What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[jpalmatier83]

Oh no! Nobody said I had to heat up the pickle juice. I just put the hard boiled eggs in the cold pickle juice in the pickle jar. Do I have to take out the eggs and heat or boil the pickle juice before I reuse it?

When I made my Spicy Pickled Beans, I boiled the pickle juice because I had to cook and blend all the fresh ingredients. It never occurred to me that I would have to reheat or reboil used pickle juice.

I don't have jalapeno peppers, but I do have banana peppers I could slice up and put in the jar. That sounds good.

I just think that the pickling liquid absorbs into the egg a bit more if it’s warm when the eggs go in. Same deal, I boil the liquid when I’m adding raw spices and tossing in raw garlic and peppers, then I let it cool to “warm” before I toss the eggs in. Guess it may be a personal preference though. You can let them sit for a bit and see what you think.

 

[gtaus]

That’s a commendable practice for a couple of times. The ‘disposable’ plastic bowls like coolwhip, margarine, sour cream, etc. are not food grade after a few washings. Evidently, the very thin layer of food grade plastic is extremely thin and not meant to be durable. This is why I use plastic storage containers sparingly for food storage reuse.

They are good to give away leftovers to others and you don't have to worry about getting them back like you might want with expensive Tupperware.

Oh, man, thanks for the memories! We had a cupboard FULL of the plastic bowls. My mom would try to buy the butter that was in "our favorite" colors. I recall red, olive green, a brighter green, yellow, and once! a blue one. They were heavy duty plastic too.

Yep, those plastic butter bowls were my favorite for the morning cereal. Also, they were the best for hot soup or chili because they were bigger than mom's "good" dishes.

I just think that the pickling liquid absorbs into the egg a bit more if it’s warm when the eggs go in. Same deal, I boil the liquid when I’m adding raw spices and tossing in raw garlic and peppers, then I let it cool to “warm” before I toss the eggs in. Guess it may be a personal preference though. You can let them sit for a bit and see what you think.

OK. I'll just let the eggs sit a little longer in the cold pickle juice. Last night I sliced up a few banana peppers and put them in the jar as well. Hope it's good to eat in a week or so.

 

[gtaus]

Reusing pickle juice for pickled eggs.

A few weeks ago I made some Spicy Pickled Beans. I finished one jar and used the leftover pickle juice to make pickled eggs. Basically, I just peeled some hard boiled eggs and put them in the jar.

I watched a YouTube video on pickling eggs and the guy said you could start eating them after 24 hours. So, I just got done trying a pickled egg and a slice of pickled banana pepper from the jar. This first batch of eggs was put into a jar with my leftover juice from my Spicy Pickled Beans.

It was actually really good!

OK, just over 24 hours in the jar, so the hardboiled egg had just a tint of pickling at this point. Very nice. I'll try an egg per day to see if the eggs soak up more pickle brine the longer they are in the jar. I wonder if that will change the taste. But right now, it's a winner for me.

Also, it was mentioned that the eggs should be eaten within a week or two even when refrigerated. Maybe they go bad after that? I don't know. How come regular pickles can live in the fridge for months?

According to Alexa, my source of all quick knowledge these days, you should eat the pickled eggs in 3-4 days. Looks like it's salad time....

The frugal part, of course, is that you use the leftover pickle juice once more before you dump it out and you save all the cost, time and effort of mixing up the brine for the eggs. All I did was peel the hard boiled eggs and drop them in the pickle jar. And if you recycle your pickle jars, then you at least get one more use out of them before sending them to the bins.

 

[canne50]

One of my favorite sustainability things is cast iron cookware. Properly seasoned, it is as "no stick" as teflon.

Water picks replace dental floss. My dentist said they are more effective than dental floss unless a person is unusually good with the floss.

The fail that bothers most is feed bags. I wish feed still came in burlap bags.

Thank you for you good ideas!
Feed bags? I open both ends, cut lengthwise on the seam, and save for many things. The best reuse is for covering the chicken coop in winter. It is terribly hot here in SW NM. Because it is, my coop has wide expanses of hardware cloth to keep it ventilated. Fall comes and I use the feed bags in layers to block the wind and some cold, too. We have under eaves openings for winter ventilation.
Reusing them for paint projects, containing oil and grit from rock tumbling, are some of my regular uses.
I like the idea for using them on the work bench!

 

[Sally PB]

Feed bags?

They make great grocery bags. (I don't have a picture.) I don't have any idea how many plastic bags I have NOT brought home once I started using these. Lots.

Another use is as a garbage bag. Tough, rip resistant, and the garbage tags I use will stick to them just fine. I also have used the as wind breaks in the run, stapled to the wood frame of the door.

 

[igorsMistress]

Never heard of using a crock with a dipper for butter. I'm pretty old, but I only remember getting butter in plastic bowls. When the butter was gone, the plastic bowls were washed out and used as cereal and soup bowls. They were nice big bowels, too, not small like our regular dishes.

Thinking about that, it's too bad that we don't have more plastic items that can be reused at home instead of being tossed out as trash or sent to a recycling center at best. Was there not something like mayonnaise jars with handles that you could use as mugs when empty?

I would certainly like to see more food packaged in reusable containers instead of a one use and throw it away in the landfill.

FWIW. after years of asking Dear Wife not to throw out plastic food grade containers with lids, like Cool Whip bowls, she finally got warm to the idea of saving them for leftovers to give away at parties. Not that I had anything to do with changing her mind. She would toss out all those plastic food grade containers and buy cheap plastic stuff at WalMart. Then, she went to a party with her friends and the host sent some leftovers with my wife in a Cool Whip bowl.

Hey, that's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that!?

So, now we are saving the Cool Whip containers to give away, too.

A butter bell keeps it at room temp and they are usually ceramic. You do need to change the water every three days or so.

 

[alwaystj9]

I have a butter bell but kitchen stays too warm most of the year and the butter ball slips out of the butter bell and plops into the water. It does make a nice soft and spreadable butter during winter and spring. This is what you are calling a butter bell, right?

 

[gtaus]

Originally posted in the gardening thread, I thought I should copy this here as well because it deals with saving money on seed storage boxes...

I am thinking I need a better way to organize and store my seeds. Right now I just have them in a small 4X6 inch cardboard box...

All my current seeds fit in that little box. However, I am starting to save seeds from plants we are growing. So, I can imagine needing more room for the seeds. Also, I have been reading and watching that it would be better to keep them dark and airtight if possible. Another consideration is making the seed box mouse proof. Last year Dear Wife saved some seeds, left them on a plate to dry out, and one night a mouse must have found them and ate them all. She was devastated. So any storage system will have to be mouse proof as well.

I looked on Amazon and their "Seed Boxes" are pretty darned expensive. I mean, some of them are nothing more than a metal can with "Seeds" painted on it...

Well, heck, I know that Harbor Freight has waterproof and airtight ammo boxes on sale all the time. I found this 11.6 X 4.25 X 6 inch ammo box on sale this month for $3.99...

That's the smallest ammo box they have at the store. They have larger sizes, too. But this small ammo box would be double what I currently have for storage.

My goal is to stop buying new seeds every year. If possible, I will save seeds from our plants when we can, but I would also like to buy seed packs at the end of the season at great discounts and save them for the next year.

I also checked YouTube to see if anyone was using these water resistant ammo boxes for seed storage and found this video short...

The small ammo box (with twice the capacity I am using right now) looks like it might be good enough for my current and immediate future needs. Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated. I am open to all suggestions. Thanks.

 

[LizzzyJo]

Originally posted in the gardening thread, I thought I should copy this here as well because it deals with saving money on seed storage boxes...

I am thinking I need a better way to organize and store my seeds. Right now I just have them in a small 4X6 inch cardboard box...

All my current seeds fit in that little box. However, I am starting to save seeds from plants we are growing. So, I can imagine needing more room for the seeds. Also, I have been reading and watching that it would be better to keep them dark and airtight if possible. Another consideration is making the seed box mouse proof. Last year Dear Wife saved some seeds, left them on a plate to dry out, and one night a mouse must have found them and ate them all. She was devastated. So any storage system will have to be mouse proof as well.

I looked on Amazon and their "Seed Boxes" are pretty darned expensive. I mean, some of them are nothing more than a metal can with "Seeds" painted on it...

Well, heck, I know that Harbor Freight has waterproof and airtight ammo boxes on sale all the time. I found this 11.6 X 4.25 X 6 inch ammo box on sale this month for $3.99...

That's the smallest ammo box they have at the store. They have larger sizes, too. But this small ammo box would be double what I currently have for storage.

My goal is to stop buying new seeds every year. If possible, I will save seeds from our plants when we can, but I would also like to buy seed packs at the end of the season at great discounts and save them for the next year.

I also checked YouTube to see if anyone was using these water resistant ammo boxes for seed storage and found this video short...

The small ammo box (with twice the capacity I am using right now) looks like it might be good enough for my current and immediate future needs. Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated. I am open to all suggestions. Thanks.

While I don’t have a perfect solution, I’ve had issues sealing my seeds in plastics boxes in the past. As I use them and put them back while planting they get wet and mold in airtight containers. It depends on how you use them and if you always use the whole bag and don’t get them damp outside.

 

[igorsMistress]

Oh no! Nobody said I had to heat up the pickle juice. I just put the hard boiled eggs in the cold pickle juice in the pickle jar. Do I have to take out the eggs and heat or boil the pickle juice before I reuse it?

When I made my Spicy Pickled Beans, I boiled the pickle juice because I had to cook and blend all the fresh ingredients. It never occurred to me that I would have to reheat or reboil used pickle juice.

I don't have jalapeno peppers, but I do have banana peppers I could slice up and put in the jar. That sounds good.

I don’t heat it, just put the eggs in and that works fine.