Reusable ice for iced water!

I had a lettuce in the fridge last week that was probably getting to its use by date but I really wanted to use it in a salad. I know that you can refresh salad greens in water that you have put ice cubes in to make them swell up and become crispy again but upon looking in the freezer I found that no one had refilled the ice tray.

Keen to use my lettuce, my eye wandered around the freezer and rested on the ice blocks that go into lunch boxes...

Here's what I did...

I filled a container with some tap water, popped in the mini freezer blocks,

Added some lettuce...

And left it all for 5 minutes or so before taking out the lettuce and drying it with a tea towel and adding it to the salad!

Easy as!

I'm never keen to use ice for anything other than drinks (and ant bites) as I only have one ice cube tray that holds maybe twelve cubes at a time - so this was a great way of getting ice cold water with out sacrificing a tray of cubes to the cause!

After the lettuce was done, it was the work of a few seconds to wipe the block and pop 'em back in the freezer which is funny as it would only take a few seconds longer to refill the ice tray with water and put it back in the freezer, but it NEVER happens!

Score card:
Green-ness: 5/5 for using the lettuce and not wasting any more water than nessersary
Frugal-ness: 5/5 for not having to buy another lettuce and throwing out one you have already paid for.
Time cost: Possibly slightly less than if I had used real ice cubes!
Skill level: There isn't one!
Fun-ness: really good to have crispy lettuce in my salad!

Comments

Killing cockroaches with boric acid v borax!

We live in Queensland. We have cockroaches. Lots of cockroaches! Why the NSW rugby team is called the Cockroaches is a mystery to me - surely ours are not only bigger but more plentiful??? At any rate, I don't like living with them (and I'm quite sure they are not so fond of me at the moment!!) and I have been going through the usual gauntlet of sprays, solutions and bombs to get rid of them...

But I'm not so keen on the chemical aspect of all this spraying and bombing. I hate the smell and can almost feel disease and cancer growing in me every time I spray. I'm OK with the resident cockies getting a lungful of chemicals and then keeling over but I feel its impolite (and probably illegal) if my guests and family members do the same thing!!!

We went through a faze of killing them by hand (and flyswatter and rolled up newspaper and underfoot) but its hard and frustrating work and it probably was only culling the dumb and slow ones - leaving the smart fast ones to breed!!!

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What to do when your cat attacks a bird... and doesn't kill it.

We have an eight year old cat who we got as a stray about six years ago. The vet reckoned she was about two when we got her and we did all the right things and got her spayed and vaccinated and all that stuff. She loves people and no matter where you are in the house or garden, she will not be far away. She really good with kids and will put up with the squishiest cuddles and a far bit of toddler tail fascination before bolting out the door to escape. She is well fed (despite the look she is giving me and the empty bowl below...) but not fat - but still the urge to hunt and subsequently kill still seems to be quite strong.

Last weekend, she pounced out of nowhere on a rainbow lorrikeet - thankfully my husband and a band of teenage boys were also there and managed to grab the bird before the cat had done more than pounce. Now we have a slightly mangled still alive but obviously unwell bird on our hands - what do you do?

Here's what we did...

We found a box - popped an old towel in t…

Refilling old candle holders with new home made candles!

I had a number of nice wee candles that had burnt down to the bottom of their containers. They were too nice to throw away and I decided that I might be able to refill them with some more wax that I had lying around and use them again. Jumping straight in as I am apt to do.... I learnt a bit about candle making the hard way!

Here's what I did...

First I gathered up all my old wax. I scooped the wax out of old candles by either melting it for popping the whole container in the freezer for 10 minutes or so - most of the wax just popped out of its container after that!
I bought a length of candle wick from my local handcraft store. This was 6 meters and cost me $4.
I used the double boiler method of melting all my wax together. I used an old tuna can as I was only planning on filling four small candles. Don't let any water boil over into your wax. It will make your candles go funny...
I gently stirred the wax as it melted.
I measured the depth of the candle holders and then doub…

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