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Bare Essentials: A Simplified Kitchen

April 4, 2017

Deciding what to bring to your kitchen in your new tiny home may be tricky. You want to strike a balance of settings, utensils/cutlery, cookware, and appliances to live and entertain while not overcrowding the space. We have created this cheat sheet based our Wedge model to help guide you to that perfect simplified kitchen.

Let’s start with place settings. You would want to have place settings for 4 people. You might also want to consider an extra of each to use for snacks or as serving dishes. Thus, we would suggest having 5 plates, 5 smaller plates, 5 bowls, 4 small stackable glass cups (to use as cocktail/wine glasses) and 4 larger plastic stackable cups (to use as water/iced tea glasses), and 4 coffee mugs.

On to cutlery, utensils, and kitchen tools. For cutlery, we felt that the essential knives needed in a kitchen are a paring knife, a chef’s knife, a serrated knife (bread knife) and potentially, a cleaver/meat pounder. For consideration of space, we suggest skipping the cleaver and instead including 4 steak knives. We are ready for the outdoor season.

For utensils, we would have 5 large forks, 6 spoons (2 large, 4 small), and 5 butter knives. For kitchen tools, you will need a metal spatula, a wooden stirring spoon, a soup ladle, a cheese grater, a can opener, a metal whisk, a metal tong, a measuring spoon set, a 2-cup angled measuring cup, a baster, a meat thermometer (unless you are vegetarian), a wine key/ bottle opener, two thin cutting boards, a strainer and a mixing bowl set that can double as a Tupperware.

The cookware dilemma. For cookware, stackability will be a key player in how much you can afford to store. simplified kitchenOften times, there will be storage below your oven, and we suggest utilizing that for a flat cookie sheet, a roasting pan, a muffin pan, and a cake pan. You will need one large saute pan, one small fry pan, one stock pot, one medium size sauce pot, and one small sauce pot. Ideally, several of these pots would fit inside each other.

Lastly, the appliance world. Modern day inventions provide us with the opportunity to be selective about what bare essentials should go in our simplified kitchen. To keep things as condensed as possible, I would suggest a crock pot, a toaster oven, and a blender. What about coffee?! I would suggest a small french press or pour over coffee maker to save on space. If there is additional space, I would also consider adding a combination griddle/grill hotplate.

Living in a simplified kitchen does not mean sacrifice. It just means that you have to be selective about what appliances, utensils, place settings, and cookware are included in the space you have. A simplified kitchen means a much more organized kitchen.

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