Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Re-Use In The Kitchen

3 meals a day, snacks, desserts, prep, cleaning ... I spend alot of time in the kitchen. I think it's also the area where I waste the most. Food, paper, plastic ...

I got pretty excited though, when I started to see some things I could re-use.

Aluminum Foil                   
Crunch up leftover foil into a ball and use to make taco bowls. Even better, after you've made the taco bowls, keep the ball for next time!
  • Wipe and re-use. Yes, I'm serious. Wrap other foods with it. You've wiped it ... it's okay. Just wouldn't re-use something that was used for raw meat.
  • Crafts. I wiped and re-used foil to make a star topper for our tree. The kids love it. They can make their own ornaments. If they're too young to cut and wrap foil around a cardboard tree, let them glue colorful shapes to it.


Cereal Bags
  • I learned this one from my mother-in-law. She used a cereal box to separate hamburger patties. Brilliant. I never thought of it as free wax paper before! Now I do. Great for wax paper needs - unbaked cookies, freezer wrap ... I just wouldn't use it in the oven or microwave :)
Boxes
-Kleenex, Mac & Cheese, all kinds of boxes can be cut and used to sort and separate.  
  • Utensil drawer - sort your cutlery or cram it behind your cutlery tray to prevent it from sliding around.
  • Movie Drawer - Our movie drawer opens just enough that it's impractical to store movies in the back 1/3 of the drawer. I use a pepsi box to fill that space so that my movies don't slide around, and I don't have to fuss with unreachables.
  • Kids' store - since infancy, they prefer boxes to real toys, don't they? Weirdos.  ... just kidding! :)  My kids love their store full of egg cartons, margarine boxes, milk cartons, etc. We line them up on a bookshelf and shop with baskets and cloth bags just like grown-ups!



Hope you find these tips helpful. I sure do!


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1 comment:

  1. Cardboard boxes have always been a close, personal friend of mine! I love using them as drawer dividers....ahhhh, neatly organized socks and undies! Also, by saving and using "previously enjoyed" wrapping paper, they can be decorated and used as gift boxes or attractive shelf organizers! I love your ideas.....makes me feel like getting in touch with my creative side again! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Hi! Thanks for visiting! I love to hear how you save money and time. Please share your tips, techniques and advice so we can all benefit and, hopefully, help each other to become better stewards of what we have :)

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