Reuse In the Kitchen

Reuse In the Kitchen

Kitchens offer many reuse and repurpose opportunities and today, I'm hoping to inspire you with a few ideas that can save money too. 

Brown paper bags, while reusable, recyclable and compostable, can be an aide in the kitchen as well. Cut a clean paper bag open so that it will lie flat, with the inside up, on a large cooling rack. Place freshly baked cookies on the paper to cool; the paper will absorb excess fat and the used paper bag is still compostable. 

Both plastic bags and foil can be reused several times before recycling; wash by hand, dry and store until they needed. Once they have come in contact with meat, throw them away – recycling centres don’t want them either. Once a large plastic bag has sprung a leak or the zipper seal fails or anything like that, they can be cut open to form a sheet. This can be used as a drop sheet for a craft and kitchen projects or as a temporary cover for starting garden seeds. Alternatively if the sheet is very clean you can use it in place of wax paper for freezing purposes – such as separating meat or veggie patties. And did you know wax paper is compostable?

Speaking of wax paper, consider washing the wax paper cereal, cookie or cracker box liners. Once the wax paper 'bag' is completely dry, use a pair of sharp scissors and cut out the seam and ragged edges so that you have one clean sheet. At this time you might want to go ahead and cut the sheet into 3” square pieces. They don’t need to be perfect squares. You might find you have other uses that require 4” squares or maybe you want a few full sheets stored as well. Store in a self-sealing zipper style plastic bag in the cupboard where you have muffin tin liners and rolls of foil or plastic wrap. Store clean foil sheets in the same way. 

Having the squares or sheets handy, ready to use when you need them, stretches the budget just a little further because you'll have to purchase fewer boxes of foil, plastic and wax paper. Picture in your mind all the boxes, little strips of metal for ripping sheets off the roll, the cardboard roll itself, and all the time shopping to get these various rolls of items in your cupboard. By reusing these it results in a heck of a lot less packaging, fewer things to buy, less waste and less time in the grocery store. Reuse really does pay us back for the effort we put in.

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