When life gives you lemons

Or rotten apples.

Recently, Dear Darling, picked up one of those 3 or 5 pound bags of apples at the grocery store.  I hate those.

I worked in a grocery store, I know how "the kids" handle those bags.  They get tossed and thrown and dropped like crazy.  What do kids care?  When no adult is watching them, they don't.  They want to have fun and they don't care if the apples get bruised and then rot before selling.

So, when we got home, I felt the apples in the bag and about half were soft or rotten.  Before, I would just throw them out.  That would have been more than 30% food waste going to the landfill.  Instead, I let them sit on the counter while we put away the rest of the shopping order.

The apples still "looked" nice. It was as if they were just asking to not be thrown away.

I could put them into the compost pile, or feed them to the worms, were my initial thoughts.  But then, I remembered that my mother used to make a snack type cake with apples and a box of cake mix, and I knew I had a box of yellow cake mix in the pantry. 

My mother is not around to ask for this recipe, so I went to allrecipes . com and put apples into the search and got the following recipe.

Apple Snack Squares

I followed the recipe, but I did use all the apples, which were Macoun, and on the smaller side, so I ended up with about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of chopped apples.

It came out WONDERFUL! and we both loved it.

Dear Darling mentioned that this was something that his grandmother would have done, she never wasted anything.  For me, that was a great compliment.

Next time that life gives you lemons, or rotten apples, take the time to look at them from a different angle and see what you can do with them.

Plastic

How much of the plastic that you "purchase" do you use?

What I mean is, when an item, say lettuce, comes in a plastic container, which is becoming the norm in many grocery stores, how many of those containers do you save?  What do you do with them?  AND where do you store them all?

I have been saving them and using them for the following:

• They make nice containers for things, such as cookies, where you don't want to worry about getting a nice container back.
• I have used them for holding compost items in the fridge til I take them to the pile.
• I have used them as seed starting trays.

I know that I don't have to "buy" items in these plastic containers, but I have found that the lettuce in these containers tends to be fresher and stay longer.  Plus, they pack so much into the container it seems the greens go on forever.

I feel guilty if I don't try to use them at least once before recycling them into the garbage pick up.  So I'm looking for other ideas of how to use them.

I also try to "reuse" the coffee containers,  those are great for "hiding" things in, because I buy Folgers and those containers are red.  When I get a good deal on chocolate chips or chocolate kisses, I put them in there, that way, when I want to bake cookies, I have them!

Now, the plastic bags that grapes or oranges come in, I rinse them out and put them on the side, but I still haven't figured out what to use them for.  I already save and reuse Ziploc bags if they haven't had raw meat in them, they get used until they have holes in them.

When I forget my reusable shopping bags, and get a plastic one, I try to reuse those as well, usually in the bathrooms for the garbage cans.  Or they get used as dog poop bags.  I don't have many of those anymore though.

What types of things do you do with your plastic? AND where do you store them?

My wool blanket

 

This is our new to us, wool blanket.

 

 

 

I saw this post over at  Nutmeg and Linen and just loved the idea of putting a crochet edge on a blanket.  So, I was on a mission! 

 

 

 

After searching a few days on eBay, I came across this blanket that I felt would work perfectly in our bedroom.  The color looked nice, the size was good, it is a vintage, American made wool blanket, made by Fabrio mills in Minnesota.  The seller had good reviews, seemed honest, so I took to watching and then bidding.  I figured that if I got it and didn't like it, I could always cover and "guilt" it and no one would see an ugly, wool blanket, but a pretty first try at making a spread for the bed.

 

 

And, I won!

 

When the blanket finally arrived, I was so thrilled with it, I couldn't have been happier, the color was right, the description of it was right.  I was/am a happy camper.





The blanket arrived clean, but I threw it into the dryer for a few minutes and then threw it out on the line to make sure it was fresh.

I have since taken the satin edging off and have begun the task of blanket stitch and crochet shells for the edge.

I have to say, for a vintage blanket, it looks brand new, and it is SOFT.  Even Dear Darling commented on how soft the blanket was, while suggesting that we use it as a living room blanket instead of putting it on the bed!

Pictures to follow once I've finished.