetime.

My Top Ten Kitchen Items

Here is a peek into my kitchen and the items I rely on every day for my cooking and baking. There is nothing overly extravagant, like a Pacojet ice-cream maker (please, Santa), but these items are all as dear to me as a close friend, and make daily cooking a pleasure.

You’ll notice I’ve left out some obvious essentials on the list such as measuring spoons and cups, a can opener, a wooden spoon, and the like, because to me these are staples–like your kitchen table and chairs–and I think I can safely assume that every kitchen has them.  They haven’t evolved much over the years, probably because they continue to serve their purpose in the best possible way without getting over-complicated.

Also, I’ve assigned a ball-park value to each item to give you an idea of what you should expect to spend on these items. Remember prices may vary from country to country, and bargains certainly can be found on all items.  Don’t rule out second-hand shopping; good quality items such as All-Clad or Le Crueset cookware can have more than one life.

under $20 $
$20-$50 $$
$50-$100 $$$
$100-$150 $$$$

1.  A Good Knife – $$$

I can’t stress enough the importance of a good quality knife. A sharp knife will save you so much time and is the best investment you can make in your kitchen. I recommend starting with a 6-1/2″ chef’s knife and a small paring knife, as about 90% of all knife work can be completed with this pair.

2.  Melamine Mixing Bowls – $$

These nesting mixing bowls are durable, lightweight and heat resistant. I love color, and these bowls are a fun and cheery way to mix up anything! Rubber base rings grip the counter, making these my choice over stainless steel mixing bowls.

3.  Tongs – $

Perhaps one of the most useful kitchen tools ever, I refer to my tongs as my third hand because I reach for them so often during the day. If you think tongs are just for turning meat on the BBQ, then you need to play around with them a little more.

Try using them to loosen boiling spaghetti (eliminating those unfriendly octopi), toss a salad, turn cubes of browning stew meat or chicken, fish out deep-fried nuggets, and do virtually anything that is too hot or icky to do with your bare hands.

Tip: Don’t leave the tongs in the kitchen once dinner is ready! Bring them to the table and use them to dish up your meal in an efficient and tidy way.

4. Stainless Fry Pans – $$$

If the house was on fire, I would probably grab the kids and my All-Clad pans from the kitchen before leaving. Heavy enough to sear a steak or dissolve sugar, these versatile stovetop-to-oven fry pans just might actually make my food taste better. I’ve disturbed them nearly every day from where they sleep on my pot rack, yet then show almost no sign of wear and tear.

5.  Large Cutting Board – $$

Essential for any kitchen, an all-purpose cutting board can never be too big. My hefty wooden board has many different uses, ranging from basic everyday food prep to cheese board at a party.

Tip: Bigger is better! As long as you have storage space for it, your cutting board can’t be too big. Often I’ll have at least three different items in various stages of preparation in three corners of my large board.

6.  Silicone Spatula – $

The perfect balance between firm and flexible and available in every pretty color imaginable: it’s the spatula all grown up. Heat resistant to 800F, these spatulas were probably invented by someone who often absentmindedly set the spatula down on the hot stove next to the pot. Guilty!

The silicone head won’t scratch non-stick cookware, and is easily removed and tossed in the dishwasher for proper disinfecting.

7. Fine Mesh Sieves – $

Perfect for straining sauces, sifting flours or passing delicate purees, these durable sieves are irreplaceable in my kitchen and are always within my reach. I use them for countless other purposes such as rinsing rice and beans, washing berries, and straining pulp and seeds out of citrus.

It’s convenient to have this first-class tool in a few different sizes, but a standard five-inch size will accommodate most cooking uses.

Tip: Just washed your sieve, but now you need it to sift some dry ingredients? If the oven is on, pop it in for a minute or two and it will dry in a jiffy.

8.  Immersion Blender – $$$

Where would I be without this hand blender to puree soups, whip up batches of creamy salad dressing, emulsify sauces, blend together smoothies, and puree baby food? There is no question that this tool simplifies my life in the kitchen. Best feature: the removable head allows for a quick clean-up. After a knife, this just may be a kitchen’s second-most versatile tool.

Note: Most hand-blenders (or stick blenders, as they are also known) also come with several handy attachments, like a whisk and a chopper/mini food processor.

9.  Dutch Oven – $$$$

I *heart* my Red Le Creuset 7 ¼ quart Round French Oven. Pasta sauces, bold curries, meaty stews, delicate custards – you name it. This pot is never empty in my kitchen and never wears out. It functions as slow cooker, rice pudding pot, lazy paella pan, and just about every one-pot wonder you can imagine. A beloved wedding present, I know this high quality pot will outlast me in the kitchen.

10.  Baking Sheet – $

Yes we’re cookie fiends around here, but our baking sheets get much more action then just gingersnaps and shortbread. On any given day they could be occupied by stale bread, drying in the oven for breadcrumbs, catching vegetable peelings, or holding a mountain of shish kebabs headed for the BBQ.

Tip: Visit a restaurant supply store to find the really big cookie sheets (15″x 20″); otherwise don’t invest tons of money on expensive sheets. I find the older and more warped they are, the better cookies they make!

Bonus!

11.  Braun Aromatic Coffee Grinder – $$

A worthwhile investment for the serious home cook, my little coffee grinder works perfectly for grinding spices and hasn’t been used for coffee in some time. Without it, making those batches of homemade garam masala would be a lot more work. If you buy your spices whole and prefer to grind them yourself, this is a time saving tool for you.

Tip:Switching from a curry to cinnamon? Simply pulse some coarse salt through it to remove odours and wipe clean with a dry cloth.

Baker’s Dozen! One last item for the serious baker…

12.  Stand Mixer – $$$$$

If tongs are my third hand, this beauty is my third arm. This cherished wedding present does it all — from the softest pizza dough to the fluffiest butter cream, with countless batches of cookies in between.
Some of its features include:
325-watt mixer with 10 speeds;
5-quart stainless steel bowl
Tilt-back head for easy access to mixture
two-piece pouring shield with large chute for adding ingredients
Includes flat beater, dough hook, and wire whip

Depending on your style of cooking, upbringing, or ethnicity there might be a few items missing from this list that you can’t function without.

Take a slow cooker, for example; although I seldom use mine (I received as a gift), it has been called the working woman’s best friend, and has probably saved the day for many a busy woman balancing work and home.

How about a wok? For some, the wok could star in the preparation of several meals a week, yet for those who seldom cook Asian-inspired dishes, it may collect dust for a year.

Each household has their own beloved ‘top ten’ kitchen items, and today I am sharing mine with you. I hope you don’t come away from this post thinking, “Aimée says I need to have a spice grinder”, and then go purchase something that you’ll never use. Instead, let my list free you to embrace the ‘less is more’ motto, and stock your kitchen with a few key items that are invaluable for cooking.

Make sure that any additions to your tools are indeed saving time, and not overly gadgety. Remember, it’s about getting back to basics — I’m sure your grandmother would approve.

What do kitchen item do you reach for every day? What is your most prized tool? Feel free to share your ‘Top Ten.’

–
Aimée prepares simple home cooked meals on a daily basis for her family, and draws from her professional training as a chef/caterer to help her be a better home manager. Before her children arrived, Aimée worked as a personal chef and was happy to have her life revolve around food. After she fell in love with motherhood and determined to never return to work, she married her two passions by becoming a food/mommy blogger. She still does what she loves best, only now she has two little helpers to keep her on her toes. On days when there are too many cloth diapers to fold, Aimée usually copes by baking something sweet. Writing from Montréal, she journals her kitchen adventures at Under the High Chair.

CURRENT SPONSORS:

• Plan to Eat - meal planning made simple.
• The Justice Conference - Justice hangs by a thread.
• Lil' Soak - Sewing hope with handmade goods.
• Treed - A simple, flexible, effective project planning tool.

© 2008-2012 Simple Living Media, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Simple Mom subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please contact hello@simplemom.net to let us know. Thanks.

• Back to the Basics: 10 Recommended Kitchen Items for the Home Cook
• Sharpen Your Cooking Skills With a Handy Gadget
• Spring Cleaning: Day Four

Photo by Vicki Watkins

I originally first heard the idea of a family mission statement from my friend Cherie. She was kind enough to share her thoughts on how a mission statement best works for a family — I’ve listed my favorites below.

Tips For Creating an Effective Family Mission Statement

1. Just get started. The biggest hindrance to writing a mission statement is aiming for perfection. You are better off writing an imperfect rough draft and then improving it later. Also, don’t get caught up in trying to make your vision statement look like others — they come in many forms and change over time.

2. Invest time. You will need at least two hours or more; time to be creative and uninterrupted.

3. Write it out. There is power to putting a dream down on paper. When you commit something to writing, commitment to achievement naturally follows. From my experience each year, I set goals for each of my girls of how I would like to see them grow and mature spiritually, intellectuality, and emotionally. I might not always hit the bull’s eye, but I do come within the circle and am able to measure progress. I have something to go back and look at.

4. Stay on course. You have spent a lot of time, so place your statement in a place where your family will see it every day. Go over it often.

5. Reevaluate, and change if necessary. Things might change over time as you mature or your family grows.

Our family’s mission statement remains a bit pliable, and we’re open to tweaking it throughout the years. But our core values remain the same — live simply, grow, honor relationships, and celebrate These are embodied in our mission statement. This becomes your statement that keeps you going throughout the days, months, and years, so that’s why it’s the first task in going Back to the Basics.

Our Family’s Mission Statement

As a family, we want to glorify God in all we say, do, and are. We will…

• Put each other first.
• Cultivate deep relationships with one another.
• Extend love to those around us.
• Live simply.
• Be true to who God made us.
• Take care of our health.
• Be good stewards of creation.
• Be lifelong learners.

Within our basic mission statement, my husband and I have created some goals for the rest of this year that reflect our pursuit of this mission. I’ve shared just a few of them below.

Our Mission Statement, with a Few of our Goals

As a family, we want to glorify God in all we say, do, and are. We will…

• Put each other first.

• diligently do our chores without complaining
• help each other as we see a need
• take each other’s emotions seriously
• be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry

• Cultivate deep relationships with one another.

• eat almost every breakfast and dinner together
• go on regular dates as a couple
• spend one-on-one time regularly, each parent with each kid
• guard our outside commitments, and do our best to keep four nights per week unscheduled

• Extend love to those around us.

• keep our home tidy enough to welcome spontaneous guests
• have two families, couples, or individuals over for a meal per month
• regularly communicate with our friends scattered worldwide
• cultivate a heart of grace, so that we do not judge others

• Live simply.

• remain debt-free
• finish our emergency fund by fall ’09
• provide enough time for each of us to pursue one hobby
• make homemaking a priority, taking care to plan ahead for things (budgeting, meal planning, etc.)
• generally pursue excellence as we steward our time, talents, and treasures

• Be true to who God made us.

• regularly spend time with God through the Word and in prayer
• pray for each other often
• provide ample room for each other’s interests
• encourage excellence in godly pursuits

• Take care of our health.

• Eat food our bodies were designed to eat
• Eat most of our meals at home
• Move physically at least once a day
• Spend time together actively
• Vigorously protect the boundaries of bedtimes, for children and adults

• Be good stewards of creation.

• Spend time outside as a family at least once a week
• Do what we can to be good stewards of the environment
• Take a vacation, and make sure that much of it involves the outdoors
• Enjoy nature in everyday life with things like gardening and neighborhood walks

• Be lifelong learners.

• Regularly read quality books
• Learn new things together as a family
• Take care to enjoy only quality books, movies, and other forms of entertainment
• Understand the times in which we live, and keep abreast on what God is doing worldwide

Photo from sxc.hu

As Cherie said, there’s no wrong or right way to create your family’s mission statement. But you want it to be a useful tool, something that helps you make decisions. I feel free to say “no” to the things that aren’t part of our mission statement, even if it’s a good thing — because for our family, it’s just not the best thing, at least right now.

Alright, now it’s your turn. If you worked on your family mission statement this week, I’d love to see it — write it on your blog and link to it in the comments section here. Or, share your thoughts about what makes a good mission statement, and perhaps your family’s goals and priorities in life.

CURRENT SPONSORS:

• Plan to Eat - meal planning made simple.
• The Justice Conference - Justice hangs by a thread.
• Lil' Soak - Sewing hope with handmade goods.
• Treed - A simple, flexible, effective project planning tool.

© 2008-2012 Simple Living Media, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Simple Mom subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please contact hello@simplemom.net to let us know. Thanks.

• Back to the Basics: Share Your Family Mission Statement
• Upcoming Topics for Simple Mom
• Back to the Basics: Create a Family Mission Statement

This might seem like an odd topic to start our Back to the Basics series. Admittedly, I hadn’t thought of it. I ran through my ideas with my husband a few evenings ago — all the great topics you guys suggested, and asked him what further topics he could contribute.

Out of his mouth, without missing a beat, was, “The first post should be how to manage it all by finding your family’s priorities and ignoring everything else. No one can do it all, so it’s essential to start by finding out what you should do, and which things are okay to ignore.”

I’m married to a smart guy.

He’s absolutely right — so this week, the first step in heading Back to the Basics is to create your family’s mission statement. All the canning, ironing, and meal planning in the world will matter a hill of beans if they’re done out of obligation, or accomplished aimlessly out of not knowing what to do next.

I’m a big believer in following Elisabeth Elliot’s advice, “When you don’t know what to do next, just do the thing in front of you.” But it certainly helps if you have more of an idea of what’s the most important thing to do next.

In the 21st century, many of us respond to the tyranny of the urgent. One of the characteristics of a responsible adult is to recognize the difference between the important and the urgent, and then refuse to be tyrannized by the urgent; refuse to manage by crisis.

Easier said than done. Who hasn’t struggled to start dinner for the family (the “important”), but can’t seem to find the time it takes because of an exploding diaper, a sibling argument, spilled grape juice, and the ringing telephone (the “urgent”)?

But as home managers, we must know the difference. We cannot operate soley in response to the urgent for long — we’ll go mad.

This week’s task:

Create your family’s mission statement. Discover what you’re about.

Who this involves:

You and your spouse. The leaders of the family both need to collaborate and create this together. It’s a joint project.

How long will this take?

It varies. For some couples who have already thought through some of this, it’ll just take a few hours of reaffirming their ideas. For others, it may take a few evening dates over the span of several weeks, going through the questions, writing a draft, whittling it down, and finalizing the result. Overall, this will probably take around 2-6 hours.

The process:

Answer a series of questions, perhaps use some web tools, talk over your answers, pray, and write down your short-but-comprehensive mission statement. For fun, you can inscribe this statement somewhere permanent and display it in your home.

The goal:

A timeless, easy-to-read, holistic family mission statement that applies to everyone in the family. By the end of this week, you should have a decent draft of this statement. This will help you make decisions, feel confident about saying “no,” and be a bit better at focusing on the important instead of the urgent.

Let’s begin.

Photo by Kwanie

Questions

Plan an evening this week to sit down over tea as a couple, and answer a few questions. These questions are not comprehensive — feel free to elaborate on your own, to skip some that don’t seem to apply, and to focus on what’s important for your family. Mostly, these are meant to serve as a springboard to get your thoughts flowing.

1. What are a few strengths of each member of our family?

2. Collectively, we are at our best when we are…

3. Collectively, we are at our worst when we are…

4. If we had a completely free day together as a family, how would we spend it?

5. What are practical ways we can serve each other?

6. What are practical ways we can serve others outside our family?

7. Name three things you think you could do better as a family.

8. What would people say today about our family as a whole?

9. What would we like people to say about our family as a whole in 30 years?

10. If our home could be filled with one emotion, what would it be?

11. Name three adjectives we would like people to use to describe our home environment.

12. If we could name one principle from which we want our family to operate, what would it be?

13. What are the top four priorities we want our family to value?

14. What is the main purpose of our home?

15. What is the secondary purpose of our home?

16. What is the individual purpose in life of each member of our family?

17. What is one way we are unique as a family?

18. Describe the status of our family in 10 years…

• financially:
• intellectually:
• emotionally:
• relationally with each other:
• communally in our environment:
• physically:
• spiritually:

19. Where are you as a family in 10 years? What does your home look like?

20. What is the purpose of life?

Photo by Cia De Foto

Applying the answers

These are some heavy questions that could seem over-the-top about something as daily as grocery shopping or paying the bills. But here’s my point — unless there’s a motivating reason behind doing our day-to-day chores, we’ll lose heart, and we won’t care about our results.

When, as a family, we are convicted that our home is a tool by which we practice hospitality to others, it makes more sense to keep our home more “ready” to welcome friends. It’s a bit more motivating to keep it straightened.

If one of our main goals is to live simply and free from the burden of others, it makes sense that we live debt-free and not accumulate needless clutter. This greatly helps us make financial decisions — do we go in to debt to buy a plasma TV? Do we charge a luxury cruise vacation on our credit card, or do we save money and forego eating out for a few months, so that we can rent a lake house a few hours away and spend a quiet week together?

When we’ve made deliberate decisions about what we’re about as a family, certain choices become a no-brainer. Even fun. You’re at peace with the choices you make, because they align with your priorities, and they just make sense. You can sleep at night.

So here’s what to do with your answers:

1. Look at your responses and see if there’s a theme. If you repeatedly talk about making a difference in your community, perhaps God has given you that passion collectively with your spouse. Or if your priorities seem to point to being good stewards of the environment, maybe a priority for you is to leave the earth better than you found it.

2. See if you and your spouse differ on any answers. That could be a big deal, or it could be nothing. Either way, it should spark some discussion between you two.

3. Highlight a few of your repeated themes, and find a few descriptive words to encompass them. For example, if your answers repeatedly deal with being frugal, with not living among clutter, and having plenty of free time as a family, perhaps one of your descriptive words is simplicity.

4. Tweak some of your answers to be more timeless. For example, if your answer to the question about one principle from which your family operates (number 12) is “patience as we live through the baby and toddler years,” you could talk about whether patience is a theme that’s significant to both of you long-term. Perhaps one of your guiding principals is forbearace, which means patient endurance and self-control.

5. Start crafting a draft of your family mission statement by way of your answers to these questions. There’s no right or wrong way to write this, but I recommend keeping it short, timeless, and applicable. If it’s too vague, it won’t really help in your day-to-day decision making. If it’s too specific, it may needlessly paint you into a corner you never intended. And if it’s too long, it’ll be difficult to remember.

You could try a skeleton like this:

We, the [family name], believe that our purpose as a family is to [general mission statement]. We will accomplish this by:

• valuing [principal] and [principal] as our main guiding principals
• making our home a place of [adjective], [adjective], and [adjective]
• prioritizing [value or action] above lesser values
• interacting with each other in a spirit of [adjective]

Let me emphasize that everything here — the questions, the outline, and everything in between, are just ideas to get you started. Be creative and original! Let your statement reflect who you are as a family.

Most of all, let your statement be one that guides you as you make future decisions — let it serve you as a family. It’s a tool, not an altar where you worship.

As you create your mission statement, you can create sub-points that can be a bit more immediate. For example, if one of your main points is that you will “value simplicity as a family,” you can jot down some ideas of what this looks like for you in the next year. For example, this could mean:

• We will operate from one income, so that I (the wife) can stay home and have adequate time to manage our family effectively.

• We will only allow outside commitments three nights per week, so that we have enough time at home as a family.

• We will eat out once every other week, so that we have enough funds to take a small vacation each year.

As you think through the implications of your family mission statement for the next year, you’ll be able to see how certain home management tasks will be a priority, while others won’t be as important. It’ll wipe away some needless guilt about “doing it all” (which is not possible, by the way), and will free you from a burden you were never meant to carry.

It’ll also motivate you to hone certain home management skills, so that you can better serve your family.

And if you’re really excited about your results, you can print and frame your statement. I also know of a family whose children wrote their statement with permanent marker on an inexpensive plate. They display their plate on a shelf in their living room.

Photo by Gordana Adamovic-Mladenovic

Your Assignment:

Plan a time this week to sit down with your spouse and talk through some of your answers. Perhaps you can individually answer some ahead of time, so that you can compare answers and get right to the meat.

Steven Covey has an incredibly useful tool on his website, where you can create a family mission statement (and a personal one) online, for free. Maybe each of you can use this tool in your spare time, print your results, and then compare them over dessert and coffee one evening.

From your answers, create a mission statement draft. Just write something. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be a start.

Share your first draft on your blog, and write about your experience working through these questions and topics. Then link here on Friday, where I’ll also share our family’s results.

Alright, I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this. Do you see the value of starting with a family mission statement? What questions could you add to this repertoire that could help us develop our statements?

CURRENT SPONSORS:

• Plan to Eat - meal planning made simple.
• The Justice Conference - Justice hangs by a thread.
• Lil' Soak - Sewing hope with handmade goods.
• Treed - A simple, flexible, effective project planning tool.

© 2008-2012 Simple Living Media, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Simple Mom subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please contact hello@simplemom.net to let us know. Thanks.

• Back to the Basics: Create a Family Mission Statement
• Tackle Your Home With Purpose
• Back to the Basics: Share Your Family Mission Statement

Photo from sxc.hu

As a generation of mothers, there is a trend calling us back to our roots. There’s something in many of us that longs for a more traditional sort of homemaking — from scratch, and back to the basics.

Historically, the women’s liberation movement in the latter half of the 20th century threw the baby out with the bath water, and left a wide number of us wishing we had learned more of the traditional methods of home management.

If I had a nickel for every email I get from readers that sheepishly asks for tips on handling some of the most basic home management tasks, then… well, I’d have a lot of nickels. I think there’s a lot of us out there that would appreciate a 101-type course on home management.

Even if you’re a seasoned pro, I think it would be encouraging — even fun — to chat through some of the basic steps behind home management, and then share our favorite ideas that make these tasks work for us.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll share one post per week dedicated to the simple steps behind a home management responsibility — this series will be called Back to the Basics. Each week’s post will be featured on Monday, except for this week’s post, which will show up in your reader or email inbox tomorrow.

Topics planned for Back to the Basics are:

• laundry
• cleaning
• menu planning
• meal preparation (cooking in bulk, preparing scratch ingredients in advance, canning, and the like)
• scheduling your days, weeks, and months
• managing the routine family finances
• nurturing your children in their different ages

There honestly won’t be anything new covered in this series. All the best methods and tricks have already been found — sometimes, though, they’re hidden beneath a guise of the latest gizmo marketed to help you do your chores.

Let’s uncover these methods, one by one, and pool our collective wisdom to create a place for both the newlywed and the new grandmother find what works for them.

But now I need input from you. What topic would you like to see covered in this Back to the Basics series?

CURRENT SPONSORS:

• Plan to Eat - meal planning made simple.
• The Justice Conference - Justice hangs by a thread.
• Lil' Soak - Sewing hope with handmade goods.
• Treed - A simple, flexible, effective project planning tool.

© 2008-2012 Simple Living Media, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Simple Mom subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please contact hello@simplemom.net to let us know. Thanks.

• Back to the Basics
• Back to the Basics: Batch Cooking
• Home Management Notebooks are a great idea.