I’m on my way home soon! Wednesday!
Back to making sense.
Back to making crunchy things (as time and new-baby schedules never allowed for the making of many things here). C34M2F2WF7P7
As I prepare to leave Kansas City, though, I want to share one tip I gleaned from my sister that I’m in mad, dirty, ecstatic love with.
It’s quick. Easy. And I promise you’ll want to start doing it today.
The Genius Thing My Sister Does With Her Butter Wrappers
You know those odds-and-ends tips you see in magazines that make you go, “WOW! Yeah! I’m SO going to do that ALL THE TIME FOREVER NOW!” Like storing all your marbles in old pantyhose? (That’s a thing, right?)
And then three months later, you realize you still have loose marbles rolling around all over the house – and you’ve thrown away your last pair of pantyhose?
This had better not be one of those tips for you.
Because it’s an ingenious way to use every last bit of butter AND avoid using those icky, chemical-filled spray-on nonstick oils.
Here’s how you do it: When you’re finished with a stick of butter, do NOT throw the wrapper away.
Also, do not lick it.
Instead, put it in a Ziplock bag or other handy refrigerator-friendly container. And then pop it back into the fridge.
As you can see in the above picture, you’ll end up with quite a few of these. And, if you haven’t noticed, nearly every butter wrapper you’ve ever thrown away still has butter stuck to it in inconvenient places. Butter that is otherwise wasted (or licked).
So what do you do with these refrigerated butter wrappers?
Use them in place of nonstick cooking spray or instead of cutting off a new chunk to butter your baking pans with. Simply rub the wrapper, butter side down, all over the pan/dish you need to grease.
It’s a perfect solution, really. I used one this afternoon while making spaghetti pie, and it was so nice to just reach in, grab one, rub it around the pan a few times and then say goodbye to it in the trashcan once it was completely devoid of butter.
Luckily, it also doesn’t take up any space to speak of in your refrigerator. My sister keeps hers tucked behind the ketchups and mustards in the door.
Easy, right?
You know you want to do it.
Kitchen Tips, Crunchies?
Here’s the deal: When I freaked out and ooohed and ahhhed about how genius it was to do this butter thing, my sister looked at me like I was a 3-month-old who just discovered feet.
She had no idea it would be a new thing for me. Or for anyone else. It was just … normal. For her.
So I got to thinking: Imagine how many things we do in our kitchens that other people might think are totally life-changing ideas, but to us they’re just routine?
Tell us something you learned how to do in your kitchen once you were an adult that’s streamlined, made easier, or just made cooking and cleaning more enjoyable for you?
Here’s one of mine. You probably know it already. But you might not.
Whenever I cut onions or garlic, I grab a piece of stainless steel cutlery (or a pot, if it’s sitting there) and rub my fingers all over it under running water. Stainless steel gets rid of the oniony/garlicky smell almost completely … immediately.
You have any surprisingly easy kitchen tips? Even ones you think everyone knows about? (But probably doesn’t.)
10 Kelly’s World Famous Winners … and a New Niece!
My family rarely uses brown sugar, so the small amount we keep usually hardens by the time we need it. We keep it in an empty plastic jar with a screw top (like the Costco nut ones, or tupperware), and if it’s hard, we just give it a few shakes and that loosens all of the sugar up.
Hello Crunchy Betty
You made me laugh, so I thought I would send you the tip which I discovered all by myself. I might be the last person on earth to have stumbled across this, and your readers are old hands with both butter and lemons, but just in case…
When I jest a lemon, I despair about how much jest is left stuck to the grater, especially the fine grater which I prefer. I try to juice it off, if the recipe calls for the juice, but oft times it does not. Just take pieces of the chilled butter and press gently on the grater and voila! It pulls off just about all the jest and the butter itself doesn’t stick to the grater. I say butter, I’ve only tried it with Stork margarine but I expect it works.
x
Very rapidly this site will be famous among all blog visitors, due to it’s good content
I store butter in a butter keeper by Norpro; same thing as “butter bells” but infinitely cheaper.
I have more than one, so I can store flavored – aka compound butters.
i.e. jam butter, honey butter, cinnamon butter, etc.
I make savory butters too, but I roll those in wax paper or parchment paper (into a log) and wrap in plastic wrap and freeze.
I’ve done that adding garlic and minced parsley. And many more.
Later, you can remove, let to sit at room temperature a bit before slicing.
Great applied to fresh baked breads, potatoes, plus over roasting, baking or pan-fried meat.
Oh, oh! I feel a another flavored butter post coming on!
Visit me, Sharon Anne on my cooking blog
sharealikecooking.blogspot.com (mostly recipes)
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That you save wrappers in a container is a “now why didn’t I think of that” part that makes me bang my head. Okay, I’ve stopped now long enough to say I normally do use the wrappers over hot loaf of freshly baked breads and rolls! Makes the crust soft. However, I’ve tossed literally 1000’s of good wrappers in my life! Never again!
@4b37f3dce36ff7e671185e8d79e2fb25:disqus
I’ll stop buying the yucky spray, which makes me cringe every time I use it, and use a saved wrapper instead.
I LOVED the 3 month old discovering feet crack! I laughed long over that one. We have a 3 day old new baby granddaughter I might add.
Sharon Anne @ sharealikecooking.blogspot.com
I’ve always kept a cracker in my sugar or salt (if it’s my cooking salt) and it keeps it from getting all chunky and weird 🙂
If I need an icepack, I grab a bag of frozen peas or corn. They form to my knee/elbow/head/whatever better than ice cubes and no melting ice to worry about.
Great tips!!
When I weigh butter for baking recipes, I put a paper towel on top of the scales and weigh the butter on top of this. I then use the buttered paper towel to grease the baking tin with.
need a “like” button!
Okay, when you bake bread or muffins (everyone bakes, right?) soak the doughy mess in COLD water! Makes clean up much easier.
I don’t buy or use margerine or butter but I do put oil in a reusable pump sprayer that I bought for $9 several years ago. When I am trying to make an extra effort to cut out fat I oven bake atop parchment sheets that I get at the dollar store.
You should check out my blog or the Weston A. Price Foundation (westonaprice.org) before you try to go low-fat! Eating real fats (grass fed butter, coconut oil, avocado, real-non-homogenized lard, olive oil, ect is super super good for you! just as an FYI!
My “real” food adventures is what led me to this blog. I started out with wanting to eat Real Food, and now I’ve come over to the crunchy side! I now make most of my cleaners (still working on eliminating some store bought ones.) I switched my three year olds to cloth training pants (wish I had done cloth sooner!) And many, many more crunchy things. Now I’m having fun reading the Crunchy Betty blog which I just found yesterday!
Hi Amanda…I just attended my first WPAF meeting last night….AND they have a source for bones!!!! I am so excited and checking them out this week I hope. They are supposed to have fat so that I can render my own lard…talk about psyched!
I have also recently started using the butter wrappers to grease pans. It started when I bought organic butter and did not want to waste any of it since it’s expensive.
I love using every last bit of food and not throwing anything out. Another tip is to store leftover bread that has gotten stale or just the end pieces no one wants to eat in the freezer until full then throw in the food processor and ta da….. breadcrumbs. I also save veggie scraps for stock and add in any cheese rinds I have in the freezer.
i don’t use that one, but may start. What i DO use is a small spray bottle, like the ones you use to mist plants or windex comes in (i don’t use that one, but to give you an idea of what i use) i fill it with olive oil (or clarified butter), and ta-da, spray cooking oil. I use it on the bbq mostly.
another cool trick is if you microwave your hard brown sugar for a couple of seconds (10 or 15) it will immediately soften. works like magic.
I also make a whole lot of spices, so, for example if i have a few onions left and they’re getting a little on the old side, i slice em up, dehydrate them, crush them and ta-da onion powder – add salt, and onion salt. I do this with onions, garlic, celery and even red-peppers (to make paprika)
brilliant! alas, i am new at all this homemade crunchiness…so…how do you dehydrate them? i am sure i sound uber silly – bought – i LOVE onions…and garlic, and we always have a plethera of both so this is something i could so easily do!
I use a dehyderator.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_dehydrator but you can use your oven (put it on the lowest setting for 12 hours leaving the door ajar so that air can circulate)
Here are a few things that I make:
seasoned salt
2 Tbsp salt
2 Tsp sugar (optonally)
1/2 tsp paprika (i take old red pepers and dehydrate then grind them)
1/4 tsp tumeric
1/4 tsp onion powder (i take onions dehydrate and grind them)
1/4 tsp garlic powder (the same with garlic)
1/4 tsp corn starch
chili powder
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp cyanne pepper
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp garlic powder
Interesting!! Thank you!! I think it would be worth investing in a dehydrator as Texas summers are hot enough without having an oven running! HA! Plus, I love dried fruit so this would be so wonderful!!
Be sure to dehydrate onions and or garlic out in the garage, or your house will smell like onions for days.
I grow and dry Thomson green grapes for the best raisins you will ever eat. Takes bland oatmeal to a whole new level. Wonderful for cookies.
I also love drying pineapple chunks, and eat them with dried apple slices and almonds for a snack.
Be sure to dry unpeeled Granny Smith apple rings with the pineapple juice drained from the can.
I’ve even dried cranberries, infused with Whey Low D, they were okay, but the trouble wasn’t worth how cheap you can buy Craisins from Sam’s Club.
I didn’t learn that butter wrapper trick until a few years ago (either online or Real Simple, I forget). It’s seriously awesome!
I keep a couple of open plastic containers in the door of my freezer to put compost scraps in. they’re easy to take out and keep next to me while I’m chopping etc. Then I can pop them back in the freezer. Come trash day, I make a single trip out to the green bin. I don’t have room for a counter-top lidded crock, but I also don’t want to run out to the bins every time I have coffee grounds or an egg shell to deal with. And most of all I don’t want it getting smelly in the kitchen (especially in summer).
I love this tip! It seriously helps me! Thanks, Stephanie!
I do this too, but also put any kind of bones and left over meat things that I can’t feed to my dog in a bag in the freezer. Keeps everything smelling clean (and no fruit flies!!!!)
I use a leftover produce bag to gather all the vegetable scraps from cooking, then make free soup stock from it later. I keep it in the freezer until I’m ready to make stock. Use onion and garlic skins, carrot ends and peels, celery ends, herb scraps , mushroom stems. Just not anything like kale, cabbage, broccoli as they would be too strong of a flavor. Then these are put into the compost heap after that. Beats paying for soup stock and you don’t waste a thing!
And here I am using a butter knife to scrap that last scant quarter-teaspoon of butter from the wrapper and trying to wipe on the butter in the butter dish!
When I was in grade nine my homec teacher had mentioned to us about the bread-and-brown-sugar thing. So I rushed home and and told my mother about this amazing way to keep the brown sugar from going hard! Just put a piece of bread in it! She looked at me and asked me where we keep the brown sugar. I paused, thought, then hung my head in shame. She’d keep the brown sugar in the BREAD BOX.
The place in my cupboard where I put my olive oil jar – I keep an upside down lid of a yogurt container. If any drips run down the bottle – they go onto the lid instead of the cupboard.
now, that is genius! thank you!
I do that with my pepper grinder. Except I keep it out on my counter, so I have a nice little ceramic dish that is supposed to be for dipping bread into oil… I use it to sit my pepper mill in, because otherwise I always had a pile of pepper on the counter.
AHA! You just told me what I am going to use the adorable, tiny ceramic saucer that I love but have no use for. My pepper grinder makes a HUGE mess!
Something I do commonly that surprised my mother-in-law when I told her about it is to peel overripe bananas and break them into chunks before I put them in the freezer for future banana bread or smoothies. She was just tossing them in, peels and all and then dealing with THAT mess when she wanted to use them.
If you do leave the peels on, you can remove them easily
by running hot water over them.
Greasy, dirty countertops wipe clean easier if you give a quick spray with a water/vinegar mix first 😉
I meant to say, the vinegar cuts the greasy 😉
1) put a few dry grains of rice in your salt shaker, they’ll absorb moisture and prevent the salt from caking.
2) if you’re grilling, take a whole bulb of garlic, wrap in foil, and toss it on the grill too. it gets delicious and mushy, you can pull off a clove and squeeze the garlic onto bread (or anything) just like butter. it keeps more flavor than roasted garlic and all of the bite is gone.
That’s such a great idea!
Hmm. I don’t think I have any cool tips. Unless maybe, does anyone else store their grapes in a colander on a plate in the fridge? I was grapes as soon as I bring them home then stick ’em in a colander/strainer and then they’re ready to grab for effortless (healthy) snacking. I think I learned this from my mom…
Oh, and raw sugar makes a good substitute for “streusel”-like toppings on muffins. Looks cool, adds texture, but is completely effortless.
Oh, and my boyfriend just taught me to store lettuce (and other veggies, but especially lettuce) in papertowels in the fridge. This is probably common knowledge, but I had no idea, and it stays fresh and non-slimey for ages!
Great minds think alike. I have a lovely little ceramic bowl painted with grapes just for this! Keep the “oh I forgot I bought grapes” which get all wrinkly and old.
Plus PICKED-OVER grape-stems on the remaining bunch really visually BUGS me. I think the stems dry out faster, thus the grapes wither faster too.
My Solution:
To PREVENT this, is to snip the grapes into smaller clusters, using a pair of kitchen shears. The grapes remain fresher, because they get eaten in a more timely matter too!
I LOVE this!!! I always despaired at all that left over butter on the wrapper that was getting thrown away. Well — NO MORE!!!! Thanks!!!
I didn’t know this butter wrap thing. I usually throw mine away. Thanks for the tip. Another note, when my hands smell like garlic/onion/fish I just squeeze some lemon juice on my hands and the smell is gone.
I… picked this up somewhere. I honestly don’t know where, except that it wasn’t my mom because she gets ticked when I leave the wrappings in the door of the fridge, and it wasn’t my granny because once I did this when she was making a pie for Thanksgiving, and she gave me a Look and rubbed the butterstick over it anyway.
I don’t know if this is something novel, but whenever I
am too lazydon’t have time to completely rinse out a dish while it’s waiting for the dishwasher, I fill it with water. That way, when Iabsolutely have tohave the time it isn’t all crusted over, and I can usually just rinse it out.Wait! Another one! And this one’s more legitimate. Maybe.
If you put the heel of a loaf of bread in with brown sugar, it keeps it from caking solid, because it absorbs moisture or because of the yeast or because the house hobs like it. The bread doesn’t get moldy because of the sugar, although it does get stale eventually.
I do this with cookies. They are AMAZINGLY soft and it will even restore cookies that have gotten hard.
When I go to store cookies (if they ever make it that far!) I line the container with bread, pile the cookies on and then add another on top. We did this when I was a kid and I had a lot of people (when I took them to school bake sales) ask me why. I hear you can do this with apples to, but the bread works, so never tried it.
And girls, when I say soft, I mean it, if you leave it to long, the cookie will break apart when you pick it up it’s so soft!
I also grew up doing this, thanks to my mom!
This is what my mom and granny were doing. My another tip is for cleaning microwave. When it is very dirty or sticky, I put a half of lemon and cook it for minute or two in the microwave. After this cleaning is just one minute without any problems.
omg. you just saved me a lot of time. I could hug you. Thank you for the tip.
A cup of water works too.
My mom taught me this too. 🙂
this is how my mom taught me!