Two Cents Tuesday: Muffin Tin Sorter and Server

September 20, 2011 By 13 Comments

Why I am writing the Two Cent Tuesday? I need to stop having ideas and having Brian tell me it is my idea so it is my post! Here it goes Two Cent Tuesday … a Beth version.

Every need a bunch of little bowls in the kitchen and not have enough. Yeah, that was me a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to get Grace’s Rainbow Cake done. I need to sort the jelly beans by color. I knew I had like 6 or 8 glass bowls but I also have SIX little hands in the house that grab stuff from the table as they desire. I dashed around the kitchen for an instant and remembered the muffin tin that I just saw when I put the cool rack away under the stove. 12 little cups … more than I needed. I then delegated … umm, asked nicely who was willing to help me sort colors. My 5 and 3.5 year old were ALL over this. Matthew even was trying his best little two year old effort of matching colors. In no time flat, I had jelly beans sorted …

I made the cake and left the muffin tin on the table. The next thing I knew the parents were asking if they could eat them. Sure. So I went and grabbed a bag of pretzel M&Ms and added to the empty spaces.

 

The muffin tin was just about cleaned out (minus the black!) at the end of the party from all of the hands grabbing the candy that I had to restock for the pictures … and then the hands were at it again.

Now my muffin tins are well abused … and loved. They show that I use them! So no pretty display but you know what, no one cared. They were thrilled to pick out their favorite color and not dig through plus the kids had so much fun color matching!

A cake post is to come but here was the Rainbow Cake that I needed the jelly beans sorted for …

What have you used your muffin tin for? I know people use them for kid’s lunches sometimes but there have to be some other ideas out there. Leave me a comment and let me know!

Filed Under: Memes, Simply Food, Tips & Techniques, Two Cents Tuesday Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Two Cents Tuesday: Saving Seeds

August 16, 2011 By 4 Comments

Do you have plans to plant a garden next Spring? You can start thinking about that now! If you get a fruit or vegetable you love, you can save the seeds and plant them next year. Saving seeds can be a big budget saver as seed packets can be $1-5 depending on the variety and brand of the seeds.

We had a really nice cantaloupe from our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Liberty Mills Farm, last week. Beth decided to save some of the seeds. She washed them off to get the inside pulp of the fruit off them. You want to wash them off because they will rot if they have the fruit still on them. Then just lay them out on a paper towel to dry. Generally you just need to leave them out a day or so. If you do this with bigger seeds such as pumpkin seeds, they will take longer to dry.  Once they are dry, we put them in a ziploc sandwich bag and write what they are, where the seeds were from, and the date. We store seeds we keep like this in the freezer so they don’t get funky. They aren’t processed like the seeds you buy at the store so the freezer keeps them good for the Spring.

Do you keep seeds to plant for next year? If so, what process do you use to store them?

 

Filed Under: Charlottesville, Home & Garden, Memes, Simply Life, Simply Local, Two Cents Tuesday Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,