It also doesn't bend your spoon if you use an actual ice cream scoop instead of a spoon.

Trim the top and bottom of the celery (cut it off of the root if it is still attached) and drop the stalks upright into a pitcher or jar of ice-cold water to re-crisp. You can also store celery like this. The ice water trick also works on tired broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, lettuce, and spinach.




and for strawberries, instead of cutting off the whole top to get the stem off, just poke a straw through the bottom and out the top, whole thing pops right off clean

Dpup, that strawberry trick is pretty rad. Your celery one made me think of this:

Keep leafy herbs like parsley and cilnatro waaaaaaaay longer in just two simple steps:

1. When you get them, wash them immediately. Dry the bunch in a salad spinner, then spread the herbs out on top of a clean, folded dish towel. Allow them to dry completely.

2. Arrange the dried herbs in a loose bunch, and wrap the bunch in dry paper towels. Put the towel-wrapped herbs in a plastic container, then put that in your crisper. Your parsley will keep for nearly a month.

been doing the paper towel thing for years....its a good one

I'm skeptical that this would keep your ice cream "soft" -- the ambient temp of the freezer is going to make its way through a ziplock bag. What it will do is keep excess moisture out of your ice cream, and the constant opening of the freezer door would then not make your ice cream turn icy.

So I'm driving to Seattle tomorrow to meet with a co-packer. And then I'm going to have a look at this lil' cutie:



The idea is that I could fix 'er up and trick 'er out, and have a mobile soda fountain with homemade sodas, sundaes, etc. Very limited menu of 4-6 ice cream flavors, and a daily featured float, a sundae, maybe an ice cream sandwich.

It really does work. Been using this method for months.

You know how I get my ice cream soft enough? I leave it on the counter and go do something else for a few minutes and then come back to it.

Microwave 15 seconds

As do most people. But eventually this degrades the quality of your ice cream, as the water molecules that are emulsified in the ice cream, plus any ambient humidity, start to create ice crystals.

buy better spoons

I don't know I usually go through a quart and a half of ice cream quickly enough that I don't notice any degradation in quality.

Yea, if you're eating it fast it's a non-issue.

After trying the strawberry trick I found that I prefer a single chop stick. Pokes through the bottom easy and doesn't clog shut like a straw

We got a new oven today. It's all shiney and clean and I want to keep it that way. Cos invarably I always get stuck having to clean it and that's a tough job.

Any ideas to keep it from getting all greasy n gunked up?

wipe it down after each use. You let stuff build up in there then it bakes and gets harder to remove. 1 minute of wiping down after each use saves 1 hour of cleaning later.

Yeah I was thinking that would be the only way. We cover everything in tinfoil usually anyways. Still gets all greasy though somehow.

I tried the straw through the strawberry trick this morning. Worked perfectly.