Ready or not, Labor Day is here! This weekend officially marks the end of summer! Are you ready to say goodbye to summer? Regardless of where you live, backyard BBQ’s, beach days, picnics + pool parties are being set aside for back-to-school + pumpkin spice season. I use this time of year as a reset for my kitchen. A little prep goes a long way to make a healthy lifestyle easy to live. I am super excited to share with you what I do + how you can start prepping your kitchen for then end of summer + back-to-school season!
Tara’s Tuesday Tips:
Prepping Your Kitchen for Back-to-School + End of Summer
There’s always the obvious back-to-school preparations like shopping for the perfect backpack, pencil, and maybe even a fancy new pair of shoes. But there is something else that deserves attention this time of year … your kitchen! Want to make the transition out of lazy summer living easier in your kitchen? I’ve got 5 super easy tips for prepping your kitchen for back-to-school + end of summer! I know you are sad to see summer go + so am I, but a little prep time makes the transition a lot easier! Lets do it!
1. Identify the Clutter Area
We all have it. I call it the dumping station. Somehow, random stuff gathers and lingers in one area of the kitchen. Everyone drops their stuff there! It’s typically a corner or a shelf or a drawer.
Tara’s Top Tip: Take the pile + spread it out on the biggest table you have in the house. Divide it into smaller piles of who it belongs to. Place 2 boxes or bags on the table: one labeled “trash” + one labeled “donate”. Also leave another cute little basket or bin for each family member. This is a new, contained area for individualized dumping stations. AKA … everyone keep your junk in your basket. Going forward you can do what we do: on Sundays, we all empty our baskets as part of the routine of getting ready for the upcoming week. Try it!
2. The Pantry Restock
If you are anything like me, you have a few “summer” food items that you bought dreaming of some fancy summer side dish you were going to make but never got around to it. You might find some old holiday sprinkles, pumpkin spice from last year, and other nameless pantry treasures. You know what else you might find? A giant disorganized mess.
Tara’s Top Tip: Just like the dumping station, take EVERYTHING out of the pantry. Yes, I said everything. Again, one box for trash, one box for donate. Then, organize the foods the way you will use them. Mimic the flow of your day/routine. Perhaps divide shelves into breakfast, lunch, and dinner areas. I like to use lots of clear jars so it takes the mystery out of when something is running low (making shopping easier). Invest in a few cute baskets + make the label maker your BFF. That way, everyone knows where they can find things and more importantly, where they can put them back. Next, restock your pantry with those back-to-school essentials making packing lunches a breeze + busy weeknight dinners less stressful. Get back into the meal-prepping mindset.
These might help: What’s In My Pantry, My Favorite Kitchen Hacks, Guide to Vegetarian Shopping on a Budget
3. Dedicate an Area of the Kitchen to Lunches
Lunch boxes + supplies take up a lot of space. When my kids were little, no joke, the lunch area had some serious real estate in the pantry. This can be a total point of chaos in the morning. We don’t have school age kids to pack lunches for any more, but we still have a dedicated lunch area because we take our lunches to work, meetings, or on weekend outings.
Tara’s Top Tip: Designate a lunch station. Could be a shelf, drawer, cabinet, even a basket, laundry basket, or box will do + put everything there! Lunch boxes, ziplocs, containers, a marker, some labels, napkins, water bottles, easy to grab snack options, even a money jar if looking for money for the occasional lunch expense slows you down in the morning. Also consider having a dedicated section of your refrigerator for lunch items to take down the morning chaos level a few notches.
These might help: What To Do When Your Child Wants To Be A Vegetarian, 10 Tips To Help You Stick To Your New Year’s Resolution
4. Let’s Talk About the Freezer
If you have ever been to my house, you will have noticed that I have a large selection of single-serve leftover containers in my freezer. They are filled with healthy meals that anyone can grab for a meal or whenever hunger strikes. I cannot stress this enough … a little prep goes a long way in the kitchen!
Tara’s Top Tips: When you read my recipes on this blog, I give you freezer storage advice. Call me the queen of leftovers, please! If I make something freezable, before it even hits the dinner table, there is a container or two siphoned off + stashed into the freezer. Do this! I promise you it is a total game changer when you are transitioning out of lazy summer living!
These might help: How To Find Happiness In The Kitchen, Guide to Cooking Recipe-Free Meatless Meals
5. Clean!
Ugh, I know. I just gave you chores. Clean? Yep, it is probably one of the most important of the 5 items you must do when prepping your kitchen for back-to-school!
Tara’s Top Tip: Trust me here. There are 3 days in Labor Day weekend, spend 2 days partying + use one to do the things on this list! Most importantly, get the family involved + give everything a really good cleaning. The purpose of this is get obviously get things clean. Also, you get into drawers + the fridge + freezer + pantry + you can’t help but start editing out what might not work in the post-summer kitchen.
What is most important when it comes to cleaning? First, get a new sponge. Second, make sure the appliances are clean (inside the microwave, run a sanitize cycle on your empty dishwasher, wipe down refrigerator shelves). Third, wash all of your kitchen towels, sort through them + replace any that have seen better days. Finally, sanitize surfaces that are touched a lot such as knobs + drawer handles. Easy!
These might help: How To Enjoy Cooking At Home, Time To Rethink Your Pandemic Habits
Food for Thought
One of the biggest obstacles that I hear from people when it comes to healthy eating, cooking more at home, or becoming more comfortable in the kitchen is TIME! If there was only one piece of advice I could give on this topic it would be this: planning.
The busier your schedule is, or the tighter your food budget is, planning what goes on in your kitchen can be a total life saver.
The type of planning/prepping I do is something I like to term ‘investing’ instead of planning. You invest some time in your kitchen once and you reap the benefits of that investment for weeks to come.
When you first start to invest this time into yourself and/or your family, it might seem like you are spending more time planning + prepping + you aren’t actually saving any time at all. Once you get the hang of it, you won’t feel like this any more!
End of summer + back-to-school season is the perfect excuse to break some bad habits like the dumping station in the kitchen. It is also time to pick up some new ones like a lunch station.
Hope this helps you + your family transition out of summer + into pumpkin spice season with love + ease!
All the best,
Tara💚
⭐Did you love learning about prepping your kitchen for back-to-school + end of summer? Leave a comment below!
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