Genneaux's Profile

The best part about frozen (whole) tomatoes is how easy it is to take the skins off-- just run them under warm water and the skins slip right off.

Then I just chop them frozen and use them for sauce.

Freezing things I never thought of freezing before has helped a lot.

Squeezed juice leftovers (lime, lemon, oj) used to sit in small tupperware in the fridge forever-- now they go right into a dedicated ice cube tray. If I remember to zest the fruit first, that gets frozen, too. The last 1-1/2 cups of boxed broth/stock: frozen flat in a ziploc. Fresh ginger gets cut into 1-2 inch pieces and frozen immediately. After using that single tablespoon of tomato paste, the rest of the can gets dolloped onto a wax paper-lined toaster oven tray, frozen then collected in a ziploc. Bread heels: ground up and frozen for bread crumbs.

We're looking into getting a chest freezer because it's getting a little crowded above the fridge now. Big thanks to Re-Nest and Re-Nest commenters for most of these ideas.

We're a little compulsive about saving corks and bottle caps, too and when we ran out of containers and space to put those containers, we put the caps to use as inorganic mulch under our backporch steps. The caps keep the weeds from coming and the neighborhood cats from using the area as a litter box.

Poking around in the pile is fun, too-- all the memories associated with individual caps; the time that Fuller's 22ozers were on sale and we bought 5 cases, the era when all we drank was Bass, the question of why on earth there's a Special Export cap in the mix...

I was adoring this kitchen when I clicked through the photos and realized "I have that spice rack!" It's Dansk and had been hanging in my parents kitchen for twenty years when they gave it to me. It makes very satisfying noise when you spin it around. I've never seen another one.