When I was growing up, my parents reused and recycled almost everything. All items were used until they were falling apart. My dad would wrap his sandwiches in wax paper until the paper was in tatters before he would use another piece.
Plastic wasn't used much either in the house. Since we had every size Mason and Ball jar ever made for canning purposes and making
jelly and jam, they were great for storing leftover food. If anything got stored on a plate, then
aluminum foil was used to cover the plate. Nothing ever went to waste in our dirt poor household. The motto passed down to my 7 siblings and I was "waste not, want not!!"
I still use aluminum foil for almost everything. It is strong, durable, and efficient. It comes in all kinds of sizes now, not like when I was a kid and you had to tear off a tiny piece for a tiny item. Best of all, when it wears out, I just throw it in the recycling bin with the aluminum cans. I like it so much that I thought I would compile a list and share with you all the things to do with this handy item besides keeping food warm, so please join me after the break.
- When my scissors get dull, I layer about 7 pieces of foil and cut through them, and the scissors are sharp once again.
- I often forget to take my gold wedding ring and my silver cross ring off my fingers when I am doing dishes or grubbing around the house, so I put them in aluminum foil and put in some salt solution and leave it overnight. The next morning they look like new.
- Sometimes I go on a baking streak, and I find my brown sugar has gotten hard. To soften the sugar, I wrap it in foil and bake it in a 300 degree oven for 5 minutes. To keep it soft, I leave it wrapped in the foil and enclose in a labeled ziploc bag.
- Ball up some foil and use it to clean the gunk off your grill. It cleans just as well as a wire scrub brush.
- Makes great gift wrapping paper in a pinch and can be decorated as you wish.
- I use foil to clean the baked on gunk off my pots and pans. It works just as well as a steel wool scrub pad.
- Wrap your hardware and doorknobs in foil so that they don't get dripped on when you are painting.
- Half way through the baking process, take a length of foil and wrap around the edge of your pie, securing with a metal paper clip. This will prevent your crust from browning too much.
- Roll a double thickness of heavy duty foil into a cone shape, snip off the end, and use as a pouring funnel.
- Use it as a temporary piping bag or pastry bag by rolling it into a double thickness and leaving just a tiny hole at the pointed end. Fold down the top of the cone so nothing oozes out or twist the top closed.
- Put a length of foil on your oven rack to catch spills. Many pizzas have instructions that tell you to bake the pizza on the rack, but what a mess that can make. Putting the pizza on cooking sprayed foil will save a big mess.
- Since I love grilled vegetables, especially mushrooms, I top them with some butter and whatever herb or spice I am in the mood for, wrap them in a foil packet and give them to my husband to put on the grill with the steaks.
- To prevent stuck on food in my baking pans and cookie sheets, I will line them with foil. It cuts down on cleaning time and leaves my pans looking just as good as they did when they went into the oven. Rinse off the sheets if they are not to disastrous and save them for another baking session, or rinse them off and put them in your recycling bin.
- To prevent static electricity in your clothing, throw a small crumpled up ball of foil into your dryer.
- For clothing items that can't take direct heat, such as rayon, silk, and wool, you can get the wrinkles out by placing a piece of foil on your ironing board. Put the garment over the foil, and pass 3 inches above the garment several times with the iron, holding down the steam button the entire time. The wet heat from the foil with rid the garment of wrinkles.
These ideas are some of my favorites, and ones that were used in my childhood home as well as in my home now. I think that as long as they make aluminum foil, I will use it. Foil will be a staple in my household forever I think!! After all, it is recyclable too and is easily kept out of the landfills. What do you use aluminum foil for?
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Reader comments (Page 5 of 5)
Amazing uses. As an origami enthusiast, I use aluminum foil to create a type of paper called "tissue-foil": we take the foil and paste tissue paper over it. You can see the results in my blog: http://jaycer4ever.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/my-love-of-paper-folding/
ReplyI am suscribing to your feed, this is a really cool blog!
You can use aluminum foil to cover your drip pans in your stovetop to catch spills and save yourself some scrubbing.
Replyhttp://coffeecup.ning.com
aluminum foil makes a great rust remover that does not scratch the iron.
ReplyJust add a little water and rub the rust off.
I use aluminium for wrapping gifts too, and I saw Jack Osbourne does the same thing.
ReplyI'm pretty wary of aluminium now though. I know there are problems with it at higher temperatures, and also mixing it with a lye solution generates toxic fumes, which is good info for soap-makers to know. Yep.
Btw, ice block fog doesn't come from Planet Mongo, it's a phenonemon generated from the waste pods from Fenark tailgate parties colliding with Solar Pumes. Everyone knows that. Do some f**king research.
Auberda is a bit precious - especially when she finishes a sentence with 'it'.
ReplyIf you are going to chastise someone over a perfectly understandable thing that you don't like, then take the time to spell their name right. Grammar mistakes are distracting and do take away from the message.
ReplyDion said on Sep 12th 2007 @ 11:37AM
Hey "Auburda". What, are you the grammar police? Or, just Anal???
Did "I" spell "Anal" correctly??? Get a life Miss "I'm sooo Perfect"!!!
Maybe you mistakenly took this for an English class? Normal people don't care if someone makes a mistake with grammar. "I", and no one else cares what you think! He offers tin foil tips and you bitch about the way he used "I". Maybe you're just angry or bitter about having that stupid name. Maybe you get off on attacking people? I prefer on defending people from grammar bullies like u. Whatever.
Aluminum foil is all well and good, but the only thing I use it for is to cover my cheesecakes because I don't have a proper cake carrier. Otherwise, most of your suggestions seem like a waste of resources.
My new favorite foil use saves a SOS pad almost forever.
ReplyCut a 2 inch square of foil, leave it near sink and place your SOS pad on it when not in use.
No more rust.......ever !! Please try it, works great !!
While these suggestions are all useful, they all simply involve replacing a wasteful household item with another wasteful household item, for the sake of convenience and cost efficiency. Where does environmental concern enter the equation.
ReplySure, it may be convenient to use 7 layers of foil simply to cut through for sharpening scissors. Ever hear of a whetstone. It's made of rock, and is not a disposable, convenient commodity.
Why use two sheets of foil to make a funnel, when you could either use something more flimsy and, in your eyes, equally disposable, such as a piece of paper (glossy magazine covers work well for liquids). Or, if Al foil makes such a great funnel, buy an Al funnel that will last for years, instead of one made from 3/4 of the material that will only last for a few uses.
Aluminum foil requires huge amounts of electricity to extract it from its ore, and is therefore an extremely energy intensive resource to produce. While you might feel giddy tossing Al into the container with the rest of your soda cans (which have also only been used once), you seem unaware that recycling it is also very energy intensive. So instead of replacing one wasteful product for another, why not learn to live without them.
While Martha Stewart might like your suggestions, environmentally they are bogus.
I use aluminum foil to test my microwave oven for radiation leaks. I do this by turning on my microwave. And move a small piece of aluminum foil along the edge of the doorway. If sparking appears on the aluminum foil, then the microwave then it is leaking radiation.
ReplyIf you're so fond of aluminium you must be thrilled about the tons of aluminiumoxide that get dumped in our atmosphere every hour by US Airdefense. Aluminium is toxic, and will cause cancer.
ReplyBon appetit!
@Auburda & @Kathy:
ReplyYou are so incredibly full of yourselves. You are the kind of blogreader nobody wants. What kind of snobby attitude is that? It's just along the lines of TLDR. Here is a person with useful information and all you can do is whine about the package it comes in.
Get a life, sore losers.