in our kitchen: favorites

Whoever came up with the saying that the kitchen is the heart of the home really nailed it.  Eating, cooking, creating, nourishing, loving, experimenting, laughing..... all to be found in the kitchen.  Even better when all there at once!  Our kitchen is nothing fancy, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I do so love spending time in there.  Time planning and prepping, mixing and tasting, serving and sharing.  Of course there's always the cleaning up after, but that's not so bad.  After all, few things bring me the sense of satisfaction that an empty sink and clean countertops can.  Especially when they follow a great meal and are found alongside some tasty treats.  Perhaps ones still warm from the oven.  Slathered (um, I mean dabbed?) with butter.  And served with some hot tea (maybe chai?) by the fire, with snow gently falling outside and a full moon making the ground all sparkly white and some Billie Holiday or Madeleine Peyroux playing in the background and..... oh, I digress.

What I want to share today are some of my favorite things in the kitchen.  Since I could oh so easily get carried away piddling around in the kitchen looking for and at such items, I feel it would be good to give myself a limit.  Hmmm.  How about 6? Enough to cover a bit of this and that, with a likely wide variety (as I write this I've not yet embarked upon this journey into my kitchen), but not so many to be terribly and utterly boring.  Off I go..... I'm kinda excited.  Seriously.  It's okay if you want to laugh at me~ I don't mind.  I do it all the time.

(time lapse...) Alright~ 6 things.  That was pretty tough actually since there are several things in my kitchen that I feel are my favorites, but here they are, in no particular order:

I found this great stack of 6 wooden bowls at a yard sale for a buck, and they are perfect for Claire!  We use them all the time.

the pour spout we put in our olive oil....... a seemingly small but wonderful kitchen tool that really makes cooking easier and way less messy~

mason jars! any size, any shape..... great drinking glasses, water bottles, and of course, the perfect food storage solution~

hmmm.... I did say in no particular order, but this one probably should have come first.  Some women dream of little boxes filled with sparkly jewels under the tree come Christmas time, but not me.  Mike surprised me with my beautiful enamel dutch oven a few Christmases ago and he couldn't have picked a better gift.  I. love. it.  I think it's way, way better than some diamond studs or a silly tennis bracelet.  Actually, I'm not positive that I even know what a tennis bracelet is, but I'm still pretty sure this is better~

my favorite knife (thanks, Carly!) and a stack of some of my favorite old pyrex mixing bowls, some thrifted, some inherited.... I really like old bowls and while I have several, these are the ones I use the most.

And now for one honorable mention.... not really a kitchen item, but it comes in handy from time to time to be sure.  Thank you, Thai Kitchen, for helping me turn an $0.89 package of dried rice noodles and seasoning into a very tasty and surprisingly healthy dinner when there's just not time (or energy or patience of the little-person sort...) for Mama to make herself a more involved meal.