Perfect Re-purpose

So Turkey Day is over. The food was great. Lots of leftovers. The stupidity of Black Friday is over. I avoided it. Now, it's the weekend and it is time to tackle the remains of that turkey. Reusing and re-purposing all over the place.

I think my post-T-day soup is what I look forward to more than the turkey itself. Well, very close. Right now, the remains are happily reducing on the stove in a big old enameled stock pot.

Making stock is the ultimate in using everything around you instead of throwing it out. You throw in the parts of the bird you would otherwise toss. You throw in tops of celery and ends of onions that you would otherwise toss. It's the old days. It's using everything because you have to and because it makes good sense and because there is no other way. That, and it kept the house warm.

Naturally, I like to chop up my soup veggies all at once ahead of time. But you have to put them in to the saute pan at different times, not all at once. This means a whole buncha' bowls or plates... kind of a pain. I sighed as I got multiple containers out. Then I thought, Hey...

Yeah, I had picked up, in a hurried situation, for a party, one of those darn veggie trays you get in the store, you know, everything all ready and cut and with the dip right there. It was convenient. Snort. But I did NOT throw out the tray. I figure I could do something with it at some point. I was right. It's perfect for separating my onions, which go in first, then my garlic, which has to go in after the onion or it'll burn... and so on. It was perfect! I love it! I shall keep it for just this purpose til it wears out.

Oh, that's right, it's plastic. It won't wear out. It might break and then become useless, but it won't wear out.

Yeah.

But, I am really enjoying this whole process. I want more. And I kinda love that my hands still smell like celery and onions!

Quick and Easy, No Purchase Necessary

File this one under Major Duh.

I've been fretting over my water bottles. They were getting grungy inside. My lovely Libre Tea bottle, as well... I just couldn't get my hand down in there to scrub them and I didn't have any bottle scrubbers. They got grungier and grungier. Surely, I would have to go buy a stupid plastic thing to get down in there. Wait,t hey make good, eco-friendly,, well-made ones too. Just have to get to that store... Nope, still getting grungy. And damn those fancy eco-scrubbers are pricey. I hate having to pay a lot for green. It's such a pet peeve of mine. But what else to do? I'm not going to buy plastic junk just because it's convenient...

Finally, I looked at my scrubby sponge and I looked at the bamboo spoon in the dish drainer. Um, wait, I can just do this. Uh huh, yeah, just stuffed the sponge into the WaterGeeks bottle I love, and smoosh it around with the handle of the spoon. Wow, that worked so well that it might just get the tea stains off the inside of my Libre. Sure enough...

I don't know what's worse: that it took me so long to come up with that, or that I even pondered buying something to scrub out my bottles. I mean come on. I'm smarter than this. I'm embarrassed for my own brain.

But happy that I have clean bottles now. Tee hee. I guess we all have a long way to go.

Viva la Via

It was doomed from the start.

Starbucks... now, I love me some Starbucks, I really do, lots of people take issue with them, but I worked there in NYC and pretty much had a good experience and they do a lot of philanthropic things and treat their employees decently and damn I love the coffee. (Which may explain that run-on sentence after a few cups this morning.)

But Starbucks came out with Instant Coffee. Do I hate instant coffee? No. I don't drink a lot of it but I have nothing really against it. Hell, I've added instant coffee to my coffee. Yeah I'm just that hooked. What I hate is that they felt the need to put their instant coffee in single serve convenient packs. Of plastic something material. So it's convenient.

With that in mind, I would never have purchased Via to try on my own. But they put a sample on their pound-bags of coffee, so that we may be hooked by its convenience. So I gave it a try, as it came on the pound-bag of coffee we bought for our French press. It's the fair thing to do.

Back to the first statement, though... it was doomed from the start. I must have had it in for myself. I spilled a little of the coffee while opening the packet. The teapot splorged boiling water everywhere when I poured it into the cup. The agave syrup splooshed everywhere and gave me the stickies the rest of the day because it got everywhere around my mug before I realized it. I splashed the coffee out just stirring it. (This was after I DID have coffee previously, so we can't blame it on that.)

While that may have had an effect on my experience, I'll attempt to be objective. Was it delicious? Sure. It was. Better than most other instants? Probably. Is it worth it? Absolutely not. Do we need pre-packaged little bits of instant coffee in ours lives? Nope. These are no better than those stupid plastic pods of coffee that are STILL all the rage (and still causing me rage).

This is definitely a to-avoid product.

Now, if you don't mind, my French press awaits...