There’s no need to deter from a counter space-intensive recipe anymore with a cookbook that takes over. Yes, you can now roll out homemade dough for those raviolis you’ve been dying to make without the recipe in the way. Whether you’re living in an apartment with limited counter space or in a home with kitchen counter space clutter, if you have an empty pants hanger in the closet and follow a cookbook regularly, you’re in luck. Senior Features Editor Roxanne Webber from CHOW.com gives a great tip to use a pants hanger to free up space in the kitchen while you’re cooking from a recipe. It’s as easy as clipping on the hangers to each page of your recipe cookbook or magazine pages. Go ahead and hang your recipe on the knob of the cabinets; not only will you increase counter space, but there’s no need to worry about dripping any food bits onto the book. As Webber points out, this simple trick won’t be best to use with super thick cookbooks—though you could simply print the page out, and hang it up that way. Also, so scratches don’t happen, it’s best to use a pants hanger that has inner rubber pads on the inside. If you don’t have any pants hangers like that, it would be simple to rig one up yourself with superglue and rubber inserts. Who knew something carelessly hanging in the closet could be such an awesome kitchen accessory? It sure beats having to a buy an expensive stand.

Increase Kitchen Counter Space with a Pants Hanger