Tips: Counter, sink, table, picnic, baking, food gift ideas

- If you find yourself using too many paper towels in the kitchen, try keeping a box of kleenex on the counter for little pickups.

- Do you use a sponge in the kitchen? Pop it in the dishwasher (cage or weigh it down!) to freshen it.

- Wash cloths make great dish cloths, I buy the super-economy size bag of multi-colored wash cloths (I like to use thin ones) at our local warehouse discount store.

- A tip from my restaurant days - the board of health did not want dishes hand dried because dish towels are seldom used for just dishes and are a major cause of germs being spread in the kitchen. Go out and have some fun while your dishes drip dry.

- Dish cloths or even dish towels make great cloth napkins! Dish towels are especially useful as napkins and even placemats at a picnic. Bring along an extra garbage bag to pop the laundry into.

- By the way, next time you find sheets on sale, pick up a pretty one to use as a picnic tablecloth - great for kids parties too with favorite character prints (as long as another child doesn't yell "hey I have a sheet just like that on my bed - of course at that point his Mom would ask "by the way, does your Son still have that bed-wetting problem?" - there goes the party - maybe it would be wise to buy a sheet with some obscure character that nobody cares about any more!

- When preparing favorite recipes for baked goods (and when I'm in super-efficient mode) I measure out a second (even third, fourth) set of dry ingredients and store them in a zipper-locked bag, jar or plastic bowl (label well and keep the recipe handy). After doing this a while you have a great assortment of make-your-own mixes. These are great hostess gifts too - put the mix in a pretty or pretty/useful container of some kind, wrap a ribbon around the lid and attach a recipe card (with TKL's URL on it of course :-) ). Arrange it all in a cloth napkin-lined basket with some of the other ingredients like whole walnuts, a bag of chocolate chips, a bottle of poppy seeds, lemons, small bottle of liqueur, vanilla beans, etc... This is great for make ahead bread machine mixes too!

Betsy
TKL