Quick Tip: Cereal Bags

Last week I told you guys what I do with just a handful of leftover cereal, and this week I wanted to show you what I do with the leftover cereal bags.  About ten years ago, I found a brand new box of wax paper sheets at a yard sale for a $0.25.  A quarter, you guys!  It had over 1,000 sheets in the box.  I just ran out of them this year.  It was a sad, sad day at my house.

The main reason that I used those sheets, was to separate my hamburger patties when I put them into freezer bags each time I had extras.  They won’t stick together and create a huge clump of raw hamburger meat this way.  Otherwise, what was the point of spending all that time patty-ing them out?

Every time I empty one of our cereal boxes, I save the liner. 

I just open the entire thing up….

Like so.

Cut it in half……

Again, and again, and again, until I get the size I want.

They make perfect separators for my hamburger patties.  And they are FREE.   Which is one of my favorite words.

Quick Tip: Cereal

At our house I buy cereal for snacks.  We don’t eat it as a breakfast food, because it just doesn’t sustain anyone at my house.  But a sweet snack?  Yep.

Inevitably there is always just a handful of cereal left at the bottom of the box.  Every.Single.Time.

Instead of putting that last handful of cereal down the garbage disposal – because NO ONE wants to eat just a handful of cereal with milk, that would just make everyone grumpy – I stick it into a baggy and put it in someones lunchbox for a sweet treat.

Now there is nothing thrown away, and someone will get a sweet surprise at lunch time.

Bread. Use EVERYTHING You Pay For.

You know our love of Nature’s Own Butterbread.  This is NOT sponsored.  Nature’s Own has absolutely no idea who I am or that I am talking about them.  We just love this bread.  Every week when I do our grocery shopping I bring home at least two loaves of this stuff.

It is inevitable though that we are always left with the heels.  Do you call the ends of bread heels?  No one wants to eat them as sandwich bread.  I can, but even I don’t want to eat the heels of the bread.  So I came up with alternative uses for them, that way they aren’t just chucked into the garbage each week.

  • Toast.

I LOVE the heels of bread as toast.  They are usually a lot more robust than the slices of bread, therefore, I feel like I am eating a thick, crunchy piece of homemade toast instead of the thin slices.

  • Breadcrumbs

If I haven’t used them as toast at the end of the week, I stick the heels into a freezer bag and stash it in the freezer.  Then when I need breadcrumbs for meatloaf or anything else, I throw them into my food processor for 30 seconds and I have FREE breadcrumbs.

These are the things I do on a weekly basis.  But here are other things I’ve done in the past that are pretty fantastic too:

  • Croutons

Cut into bite sized pieces, drizzle with olive oil or melted butter, sprinkle with salt, garlic powder, and parmesan and bake until golden brown.

  • Grilled cheese

Butter the INSIDE of the heels and put the cheese on what is normally the OUTSIDE of the bread and fry as normal.  Yummy grilled cheese sandwich.

  • Cheese Toast

This is something my husband taught me.  It tastes very different than a grilled cheese.  Put a piece of cheese on the bread, and bake on the oven rack until melty and golden.  It’s delicious.

  • French Toast Casserole

Liv loves this one.  I’ll post a proper recipe soon.  Essentially you tear the bread into bite sized pieces, beat eggs and milk together with spices of your choice, put the whole thing into the oven and 30 minutes later you cover it with syrup.  YUM.

Now, rapid fire ideas that just popped into my head that I’ve done in the past:

  • Homemade french toast sticks
  • Bread pudding
  • Soften your brown sugar
  • Make stuffing
  • Last but not least:  Feed them to your dog.  Oreo loves them!
  • Homemade Panko

I haven’t actually put this one into practice yet, but I am going to give it a try.   We go through Panko like the house is on fire.  I’ll let you know if it turns out!  It seems very simple though.  I wouldn’t want the breadcrumbs to brown, just dry out.  How hard can it be?  Very famous last words, right?

What do you do with your bread heels?  Please don’t tell me you throw them away!

Butter. Use EVERYTHING you pay for.

Food waste.  I hate it.  If I pay for something, I want to use IT ALL.  Take this butter wrapper for instance.  It’s empty, but still has a slight amount of butter on it.  So…..

I fold them into small squares, so I do not lose any of that buttery goodness…..

Pop them into a baggy, squeeze out all of the air and stick it into the freezer.  Here are just a few of the uses I’ve found for them over the years.

  • Last night I yanked one of these bad boys out of the freezer and rubbed it all over my corn on the cob.
  • Grease a cake pan.
  • Press something ooey and gooey into a pan (like Rice Krispie Treats!).
  • Separate your hamburger patty’s to keep them from sticking together in the freezer.
  • Twist them to use as fire starters.
  • Lay them over the top of just baked bread and give your bread a light coating of butter.  Yum!

The possibilities are endless.  Save on people, save on.  And let me know in the comments what uses you’ve found for your “empty” butter wrappers.

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Onions. Use EVERYTHING you pay for.

One of my personal pet peeves when I watch food videos, or even the Food Network when we had normal TV, is the waste.  Before you start composing your essay to me about the fact that they are making a video and they are under the gun because of time constraints and the cost of making said videos and TV, hear what I have to say.  Please.

I am guilty of it too.  See that photo above?  This is the way I have always cut up my onions.  First, slice off each end.  Second, cut the thing in half.  This way half of my chopping is already done for me.

But the ends always ended up chucked into the garbage disposal.  In my defense, in case you are yelling at your phone right now, telling me off for not discovering this waste in my life until this late date, I’ve been conditioned for it.  Seriously.

Go watch a Giada at Home video, or an old episode of Rachel Ray, or a Tasty video, or….. You get the drift.  They all do it.  I mean, how hard is it to reach for a spatula instead of a whisk.  Stop leaving all of that goodness in the bowl people, I need ALL of the brownie batter in the pan!

And I did it too.  Until now.  Take those ends and peel back the outer skin and cut it all off around the root stem. 

Like so.  Now you have almost nothing left but the outer papery shell of the onion.  If you want to take another giant leap into using every last morsel, get yourself a good freezer bag and plop those papery leftover bits into it and stick it in your freezer.  Do this with all of your non-edible bits – the ends of carrots, celery, any vegetable really, and you have the makings of a stock when you’ve filled up the bag.

Dice up those extra bits and you have a few tablespoons of onion that would have ended up at the water company.  Or your septic tank.  Or the compost pile.  You get the point.  😉

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