There’s nothing more gratifying than growing your own food. It’s good for your budget and, if you grow your food organically, good for you, too. You can grow veggies and herbs in containers no matter how little space you have. And, as long as you use good plotting soil and compost, planting in containers means you don’t have to worry about weeds or bad soil quality. There’s no need to limit yourself to planting in containers, though. Get creative with these ideas for unique kitchen gardens.

A barrel of potatoes

A very easy way to grow your own potatoes is in a barrel. A discarded wine or whisky keg will work perfectly, but you could also use an old dustbin you have decorated. Fill the container with sawdust and plant sliced potatoes – which your new crop will grow from – push them into the sawdust until they’re covered and water. In a few days you’ll see new potato plants sprouting.

Cooking pots

Potting vegetables and herbs in old cooking pots gives visual interest to your garden. Old pots and pans can be picked up at second-hand stores and flea markets. Mismatched pots with retro floral designs look really good. To prepare the pots before planting, drill a few drainage holes into them and fill with potting soil and compost. Remember to place a layer of small rocks above the drainage holes to avoid soil seeping out.

A gutter garden

If you have some old gutters on hand, don’t throw them away. They can make an excellent vertical garden. Drill holes in the bottom at regular intervals and attach them to a simple wooden frame. Then plant your seedlings as you would do in any other kind of container. Choose gutters that are PVC free as lead in PVC guttering can leach into the soil.

Many plants can be grown in containers, including herbs, baby tomatoes, strawberries, salad leaves, chives and garlic.

Green living means choosing what’s good for both you and the planet. Ultimately, buying less would be the greenest choice anyone could make. But, let’s face it, very few of us are willing to seriously change our shopping habits. A good compromise is to go shopping for green items next time you hit the malls. If you’re new to living sustainably, the kitchen is a great a place to start. Stocking up on these must-haves won’t only help save the planet; it’ll also make you healthier.

Canning jars

If you want to eat healthily, your best option is to cook with fresh ingredients. Shop-bought jams and pickles are often loaded with sugar, salt and – somewhat counter-intuitively – preservatives. Rather buy some glass canning jars and make your own. Try Jamie Oliver’s easy five-minute strawberry jam to get you started.

A sprouter

Sprouts are packed with antioxidant vitamins A and C and are a good source of vitamin B. It’s easy to make sprouts using a jar or bowl, but a specially designed sprouter makes the job even easier.

Miso paste

Miso paste is the healthy answer to Cup-A-Soup. It’s tasty, quick to prepare, and a great source of probiotics, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Add miso paste to water and cook for around three minutes. Throw in some chives for crunch and tofu for added protein.

Reusable water bottles

The impact of the mass consumption of bottled water on the environment is well documented. If you stop buying bottled water you’ll reduce your contribution to the world’s overloaded landfills and stop exposing yourself to dangerous chemicals found in PET bottles. So keep some reusable water bottles in the fridge ready to grab on the go.

A wooden cutting board

Everyone needs a good cutting board. Choose a solid one made from renewable wood rather than plastic. It’s said that plastic cutting boards are more hygienic, but if you use one wooden board for meat and another for vegetables you’ll be perfectly safe.

Once you’ve gone green in the kitchen, you may want to look into greening your bathroom, too. It’s one of the most resource-intensive rooms in your house.

Venturing out into the exciting world of cooking requires not only a few good recipes and loads of enthusiasm but also a few basic kitchen essentials like a good knife, pots and pans, a chopping board and an apron. Put some thought into your purchases, and you could find yourself with kitchen equipment that will last a lifetime. Good kitchen equipment can be pricey, but you’ll thank yourself for buying the best you can afford in the long run – especially when it comes to pots, pans and knives.

The basics

While you can get away without wearing an apron when cooking a simple meal, they’re indispensible when baking or preparing last-minute dishes when you’re all dressed up for a dinner party. Choose an apron that you can easily pull off as one of the main reasons to wear an apron is to protect yourself from burns and dangerous spills.

Then, no matter what food you’re preparing, you’ll need a chopping board. They can be made out of wood or plastic, but keep a separate board for chopping meat, onions and garlic no matter what material you choose. Use a damp cloth under your board to keep it stable as you chop.

As for knives, start with a small general knife, approximately 9-10 cm long. A pointed knife is great for controlled chopping work, peeling fruit and chopping the ends of vegetables. A heavy 20 cm chopping knife is also handy – you’ll find yourself using it just about every day. Spend as much as you can afford to be sure you’re getting a quality blade. You can later add to your collection with the purchase of a cleaver, fish knife, bread knife, a peeler and a knife sharpener.

Pots and pans

When it comes to what pots and pans to buy, it’s important to do some research and spend wisely.  A good set of pots can last a lifetime and is worth spending more money on. Let your stove top guide you – for example, thick based cookware is good for gas tops due to the high temperatures reached.  Useful sizes are around 20cm. Larger pans required for slow cooking like soups and stocks should have heavy bases. A wok is great for stir-frying but only if you’re going to be doing a lot of traditional stir-fries.

Extras

A scale is imperative for accurate measuring – buy one with imperial and metric measurements and a stainless steel weighing pan if possible. When it comes to buying a sieve, spend more on a fine mesh sieve. Whisks are also worth spending money on – look out for an elongated balloon whisk with lots of strands that measures around 22-26 cm long.

If you’re looking at baking equipment, invest in a heavy rolling pin. Whether the ends have handles or not is up to you. Most pastry chefs prefer handle-less rolling pins.

Other basic kitchen essentials are wooden spoons, tongs, a ladle and a rubber spatula. If you’re keen to get beyond the basics, a stick blender, an electric mixer, food processor and a liquidizer will save you time and lighten the load.

If the kitchen is the heart of the home, you want it pumping out as much love as possible. In feng shui kitchens represent the hearth, a place for nourishment where families and loved ones gather. The kitchen is also thought to have an effect on the health of your family, which in turn will affect your wealth. No space is a happy space if it’s in a disorganised mess. So make sure your kitchen is ordered, and well organised. Here’s how, with a little help from feng shui.

All in one basket

Being the centre of many homes, kitchens tend to be a dumping ground for everything from school projects to mail. Get yourself a pretty basket and place it on your kitchen counter, and dedicate this space to any and all paper that finds its way into the kitchen. Go through the basket once a week and remove anything that’s not being used. Recycle whatever you can, and consider donating old magazines to charity.

Bits and bobs

Instead of dumping your keys on the kitchen counter, consider installing a rack close to the kitchen door – and train yourself to use it! A small table close to the entrance to your kitchen is another good place for keys, as well as a spot to keep spare change.

In the fridge

According to Australian feng shui guru Elizabeth Wiggins, as the kitchen represents nourishment and prosperity, ‘the way your fridge is organised can influence your health, well being and energy levels.’ She points out that a fridge should never seem bare, as a well-stocked fridge symbolises abundance and prosperity. However, your fridge and freezer should both be cleared out regularly as outdated food can block good qi (energy).

Finally, when it comes to overall decor, there are no hard and fast rules for good feng shui in the kitchen. It’s recommended that kitchens be warm, welcoming and well lit. As long as you minimise clutter, how you achieve that look and feel is up to you.

Whether you love spending time in the kitchen whipping up meals, or you would rather prefer to be spending your time doing something else, designing your kitchen for maximum efficiency is absolutely critical. Organising a kitchen to run beautifully and look good does not need any special qualifications, thankfully, so you can get started right away by following these tips.

Step 1: Discard what is not in use

This is absolutely mission-critical. Organising a kitchen, just like organising most any messy environment requires you remove clutter with immediacy. As such, brutally go through what you have in your kitchen – empty out drawers and shelves – and discard those items you never use. Throw them away, give them away, or recycle them as best you can, but they’re taking up unnecessary space in your kitchen.

Step 2: Optimise for frequently used items

Some items are used much more than others in a kitchen. As such, you need to make them as easily accessible as possible. Purchasing a small container that you place near your stove that would hold all the mixing, stirring and cutting utensils you use makes sense. As does placing your frequently used pots at the front, while relegating your special occasion items to the back

Step 3: Organise according to use, or product type

Just like you likely have a cutlery tray, and a place you keep all your plates and china, organising a kitchen thematically for all the items in it is very handy. Purchase containers, condiment sets and labels, and sort through your food closet/pantry, grouping items together. So, by the time you’re done, you should have a section/shelf dedicated to baking goods, another to spices and herbs, and so on. Labeling makes them easy to identify, too, so you don’t waste time rummaging through to find what you’re looking for.

If you want to dig a little deeper into organising your pantry, specifically, this guide will help, too. We hope these nifty little tips will help your time spent in the kitchen be more efficient than it currently is.

The promise of mobile fridges with built-in LCD screens that will track the volume of food in your refrigerator as well as allow you to purchase food online came and went. The few refrigerators that can do this were absolutely cumbersome, and unjustifiably expensive, even for the well to do. Now, with the rise of what people are calling tablet computers, as well as new age smartphones with their cooking applications, computing technology has invaded the kitchen full force. Below are ways tech can improve your cooking today.

The Velcro tablet PC

The wonder of tablet PCs is that they offer much of the functionality of regular laptops, minus the bulk. Furthermore, the fact that they’re just a big screen, means watching cooking videos, or reading recipes, or even using one as a digital cookbook is easy as pie.

Industrious, DIY prone folks have devised several smart techniques for using tablet PCs as a kitchen aid. One technique we’re particularly fond of is the Velcro tablet technique, which sees you putting double-sided Velcro on the back of your tablet, and on an easily accessible wall in your kitchen, and sticking your iPad there. A digital recipe book in minutes.

Smartphones and cooking apps

If you happen to own either an iPhone or a Google Android handset, your options for cooking applications are wonderfully varied. For smartphone owners looking for high quality recipes, advice and step by step instructions from the world’s best chefs including Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver, you’re in luck. There are plenty of fantastic iPhone cooking apps as well as brilliant Android cooking apps.

Our favourite cooking website

By far our favourite cooking website is a site called Rouxbe.com (pronounced ‘Ruby’). Rouxbe is a subscription-based online cooking school that covers everything to do with cooking, literally. From step to step meal preparations, to how different food types are best prepared, all in beautiful HD video shot.

The point is cooking apps, tablet computers, and the right combination of online services can fundamentally transfer how you work in your kitchen.

When moving into your own home for the first time, whether it be transitioning from a college dorm room to an apartment, or moving into your own place straight out of your parents’ home, it’s very easy to underestimate the amount of money you’ll need to spend just to get your kitchen up and running. Below is a guide to kitchen appliances you must budget early on for, as well as a way to save money on them.

Microwave

You will find cooking for one is a bit difficult, and often results in you cooking one big meal that you eat across multiple days. As such, having a way to conveniently warm up leftovers is mission critical, making a microwave a must-have appliance. In addition, depending on your preparation techniques and the type of microwave you have, it could be used to ‘cook’ all your meals, saving you money on a stove and even pots early on. A very good microwave can be had for under £50 and it is a must have kitchen appliance.

Kettle

This may seem silly, but a kettle is one of those appliances people often forget to budget for, even though it’s use is varied. You can use it for preparing tea, instant coffee, sachet soups, and a myriad of medicines rely on boiled water, too. Don’t forget the kettle. Thankfully, kettles aren’t too expensive and a decent one can be had for under £30.

Stove and pots

Considering this is your first home, there’s a very high chance it does not have a built in stove, so you’d need to purchase one. Those little two plate stoves work well, but they tend to be energy guzzlers, making them inadvisable. If you can’t afford a proper stove that gets built-in to your kitchen, we’ve found those mini grill plus two plate combinations to be very useful. They’re well designed, and won’t break the bank, while serving their function. And, you know, you must eat, so this is a must have kitchen appliance for obvious reason.

A fridge

If you plan on eating, you want a way to keep your food fresh. And, if you’re a new home owner, you’re in for a shock when you discover eating out is probably not an option for you since it is expensive. Budget for a refrigerator, whatever you do! If you’re able, buy a full fridge right in the beginning, but if you’re a bit strapped for cash, consider a mini fresh (or bar fridge) as a temporary solution. A rock solid refrigerator can be had for under £80 if you search carefully.

And make sure to read this solid article on what to look for in a refrigerator.

The bare necessities

Really, these are the bare necessities. If you get nothing else due to budgetary constraints, this is the order in which you should want to do your purchasing. These must have kitchen appliances made the list for two reasons – firstly, you can’t really do without any of them, but secondly, they fall within a manageable price range. Buy intelligently, only purchasing those appliances you cannot do without in the beginning, and adding more as you go along.

Cooker hoods are now seen as an essential addition to a kitchen. Investing in an extractor fan can save you a fortune in kitchen repairs later by preventing warping and other steam-related damage, and the circulation of air means that your kitchen becomes a healthier, odour-free environment. But not all cooker hoods do exactly the same job. Read on to find out about choosing the right cooker hood for your kitchen.

Size matters

And that’s not the size of the cooker hood we’re talking about: it’s the size of your kitchen, and of your family. The amount of cooking you do will dictate the airflow that you need in your cooker – a person living alone and eating out a lot will do significantly less cooking than a family of four, so look into more powerful options if your cooker gets a lot of use. The other important thing to consider is that your cooker hood will need to perform two tasks – getting rid of odours and grease – so you’ll want to find one that takes care of both.

Why cooker hoods for range cookers are different

Quite simply, cooker hoods for range cookers are different because of the cooker’s different size and shape. Not too difficult, right? Things get a little more complicated when the range cooker is the centre of your kitchen, not against a wall. In this case, your cooker hood will need to be designed specifically to filter air from this position, and you’ll want to pay special attention to the style and design of the hood, as it’ll take a central position in your kitchen.

The good news is that there’s a cooker hood out there for every kitchen, and you just need to find the right one for you.

The look of the kitchen for 2010 is vintage utility. It’s the absolute reverse of whet we wanted our kitchens to look like in the 80s and 90s. Gone are the monstrous high gloss matching appliances. Today’s kitchens should shout creativity, rather than wealth – think home-made drawers, and worktops that warp with age. So don’t break the bank when you’re thinking of remodelling your kitchen. Think DIY. Here’s a guide to the 21^st century kitchen.

Tiles

Vintage utility, when it comes to tiles, means that basic is in. White metro tiles, which aren’t pricey at all, are the way to go. And use them liberally. If you can, and you’re feeling that way inclined, tile all the way to the ceiling. Just be sure to use white grout, not grey.

Colour

The extreme version of the vintage utility kitchen doesn’t have much of a colour palette to speak of. Everything, and I mean everything, is white. This could be kind of hard to live with though – where would you put your mismatched kettle? What interior designers are advising, for a more practical approach to the 21^st century kitchen, is starting with a snowy Scandinavian palette and adding hints of grey. Grey, in varying shades, can be used on just about any surface, and the rougher the paint job, the better. Add a super bright touch here and there to make the look a little more relaxed.

Painted floorboards

Sticking with the Scandinavian look, painted floorboards are stylish. They’re also easy to match with other parts of the home, even if the kitchen stays grey and white. Also, it just takes an extra coat to renew them. Pale grey is very good for the vintage utility look, and it’s a great shade for kids and pets – it won’t show the dirt.

Finish off the look with some vintage furniture. And remember, you don’t want everything to match, which should make your shopping a little easier.

Frozen foods are a huge help to anyone who likes to prepare or shop for food in advance and, in the cases of some food products, freezing is essential if the food is not eaten right away. By following a few simple guidelines and freezing food as quickly as possible – using a quick-freeze option if your fridge has one – you can ensure that the foods you freeze retain their quality and stay safe.

Got the look?

Freezing food for long periods of time doesn’t destroy its nutrient content but it is likely to change the appearance, and possibly the quality of foods. Meats are a particular concern, so be careful not to store meat for longer than guidelines recommend if you plan for it to look good when served.

What not to freeze

Two things to always avoid freezing are canned foods and eggs. Most canned foods are, however, safe for freezing once they’re removed from their cans and placed in different packaging. Foods like cream sauces and juicy fruits and vegetables will stay safe for consumption after freezing, but they probably won’t look or taste the same so keep them fresh if possible.

Keep it constant

Photo: Frigidaire

Freezing stays safe while food is kept under 0°C so make sure that your freezer is reliable. When buying a freezer go for reputable models like Frigidaire freezers, and defrost your freezer regularly according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Also avoid opening the freezer too often, or leaving it open.

Thaw thing

Thawing your food the right way is just as important as freezing it correctly. The safest way to thaw your food is to do it as slowly as possible. Plan ahead so that you can thaw food in the fridge or in its sealed packaging in cold water. By keeping food safely frozen and thawed, you can keep food for longer while still keeping it fresh and tasty.