Kitchen Tour: Part 1

I was so obsessed with reading everyone's Vegan MoFo posts last year that when I finished reading all the 2013 ones I moved onto 2012's Vegan MoFo posts and noticed a couple of bloggers had done Kitchen Tours. Now, I can be really nosey especially when it comes to people's houses so this was right up my street.

I had put off doing my own kitchen tour for so long, because I thought I would do one we finally got the kitchen decorated. However, I've now accepted that's not going to happen so here is my kitchen tour!

Starting from the doorway, here is the left hand side of the kitchen,

You can see no storage space in this kitchen is wasted- we even use the tops of the cupboards to store stuff we don't use often, in this picture, the box for the food processor and the sharp knives my Dad gave me that I'm too scared to use.

On the far left near the back door is where I keep my cake stand. I used to store my cake stand away when not in use, but then I saw and ingenious idea on Caroline's kitchen tour on her blog Tea and Sympatico and have used it as a fruit "bowl" ever since. This week we have lemon, lime, avocado (a weekly staple) and apples from our apple tree.

Moving round you come to the sink, which is directly under the kitchen window which looks out into the back garden.

Next is the area where I do most of my food preparation. On the far left is an old plant pot we use for food waste- Bolton council does provide small food bins, but I've not got round to ordering one yet. Also in this picture is our four slice toaster, food processor and a small spice rack which is attached to the wall- I try to keep my most used spices in this spice rack. Underneath the spice rack is some cupcake salt and pepper pots which are empty because they are so badly designed (but cute)- to fill them up you have to hold them upside down, take the bottom off and put in the salt/pepper. As the holes are at the top you can imagine what happens to whatever you're putting in!

The cooker has gas hobs and an electric oven. I'm torn between liking the hobs and hating them- they are a faff to light at times and are more expensive to run.  However I do find them more effective than electric hobs.  I keep some of my pans on top of the stove for ease of use and also to free up a bit of cupboard space. The huge stock pot type pan I acquired from my Dad and is getting rather worn. The red ones are from Ecocook.

On the left of the cooker are the cooking oils I use the most, as well as a bottle of rice wine vinegar and a bottle of balsamic vinegar I couldn't fit in the cupboards. The tin of utensils on the right at the back is a new addition to the kitchen- I love to collect tins and I acquired this tin at Christmas and it has pictures of the twelve days of Christmas on it. It's been sat on the windowsill for nearly nine months until this morning when I was cleaning the kitchen before taking these pictures, I suddenly had lightbulb moment and decided to use it to store my utensils.

Moving round to the right hand side of the kitchen.

Again, stored on top of the cupboards is a tagine and a deep fat fryer, which have never been used,  a cupcake carrier, and some strange wine glasses which don't have a stand a bottom. To put them down, you have to put them in the vase that comes with it.  They have been used once when The Boy passed his Medical Finals and we had champagne. On top of the fridge is my 'Shop Local' lunch bag from Unicorn Grocery in Chorlton and empty boxes for vegetable box schemes we don't buy anymore, I've still not got round to contacting them to ask them to take their stuff back.

On the right of the cooker, is a magnetic strip that is attached to the wall which I use to store some of our metal utensils. I think it's meant for knives but the thought of putting knives on there makes me uneasy.  Plus I only really use one knife.  We don't have a bread bin, so bread and tortillas get stored here along with ready made pizza bases (The Boy makes homemade pizza dough but he was working last time we had pizza)  The Elvis chopping board was a gift, I use it to put hot pans on so they don't damage the worktop.

Apart from the red Ecocook pans, these red tins are the only other effort I've made to create any kind of colour scheme. The little stand that holds some Costa coffee syrups in that I got for Christmas use to have mini jams in (another Christmas gift!).  Although I try to eat a balanced diet, I try to take multivitamins as a back-up, I'm really bad for remembering to take them so I've started to put them on the top of the coffee as I always have a coffee in the mornings so it acts as a reminder. So far it seems to work.  The Red Bush isn't mine, I can't even stand normal tea, however my best friend loves the stuff so I bought her a box for when she visits, because I'm awesome like that.

I'm going to miss out the little section where we keep the microwave, kettle and the slow cooker, mainly because I forgot to take a picture but also because it's pretty dull.  However, that is the area I choose to do any baking preparation, despite the lack of space.This is because my baking cupboard is on the right hand side of the kitchen.

The next section is our fridge- freezer, we've started to collect magnets from different places we've visited- so far we have ones from Paris (the black cat one), Liverpool (the one with veg in season in spring- WWII dig for victory campaign) New York (the 6 and S magnets- routes on the NYC subway), Turkey (never been, it was a gift), Glasgow (cow with bagpipes!), Florence (the purple one- think it's the symbol of Florence?), Switzerland (the little Swiss house), Mallorca, Santa Ponsa (in Mallorca) and Calpe (Spain).  I also have some Innocent fridge magnets with letters on, I've always wanted alphabet magnets but never found any. These magnets get arranged to spell out rude words when certain friends visit...

The postcards are mainly from Edinburgh (except the Calpe one) and were a gift from The Boy's twin brother when he visited Edinburgh. I took a picture of my favorite one below:

Around the other side of the fridge is where I store my aprons, which everyone buys me as gifts but I never use. I hang them up using a magnet I got from a shop in York. The magnet is of a cat, but the legs and tail are bendy and you bend them out to make them into hooks- which I think is awesome,

And finally, here is the back wall of the kitchen, near the doorway to complete the tour.

From this angle you can see the doorway to the rest of the house, the cat calendar and our shelf with random things on it, including a HUGE bottle that did hold Weston's Scrumpy cider and a gingerbread house kit, which is an unused Christmas gift.  We did have a second shelve below the top one, when I first moved and was unpacking I decided to store all my cookbooks on it. Suddenly I heard a massive crash and the shelve had come off. It was never put back up, and now the cookbooks are stored in the living room.

I did take some pictures of inside of my cupboards and of some of my favorite things in the kitchen, but this has turned into quite a long blog post.  However I do still want to share the rest of my photos because my kitchen is my favorite place so join me for Kitchen Tour Part 2 tomorrow.