Green Living
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
? for paper-free towel users.
I am *this close* to being able to stay away from paper towels but have two situations where I can't figure out a solution. Can you help, please?
1. Greasing cake pans
2. Wiping rims of plates (explanation: I am forever spilling sauces, soups, whatever when I serve. I wipe the edge of the plate before I serve it so the splashes don't drip off the side onto the floor or get onto someone's sleeve if they accidentally brush against it.)
In both cases all I can see is using a towel once, rinsing the heck out of it in the sink to remove the grease/food, and then washing as normal. But that's a heck of a lot of water down the drain and I can easily burn through 4 or 5 towels in a day this way. I figure you might have a solution for me!
Re: ? for paper-free towel users.
1. I fold down the sides of the butter wrapper on one end and rub the butter around the pan. I don't know if that's the right or wrong way but that's what I learned from my mom and grandma who have never used paper towels.
2. I would use my cloth "paper" towels for that.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
I can't do the wrap and fold method because our butter comes in these obnoxiously large cubes that have roundy corners so you can't get the pan greased properly.
I miss my normal sized cubes! But I will try the pastry brush option- that should work out perfectly. I wonder if I can find a dish-washer-able one that isn't plastic. Wish me luck!
Seriously, what is wrong with using your fingers? It works. Just wash them before and after.
I am also a finger user.
I would use cloth to wipe the plates.
Fingers are fine when the pan is cold. But sometimes I have to re-grease the pan/sheet between batches. Yikes! In that case, a brush would be much better than a big wadge of paper.
Out of curiosity, how many towels/cloths/rags do you use in a day? Maybe my problem is I am trying too hard to get by on too few.
For the other use, i'd just use a cheap kitchen towel (one you don't mind staining).
Best sound ever: baby's heartbeat! (Heard @ 10w1d)
I have never used paper towels in those scenarios, so it can be done. I don't limit my use of towels/rags/cloths, they just get demoted until they reach the laundry. The plate wiper would be my hand towel for the rest of the day.
Did NOT know my oily cloths could ignite in the dryer. gah.
For buttering pans, just use the butter wrapper. Growing up we always saved butter wrappers for this! But even if you don't save them, you just unwrap your butter, use the paper wrapper, and then rewrap the butter (if you'd like to keep the wrapper on it).
As for wiping up splatters on the edge of plates, well just use a towel.
We either use a little olive oil and a pastry brush (we have a red silicon one that goes in the DW) or DH uses butter and his hands. I hate the feeling of butter, don't ask me why it's just one of my quirky things. We've never used a PT for this.
Use a towel. We probably go through 1-2 towels a day. I have different sizes for different uses. I use small ones for preventing spills on the countertop, like when I crack eggs into a bowl. Medium for wiping up spills, and large ones for drying hands and dishes. We also have non-lint towels for drying the cast iron pan, plus cloth napkins for eating.
1. I use olive oil and a pastry brush or run the butter directly on the pan.
2. One-use-and-wash cloths (cut from old T-shirts). Ours are the size of 1/2 paper towel, so they are easy to use for small jobs. I think not over-using the cloth is the key to keeping it sanitary.
That said, we do keep recycled PT on hand for things like bacon grease. Using newspaper grosses me out and the grease has made our cloths non-absorbant when we tried that. We go through 1 roll every few months and stick to the cloth for everything we possibly can.
Thanks everyone! Sorry it takes me so long to respond. *grumbles about stupid time zones*
I like the idea of smaller clothes for one-job-only. I have those big honkin tea towels right now and it seems such a waste to use several of those a day when all you muck up is just a corner. So that is now on the list of must-haves.
I mean, most of these seem like common sense solutions but for some reason I looked at the problem and just draw a blank. I appreciate the help, and the kick-start to get my brain moving again!