Showing posts with label kitchen tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitchen tools. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Plastic Food Containers To Repurpose

I have a set of Rubbermaid and a European brand of food storage containers, but the plastic containers I grab most often to store leftover food in the refrigerator or freezer I get for free when buying food. Who knew? Also with the free containers, I don't worry about losing them if I take food to a cookout. 
 
 I bought Healthy Choice frozen entrees for my mother and discovered the plastic bowls they come in are non-stick and perfect for microwaving 2-egg omelets. The eggs cook well and slide right out with less cleanup because you can eat the omelet out of the same bowl. If you wish to wash and reuse the bowl, it's easy too because cooked eggs and cheese don't stick!

Gosh, I bought a silicone microwave omelet dish that doesn't work as well. Without greasing, everything sticks to it. 

By the way, Healthy Choice dinners are as close to homemade-tasting meals as you can get readymade at a reasonable price. For seniors who tend to eat less, they are the perfect portion. Not a bad lunch size for hungrier people either. Sometimes I add more meat or vegetables to them, which is also an option.
Another container I repurpose is what you get when buying peanut butter from a Health Food store or Chinese Food. If needed, you can also buy them from Amazon. Bar none, they are my favorite storage containers. Good to store half a cut onion or tomato, cheese, leftover soup or beef stew, etc. They are durable and can be washed to use time and again. The 16 oz size is perfect! Stackable in the freezer also.

The Rubbermaid containers don't get half the use. In a do-over, I would make do with repurposing the free containers which is also good for the planet.


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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

My Kitchen Idle Tool List

If I knew before buying certain kitchen tools they'd sit idle in kitchen drawers, I'd pass on them. At some point, I'm sure I'll pack them up to take to Goodwill as these utensils take up valuable real estate, but I'm not quite ready to accept the reality I made a purchasing mistake and will never use them. I still fear if I lose them, a sudden need will arise that requires rebuying one of them most likely the day after it is gone. Moreover, they're small items, right? Soon enough though, I'll march them over to Goodwill. Perhaps I can save you the hesitancy, the rationalizing, the unnecessary cost:

5 kitchen tools I never touch:

1) Egg slicer - I mean, how often do you slice eggs? And if it's only one or 2 eggs, you use a sharp knife, no? Presto, a sharp knife can do the task in less than a minute.



2) Garlic press - Again, I use my trusty knife, which is probably already out slicing and dicing the vegetables and other ingredients for whatever dish I'm making. Nothing extra to wash or put away!
3) Potato peeler - This tool has never peeled a single potato ... not one! For the last decade, it's only been a drawer occupier. Some potatoes I cook unpeeled and with others, out comes the sharp knife again to do the job!

4) Pastry cutter - Buying one of these seems like a brilliant idea, yet again I simply use a knife to cut the butter into tiny cubes, then work the butter into the dough with my figures to ensure by feeling that the dough's texture is crumbly-right. I bought this thing despite already having 10 free human digits (which came with my hands, head, and trunk already assembled:). Go figure why I bought a thing unable to feel a dough's texture!

5) Melon baller - Did I have visions of hosting a garden party for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge when I hauled this tool home!?! And, the fruit balls are never picture-perfect-round. Plus, it's tiring to flip your wrist unnaturally up to make those incomplete balls, so I no longer reach for it. Instead, I dice watermelon, cantaloupe, or honeydew into bite-sized cubes. Perfect-complete-cubes!! Faster and saves the wrist. Turns out I should give my multi-tasking knife a pay-raise!

Can you add anything sitting in your kitchen drawers to my idle tool list? If I look in my drawers, I bet I could find 5 more idle utensils!

What makes us buy these extra gadgets? I wish I had become a minimalist earlier!😊


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