[charla]

I don't have a minimalist kitchen but I do not want to have every single gadget, type of pan, or small appliance on the market. I think hard before I buy something if it's worth giving it space. I could stand to lose a large amount of kitchen stuff even still, mostly stuff I never use or use very little that's been given to me.

I like multi-use stuff. For instance, I would never buy a citrus reamer because I just use the tip of my chefs knife for that. We cook so much and have several pans going for most meals so my essentials are a large skillet, a small skillet, a dutch oven, two medium saucepans and one small, several sizes of sheet trays, several sizes of casseroles and I love my pizza pans (even though they are single use for the most part ). In a harder to get place in a cabinet, I have a really large stockpot that I use when I make meals for a large crowd. I have three crockpots and that might seem over the top but it's amazing how much I use them regularly all at the same time for church potlucks, large family dinners, etc. I've had a toaster oven for many, many years, but I realized I only used that toaster oven very rarely for a piece of toast or to toast nuts and so when it broke I didn't replace it and put the large crockpot there that I use almost weekly so I didn't have to lug it out of the cabinet each week. Toast or nuts on a sheet pan in the oven work just as well.

I think if you think through the things you use on a regular basis, those are the things you should keep. If there is something that you use every once in awhile but it would be hard to do without (like my great big stockpot) those could stay as well. You could also keep those things that would serve multi functionally and get rid of the single function item that you can use a multifunctional item to accomplish the same task. The items and the amount are going to look different for each household and our individual needs.

One of the things I'd like to work on is getting over being afraid of getting rid of stuff I haven't used in forever but I'm always afraid as soon as I get rid of it, I'll need it. I love the idea that another poster mentions about putting things in a box.

And we won't talk about my obsession with pretty dishes and how many of those I own. There may or may not be dishes in nearly every room of my home on display.