All procedures that work in a lab work in a kitchen, but I wouldn't make Grignard reagents or things that are hazardous if not in absolute anhydrous conditions. LAH can be used. I've done CTH and NiCl2/NaBH4 at home, Beaker procedure yielded 65 % instead of 80%+, and NiCL2/NaBH4 directly with 25DMNS 20 % of amine. There are not big differences beween a lab and a kitchen if you have the minimum glassware, reagents, solvents and a hot plate stirrer. There are a lot of things in a labe that are not strictly necessary.
My main problem is that I've not air conditioned system, and I live in a humid and hot place, so anhydrous conditions are possible some days, but not usually. Other things I've observed is that the IudexK procedure for condensation of aldehydes with nitromethane yield less in summer than in winter, it seems that this rxn works better < 20 C.
You have the kitchen fume hood and if you need more, you can apply some plastics to it to make a similar lab fume hood. And some inventions are useful, a 1 or 2 or more liters sep funnel can be made with a glass bottle and a two hole rubber stopper, you put a glass tube from the out of stopper to near bottom of the bottle, and the other from out till the end of stopper, the end of tubes are joined to small pieces of rubber tube that are close with a crocodile, so you can put the solution and solvent, a current rubber stopper, shake and then substitute the stopper for the two hole, invert the bottle, open the vent tube, let separate the layers and open the exit tube to recover what you want. Separation is not completely good, but is enough for washes, and the definitive separation is made decanting over a 250 cc sep funnel. Sorry for my horrible english.
When we talk about kitchen chemistry we are more talking about easy procedures with common chemicals and generic glassware and better with OTC solventes or even reagents, and doesn't need complicated conditions as pressure, anhydrous etc ... So I understand kitchen chemistry like rxns like are almost the same to cook your dinner. You cook for after dinner.
Post the references, I'll probably try it or if not me other bee. I want to explore now more things with Zn, it seems practically the best procedure in the field of kitchen chemistry and modest amounts. It could make accessible for home a lot of active and interesting compounds you could not make if not with NaBH4, LAH ...
I've had n idea that could resolve the question of solvents in your CHCl3 IPA NaBH4 rdxn (something similar was posted by KrZ), use the same amount of solvents and reagents, and after 30 minutes make another adition, and so on. Theoretically it will work the same, saving solvents. See this and compare with your reference and with my idea:
Sodium borohydride (2.8 g) was added portionwise over 10 minutes to a stirred suspension of the nitrostyrene (b.1) (5.6 g) and silica gel (Fluka 60) (28 g) in chloroform (200
ml) and isopropanol (50 ml). The suspension was stirred at 20.degree. for 16 hours. The silica gel was removed by filtration and the solvent evaporated to dryness to give the
intermediate nitroethane as a pale yellow oil.
The rxn works in a suspension too, so why not add more reagents after first batch ?
You are a promising bee.