With little hands using our condiment bottles, they can get kinda messy. I usually wipe the tops before putting them away, but now that my kids are old enough to put things away for me, the cleaning part doesn't get done.

It's pretty embarrassing to pull out ketchup or hot sauce for guests and have them find dried condiment all over or around the lid!

Tip: When we're planning a barbeque and will be using condiments, I pull them out and clean the lids before the guests arrive. If it's something we don't use often (like ketchup), the lid may need to be washed (in hot soapy water) for all the dried goop to come off.

Yay! Clean lids! :) Now no one will ever know that our 2-year-old was using that ketchup bottle... ;)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Healthy alternatives for thickening sauces (Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Dehydrating, canning, freezing comparisons (Whole New Mom)
3. Freezing dessert portions (Western Warmth)
4. Making the most of your CSA share (The Local Cook)
5. Freeze extra marinade (Simply Made Home)
6. Watermelon tips (Ponder Your Path)
7. No stick cookies (The Joyful Wife)
8. Reviving over-microwaved peas (Rie 'n Wheat)
9. Reuse take-out containers (Under the Big Oak Tree)
10. Stale foods (Moms Frugal)
11. Quinoa tips (Wholesome Homemaker)

Did you know that wooden grilling planks can be re-used? Well, they can! We soak ours for at least 2 hours, leaving them quite saturated.

After grilling fish (usually salmon), I wash the plank in my dish water with a soapy scrub brush. It comes mostly clean -- which is okay because...

...after the board is washed, I wrap the still-wet board in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. Now I have a pre-soaked grilling plank ready for next time! :)

My favorite grill-planked foods are Cedar Plank Salmon and Alder-Plank Potatoes... yummy!!

Joshua's Weber Q gas grill is still holding strong. This will be our 9th year of using it! A friend gave us an extra tank of propane, which is very handy since we grill a lot.

This past weekend, Joshua and the boys cleaned off the deck and chairs. There were pine needles, maple tree "helicopter seeds", and algae growing. A sturdy scrub brush, soapy water, and a broom had things looking sparkly out there in the sunshine when they finished! I love eating outside. (It keeps the crumbs off my kitchen floor!) :)

By the way, this week I'm departing from my bad habit of blogging only on Tuesdays. ;) Come back tomorrow for a fun Mother's Day giveaway! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Pasta cooking tip (Newlyweds Blog)
2. Water tips (Moms Frugal)
3. Prepping garlic tip (Frugal in Florida)
4. Storing asparagus + homemade veggie wash (The Joyful Wife)
5. Vinegar tips (The Local Cook)
6. Opening difficult jars (Feel Good About Dinner)
7. Apple cider vinegar tips (Simply Made Home)
8. Baking soda / washing soda tip (Nature's Nurture)
9. Butterfly cake and decorating/frosting tips (All Done Monkey)
10. Guacamole and avocado tips (Wholesome Homemaker)

I love snacks! But more importantly, I get hungry a lot and need to eat snacks between meals. As a breastfeeding mom, I'm even more hungry than "normal". But I can't let my eating habits go out the window just because I'm extra hungry! I need to have a plan for healthy snacking options.

My tip? Plan ahead and make snacks ahead for easier, healthier snacks! Here are some of my current favorite snack solutions.

Homemade hummus (made in a big batch in my crock pot and then frozen in smaller containers), carrots, and celery for dipping. I try to get carrots and celery ready for several days all at once -- a big bag of celery sticks and a big bag of carrot sticks.

Having the carrots and celery ready-to-eat in the fridge makes it easy to grab one-handed while I'm holding my baby and doing school with the boys. The hummus helps satisfy my hunger more than just carrots and celery. Hummus isn't low-calorie (if you pile it on like I do!) but it's got lots of fiber and protein and good fats (I use olive oil), and it's filling and delicious! :)

Greek yogurt is my newest favorite quick snack, from Costco. (It's $3.50 a quart there.) One cup has 140 calories and 24 grams of protein! It's thick and creamy enough to substitute for sour cream, too. (Normal plain yogurt doesn't work for my taste buds when I've tried subbing it for sour cream...)

I usually pair this greek yogurt with some almonds for a snack, since I actually do want the extra fats in my diet (and the yogurt is nonfat).

I've also used this greek yogurt as a yogurt starter for making my own homemade yogurt. It's not as protein-rich, but easy enough to do (now that I've figured out how!) and I can make a gallon at a time.

Cooked pinto beans make a simple lunch or quick snack. When my beans are finished cooking in my crock pot, I ladle them into containers for snacks or lunches. The ones in this photo are for Joshua's lunches: 200 grams of beans, 14 grams of cheese, and a few splashes of hot sauce. Each container is 340 calories. Having a kitchen scale makes it super easy to measure the right amount quickly.

I also like to drink tea throughout the day! It doesn't satisfy hunger, but it's a yummy way to stay hydrated (I usually drink caffeine-free herbal teas). :)

Fresh fruit is another of our go-to snacks! Bananas, apples, pears -- whatever's on sale and looks good. I don't usually cut the fruit (like apples) ahead of time, but having it washed and in the fridge makes it easier to grab one for a snack!

I also got string cheese at Costco last week. It's a favorite of the kids', so I usually ask them to eat a banana or something else first. Otherwise, they'd beg for seconds! :)

Bonus photo: Sleeping Channah. I can't believe how big and chubby she is already!

And one more: Ruth with "the goats at the park". We've had such a lovely Spring, with some rain AND some sunshine. :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Tips for healthier cookies (Bobi at Western Warmth)
2. Foraging for frittata ingredients (The Local Cook)
3. Frugal meal tips (Adrienne at Balanced Platter)
4. Grocery trip tips (Tara at SimplyMadeHome)
5. Having company in a small space (Purposely Frugal)

I use whisks a lot when cooking or baking! They're perfect for beating eggs, sauces, batters, or combining dry ingredients. When my other whisks are dirty, I pull out my makeshift whisks:

Tip: Use beaters from a hand mixer as a make-shift whisk. I just hold one beater in my hand and whisk with it. It works great for smaller tasks! :)

By the way, my very first "Kitchen Tip Tuesdays" tip was about using whisks! :)

Our weather has been like this for days on end:

I think we've spent most of the last two days outside! And today, I got the lawn mowed for the first time this year. Yay! I love a freshly cut lawn and sunshine. Today Yehoshua told me, "I wish every day could be like today." That may have had something to do with the new magnifying glass the boys got and were using out in the sun. ;)

Sweet little Channah in her Noah's Ark dress (handmade by a friend). :)

And I think that's enough off-topic photos for now. ;)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. "Two of everything" tip (Bobi at Western Warmth)
2. 10 tips for ice cream making success (The Local Cook)
3. Slicing onions without tears (Anna at The Joyful Wife)
4. Quick and healthy meal tips (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
5. Tips for setting the table (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
6. How to make your vegetables taste amazing (Mindy at The Purposed Heart)
7. Sparkling stainless steel sink tip (Nature's Nurture)
8. Cooking whole chicken in the crock pot tip + 1 more (Purposely Frugal)
9. Tips for getting more veggies (Tara at SimplyMadeHome)

I use this tip mostly for bananas, but it's good for any ripening fruit that tends to bruise easily, like pears, peaches, etc.

Place a piece of cardboard, bubble wrap, or foam under the fruit (or bag of fruit) as it ripens, to ease the pressure and prevent bruises.

I normally store bananas on a hard shelf. My current "banana shelf" is a hard plastic mesh -- even more likely to bruise a heavy bunch of bananas. I used some old bubble envelopes to make a nice cushion on the shelf for the bunches of bananas.

I hope no one missed me online last week. We were busy enjoying amazing Spring weather! Inside it's Legos, outside it's the bikes. We're blessed to have a nice quiet driveway/road in front of our house. The kids have been outside so much more since we moved from the apartment to this house. I'm SO GLAD for the space! :)

Sometimes I get tired of the clouds, but when the weather is nice here it is really, really nice. 60's and sunny is perfect in my book! :)

And... I really truly will be blogging at least two more times this week. I'll be posting my Eat Well, Spend Less post for April (!!) and then write about some of the new "food things" we've been doing lately. And next week, well, we'll see. I have ideas but run out of time first sometimes. ;)

Related Kitchen Tips:

Easy way to wash fresh fruit

Fruit basket tips 

How to save an avocado without it turning brown

Keeping apple slices fresh

How to ripen pears quickly easily

Snacking on frozen blueberries

When grapes (start to) go bad

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Leeks and green onions tip (Donna at Moms Frugal)
2. More affordable fruit desserts (The Local Coook)
3. Coconut oil tips (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
4. Healthier desserts tips (The Better Mom)
5. Vinegar tips (Tara at Simply Made Home)
6. Hash browns tips (Sarah at Nature's Nurture)
7. Food prep tip (Frugal in Florida)

Note: I'm sorry about the delay in getting these links posted! Our internet was down all day Tuesday.

When I need to chop some greens, like spinach or kale to put in soup, this helps contain the mess:

Split the bag open and chop on the bag. If I'm chopping a lot of greens, I may do this in two batches.

It looks like a lot less after being chopped! For some reason, chopping on the bag seems to be easier and less messy for me. I did use a cutting board under the bag, to protect the landlord's counters. ;)

And be sure to use a dull knife. I used a big sharp knife and chopped away happily... and it cut into the bag a little! We definitely don't want plastic in our food! Normally my dull kitchen knives don't cut the bag at all.

After I took pictures of my chopped kale (it's awesome in Turkey Sausage Kale Soup or Veggie Bean Soup!), I took a picture of what the *rest* of the kitchen counter looked like. Way too full of my junk and projects I keep thinking I'll have time for. Well, I did get some mending done this week and did some decluttering last week, but I'm ready to be done! Plus, the weather has been too nice to spend my free time cleaning junk out of kitchen cupboards. :P :)

And one more bonus picture today: Eliyahu with a Lego drawer. The drawer slides in and out and can hold small things (like treasure maps). :) For Eliyahu's 6th birthday this year, he got The Lego Ideas Book and both boys have spent hours looking through it, reading it, and using ideas from it to create things from our big box of garage-sale Legos! I am amazed at the things the boys have been building. I look at it and just see a jumble of bricks... :)

I've missed blogging! I did pull my camera out last week for some pictures of dinner, and I have some really good stuff to write about... I may start trying to use the computer again during afternoon quiet time... or get up super early to write... :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Using and storing avocado (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Growing green onions in water (Sarah at Nature's Nurture)
3. Egg substitutes in baking (Tara at Feels Like Home)
4.
5.

When I started cooking regularly (which was when I got married 8 years ago), I was a no-nonsense cook. Garnish? Bah! Who needs it?! Taste is all that matters, right? :)

Joshua, however, loves to make foods look beautiful. In the years since I started blogging about food, I've realized the importance of making a dish look attractive. Here are some of my tips for garnishing foods!

The obvious: Place a few parsley sprigs on the plate of food (attractively arranged, with the main dish in the middle of the plate).

Grilled food:

Aside from getting beautiful grill marks on our Weber Q grill, Joshua recommends fresh coarsely ground black pepper to garnish grilled meats or veggies.

Mexican food:

Garnish Mexican food with freshly snipped cilantro or chopped green onions.

Garlic bread:

Add chopped parsley (dried or fresh) or chives to the butter when making garlic bread for a more colorful appearance.

Pizza:

Sprinkle dried basil or Italian seasoning on top of homemade pizza before baking. After baking, sprinkle with crushed red pepper and/or Parmesan cheese.

Salads:

Finely shred some carrot or cheese to garnish a lettuce salad.

Garnish a pasta salad with shredded Parmsean cheese.

Use red onion rather than white or yellow for a more attractive presentation.

Roasted chicken:

Sprinkle with parsley flakes, freshly chopped chives, or kosher salt.

Breads:

Brush beaten egg over bread tops and sprinkle with sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sliced almonds, rolled oats, or wheat bran before baking.

Waffles, french toast, or desserts:

Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Cheesecake, pies, baked apple oatmeal, chai tea lattes, and just about anything else:

Top with whipped cream for some extra style and deliciousness! :)

Any tips to add on the topic of beautiful food? :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Homemade natural blue food coloring (Whole New Mom)
2. Hard-boiled eggs tip (Newlyweds Blog)
3. Tips for simplifying lasagna (Happily Home After)
4. Tip for stocking up on eggs (Feel Good About Dinner)
5. Ingredient substitutions (Whole New Mom)

I'm taking today off from hosting Kitchen Tip Tuesdays. Would you believe we have more doctor appointments and an outpatient surgery scheduled this week?! (I'm not the one having surgery.) At any rate, I'm thinking this has just got to be the last week of doctors, surgeries, and babysitters at our house for hopefully quite a long time! :)

Willa at Armstrong Family Fare is our Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hostess this week while I'm busy baby-snuggling and wrapping up loose ends at home.

Head over to Armstrong Family Fare to add your kitchen tips and check out her tip for Crumbs Made Simple! No, not the kind of crumbs you get when you give a kid a cookie... although those are pretty easy to come by too. ;)

I don't own a spoon rest. (Do you?)

For some reason, spoon rests seem cluttery and annoying to me. I usually just put spoons on the (clean!) counter when cooking and wipe the counter when I'm done. Before I had a dishwasher, that seemed easier than washing an extra dish! :)

When warming up leftovers, I like to use the empty leftovers containers as a "free" temporary spoon rest. The dish is already going to need washed, anyway!

Related tips:

Defrosting and reheating without a microwave

Quick water at the stove

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Transferring dry ingredients without mess; marking containers (Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Keeping lettuce fresh after cutting it (Frugal in Florida)
3. Frying pan tips (The Local Cook)
4. Easy baking soda dispenser (Purposely Frugal)
5. Electric pressure cooker tips (Jayde at The Riley's Blog)

I know I mentioned a family update (and more baby pictures!) last week, but I'm totally guilty of just lounging on the couch and doing a bunch of baby-holding. :D

So this week, I will. I WILL turn on the computer and write about baby stuff and include kid pictures and tell you how we're pronouncing "Channah" and things like that. By Wednesday. (There, I gave a day... so it's official.) :)

But here's just one... Ruth holding Channah. I shared her for a few minutes. ;)

Now, for a kitchen tip:

When I wash rubber (or silicone) spatulas, I feel like I need to take them apart (pull out the handles) in order to get them really clean. It just seems like food and germs probably get trapped where the spatula meets the handle and I can't NOT take it apart. ;)

But washing the parts separately means that the slot on the spatula gets wet, and it takes a long time to completely dry. I don't want to put the spatula back together before it's completely dry, but I also don't want spatulas out on my counter waiting to dry when everything else is put away.

My solution? Put both parts of the spatulas back in the drawer, but not assembled. The drawer isn't air-tight, and the utensils are stored loosely enough that the spatulas can finish drying. When we need a spatula, we grab both parts and put it together before using. :)

Related: Use a spatula to reach things in a high cupboard without needing a stool

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Kneading tip for smooth rolls (Donna at Moms Frugal)
2. Egg tips (The Local Cook)
3. Organizing and filling spices (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
4. Plastic shoebox in the kitchen (Frugal in Florida)
5. Almond milk tip (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
6. Stretching bacon (Kolfinna's Korner)
7. Greasing pans tip (Gwen at Gwen's Nest)
8. Water kefir tips (Gretchen at The Little Pink House)
9. Making bread kits (Gretchen at Extraordinary Ordinary Life)
10. Brown rice tips + switching rice types (Deb at Wholesome Homemaker)
11. Tip for crispy sweet potato fries (SnoWhite at Finding Joy in my Kitchen)