Getting the Most Out of Your Back-To-School Supply Shopping

So, its getting to be that time of year again! I don't know about your area but school actually starts THIS WEEK out here! EEEEEEEEEEEK!

I think we are pretty much ready. Junior is totally excited. He's going to be a big 1st grader this year and feels like he has it all handled. I still get a little nervous though-- he's still my baby after all! The best I can hope to do is get us as ready as possible.

Here's a run down of our program-- granted we aren't super experienced as grade-school parents -- but it also includes some suggestions based on my experiences from when I was a teacher.

Basic Equipment:

You've gotta have a bag! We've gotten a new backpack this year-- not something we actually do every year but his old one died a sad and tragic death about a month before the end of school after 3 YEARS of faithful service. I think I got my $15 worth out of that! His old one had a character design (Handy Manny if that helps you date it....) that he originally picked out for our first Mommy & Me class at the park (kind of a pre-preschool type of thing). We opted to replace it this year with a nice solid color Jansport. I'm hoping that going for a quality manufacturer will let this one last a good 2 (or 3 or more!) years.

While there were many character themed packs at the assorted 'Marts in our area, I deliberately limited the selection to a "generic" type of pack. Assuming your kids are like mine -- who knows what shows/toys/games they will be into next year and what will be "too baby-ish". I actually found a decent price online (Amazon) in a basic blue that cost me just over $20.  We found similar ones at our local Ross for a similar price. You can often find higher quality packs at discount stores like Ross, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, etc. that have surplus styles, colors or discontinued patterns of good packs that just didn't sell originally. Spending a little bit more now, to have something that lasts longer, will save you over the long term!

Now for the lunchbox-- this is something that he does get every year. Besides letting him have something fun and personal to take to school, the day to day wear on these things tends to end their lives after about a year anyways. This year-- its Scooby-Doo. Its soooo cute too! He picked one that actually looks like the Mystery Machine that the gang all rides around in. Fun! The $12 is totally worth it when you consider that he'll be taking his lunch to school EVERY day. We do not buy school lunches. I have strong feelings about what they serve, as well as the cost. Unless you are getting the completely free or extremely reduced rates, it is almost guaranteed to be cheaper to buy your own supplies to pack lunches. And honestly, it really is less hassle than trying to make sure they have enough money, are making good choices, etc.

Pens, Pencils, Etc.

For our kiddo, all I'm getting is a new box of crayons, a set of colored pencils and one pack of markers. We have left over construction paper from last year as well as lined paper.  And, after a year's worth of birthday goody-bags, stocking stuffers, prizes, etc. he will probably NOT need a pencil for another 2 years! He is also set on erasers :P 

At this age, unless specifically requested, I'm not going to bother with a 3 ring notebook. Even up to high school, you are probably better off waiting until the first week. You might have teachers who would prefer that your student has a separate (smaller) binder for their class rather than one of those ginormous oversized deals that everything is supposed to fit into. We do have a simple paper folder (for homework) ready to go, though! Since those tend to wear out pretty fast (I think we went through 3 of them last year?) I'll get them now while I can get them for under $1.

That brings me to the "class list". At our school, the teacher puts out a class list of supplies. But they aren't required supplies for each student to bring, they are instead general class supplies for all the students to share (that are typically donated by the parents). This is a great time to stock up on these items. Pencils, pens, erasers, crayons, markers (esp. dry erase), lined paper, copy paper, construction paper are all items commonly found on this list. If your school is the same, and you like to help out, keep this in mind when you spy boxes of crayons for .25! When I'm buying to donate to the class, I like getting TWICE as much as I plan to give -- because in the spring term many of the classes will be low on supplies again but there won't be any sales. Being willing to set this aside for a few months will make you a hero to your kid's teacher in the spring and will really save the dollars, too!

Pencil Cases:

I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE pencil cases. The zippered pouch style in particular. Not for pencils, necessarily. But I actually have a number of uses that they fulfill around the house. And right now, basic models can generally be found for $1-2!!

1) Games/small electronics: Junior's hand held game system fits easily into a larger 3 ring binder sized zipper pouch-- it also has 2 side pockets, one fits the games and one fits the travel cord perfectly. It cost us about $4 where the custom fitted name brand case cost $30. After a year + of use, its still doing the job wonderfully!

2) Purse organization: In my purse are several of these large zippered pouches. Instead of loose things flying all over my purse, I use each as a mini compartment. One is holding coupons, flyers, & gift cards. Another holds kid stuff (a small box of crayons, a mini coloring book, etc) to keep the littles occupied during long waits (spectacularly useful at restaurants!). This could also be great if you use the "envelope system" of finances to keep your envelopes neat and tidy. Smaller pouches are good for storing make-up and feminine products.

3) Tiny diaper bag: The 3rd pouch in my purse is actually serving as a tiny diaper bag. It fits 2-3 diapers, a travel pack of wipes and a bottle of hand sanitizer. Perfect for changes on the go. No need to carry a separate diaper bag everywhere! Now I can just leave it in the car for absolute emergencies.

Sorry for the ramble! I'm hoping something here might be useful to other people. If you have your own tip you'd like to share, please feel free to post in the comments below. I'd love to hear additional ideas!

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Sunday Savings Tip: DIY Lunchables

Who doesn't love lunchables? They're small, cute & fun to assemble and eat. I freely admit the little dude ate plenty of these in his toddler years. Especially when getting anything into him was a big battle! As he's grown, his sense of food adventure has expanded (thank goodness!). He's much more willing to try new foods and recipes. However, he still has a soft spot for those little packaged lunches.

Now, there are two really great reasons NOT to feed these to him. One, they are expensive for what you get. Store brands cost $1.29 for 6 crackers, 6 pieces of american cheese and 6 squares of bologna. If purchased in bulk, its about .25 worth of food. Secondly, they have little to no actual nutrition, just calories. Its hard to spend the time I do shopping, prepping and cooking healthy meals at home for the family and then send junk with him to school.

Thankfully the idea behind lunchables is easily translated into real food.

For a meat/cheese lunchable: These are my favorites. I often get tired of making sandwiches (for myself and everyone else) This is a quick throw together lunch that covers the same bases but in a different way. For the base of your stack, choose a whole wheat "triscuit" style or similar cracker. If you get them baked, they often have only whole wheat & salt as ingredients. For the cheese, replace the american with a nice organic cheese you like-- mozzarella, cheddar, jack. It's pretty convenient that a basic slice of cheese will fold and break into 4 perfect squares. So 2 slices of cheese will set you up for 8 cracker stackers. For the bologna, replace with sliced lunchmeat w/o nitrates, sugar or added preservatives (try the deli counter if you can't find it prepackaged). When assembling, be sure to pack the crackers separately from the cheese/meat or they'll get soggy.

For a pizza lunchable: These are the little dude's favorite! He loves pizza and the whole "make it yourself" aspect really gets him excited! For the crust, try a whole wheat tortilla or pita cut into quarters. For the sauce, I just use an organic canned tomato sauce. I've taken the extras, divided it up into portions and frozen them in my silicon muffin liners. After its solid, I'll pop them out and toss in a baggie in the freezer. On days when he wants this for lunch, I'll just put one disk into a sealed container or baggie and it'll defrost by lunch. For the cheese, I just shredded up some organic mozzarella. Couldn't be any easier! He's happy, I'm happy, its a win/win for everyone!

Whole wheat tortilla from Trader Joe's, quartered

Sauce art

Finished slice w/shredded mozzarella

Extra sauce for the freezer/future lunches!

To complete this easy lunch, just add a piece of fruit and/or some veggie sticks and a bottle of water!

If you really want to get cute, get one of those divided plastic bins and it will look just like the ones from the store!

Sunday Savings Tip: Dryer Woolie Balls

I've enjoyed my time off the last week but its time to get back to work! I've got so many projects to finish up. And if I didn't have to post them to you fine (five) readers, I wouldn't have nearly so much incentive to get going! Let's talk about this week's topic:

      Dryer Woolie Balls!!

What's a woolie??
Several weeks ago, when I was researching recipes for dishwasher detergent, I saw a post from a green mama blogger (www.imperfecthomemaking.com) about her green laundry routine. One of the things she talked about was dryer woolie balls. I was very intrigued. What is a woolie?? It is a simple ball of wool yarn (felted) and thrown in the dryer to help speed drying, fluff clothes and reduce static.

Why use woolies??

1) Less waste
       I have a love/hate relationship with my dryer sheets . I love the light scent and static reduction but I loathe chasing these things around the house. I fold laundry in our bedroom and it seems like everytime I go in there, I find another one of those suckers to throw away. And, as I always throw them out when I find them during folding, I'm not exactly sure where these "extra" ones are coming from. Perhaps they are reproducing under the bed?? All I know is that I'd be super happy to never have to pick up another one of those things off the carpet again!

2) Reduce static
       The biggest hurdle to not using dryer sheets is that most of the laundry I have (especially for us adults) is what I call mixed media. Typically we have lots of different fabrics-- casual clothes are mainly cotton, my undies have a lot of elastic, nylon etc. and Hubby's work pants are a glorious 100% polyester. Drying up a load of darks without any static reducers pretty much insures one large ball of static cling.
       I had tried, in the past, a set of blue plastic dryer balls I got at some "as seen on TV" store many, many years ago. I found them to be fairly ineffective in reducing static and never really used them much for anything except cloth diaper laundry. I wanted to know why these woolies would be any different--- after investigating and reading around, I found that I was not using nearly enough. I had just two and the blogger above typically uses up to a dozen!

3) Personalize amount/type of fragrance
       One thing I also missed when using the blue plastic dryer balls was the scent. I love the soft "clean" scent of dryer sheets or detergent after laundry comes out of the dryer. Its a thing, I know. I don't like overpowering perfumes, just a light, simple, clean smell. In our traditional laundry routine, we like Tide detergent and Bounce dryer sheets which both impart a slight, pleasant, clean scent. In working to cut back on the chemicals, we've switched to a "free and clear" detergent. And if I give up dryer sheets, then there's no scents, nothing. That's just too much to give up! I found out though, that one of the advantages of using the woolie balls instead of plastic ones is that you can scent them! By adding a few drops of an essential oil, they will softly release the scent in the dryer, giving the clothes a slight fragrance (of your choosing) with no added knarly chemicals! Yay!

Getting woolies for yourself

 1) Buy
You can buy them online chiefly through homemade sites like Etsy. I saw them commonly as 4 for $20 (+ shipping). I thought that was a little expensive for my tastes, especially if I'm likely to need 2 (or more) sets.

2) Make them yourself!!
I followed the tutorial from the above referenced blog: homemade wool dryer balls. Here are the highlights:

• Get some 100% wool yarn. (this was the hardest part of the project!) It cannot be a blend or acrylic (as most yarns are). I got 2 1/2 balls per 3.5 oz of yarn. I used 2 packages of yarn and made 5 balls total.

• Wrap the yarn tightly in a round ball until its about tennis ball sized. Tie off/tuck under loose ends.

• Put into a old nylon or stocking (I used an old pilly trouser sock) to keep them secured until fully felted.
• Run through the washer & dryer a few times (I just ran it with the loads of laundry I was already doing....) until the wool is felted -- it will get kind of fuzzy and all the strands will be firmly adhered together.

• Add 3 or 4 drops of an essential oil of your choosing. Many people like lavender or tea tree. I really wanted a "laundry" type of smell so I found a "downy april fresh" mixed essential oil on Etsy. Don't know if it really smells like downy since I never used that but it does have a nice light "clean laundry" type of smell.
• Drop into dryer with wet laundry, proceed as usual!

How's it working??
       So far, so good!  I only made 5 yarn balls, so I threw in the 2 plastic ones to go with them, so 7 balls total. As far as usage, I'm finding its not any harder to sort out the balls from the laundry than it is to remove the used dryer sheets. The static reduction is pretty good-- about the same or slightly better than I had from dryer sheets. The scent is nice-- light but pleasant-- even the Hubby likes it. I'm not sure how often I'll need to refill the scent on the balls. I set them up last week and was having a hard time smelling the scent in the laundry in the garage (although for some reason I can smell it perfectly fine in the living room where I'm sorting...) so I refilled it. I expect that I may need to refresh the scent maybe every 2 or 3 weeks?

I really love projects like these. Once everything is all set up, you are DONE!! I don't have anything else to buy (unless I need new fragrance, although this is supposed to last me about a year). If I use these and don't buy any new dryer sheets, I'll probably recoup my basic costs (about $14 in yarn-- should have remembered my coupon, darn it!) in the next 4-6 months. I know if you are a savvy shopper and have time to search out sales or good prices AND remember use your coupons (still kicking myself here), you can definitely do better. Unfortunately, I was only kicked in the butt inspired to complete this project when I realized I only had about 5 dryer sheets left. So a bit of a time crunch!

Comment below and let me know if you've used these before, or are gonna give it a try!

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Sunday Savings Tip: Crockpot "Rotisserie" Chicken

I love the ease and convenience of the supermarket rotisserie chicken. With no effort at all, you can bring home a great roasted whole chicken for about $5-6.00. However, it is much cheaper to buy a whole chicken and do it yourself. Not to mention when you do it yourself, you know exactly what is going into your family's food! I, personally don't have a rotisserie but I discovered that roasting it in your crockpot will give you a similarly tender result with about the same amount of effort as buying a pre-cooked one!

Okay, this "recipe" is so easy its almost embarrassing! I had specifically asked for a larger, oval crockpot for my birthday over 2 years ago for the sole purpose of being able to cook whole chickens in it (well that and larger pot roasts). And yet, embarrassingly enough, yesterday was the first day I ever did it. The results were nothing less than spectacular. I can't believe it took me so long to get around to it. Soooooooo easy!! Soooooooooo tasty!! Soooooooo little effort!!

I had the opportunity to pick up some nice pasture raised whole chickens at a good price. As I am new to this whole pastured meat thing, I had heard that sometimes the meat can be a little bit tougher (since the chickens actually run around and stuff). And as a result, they really benefit from low & slow, moist cooking. I gave a new spice rub a try-- #33671 from www.food.com. I only made a half batch but the skin portions still ended up being a little strong on the paprika for me. I think next time I'll just stick to my preferred lemon pepper/garlic salt combo.

I spiced up the chicken, popped it into the pot, put on the lid and set the temp to low. I let it cook for approximately 6 hours. I checked the temp in a few places and it was completely cooked through. I wanted to take a nice "after" picture with the roasted chicken on a plate but the whole thing was so tender that both wings and one whole leg & thigh fell off when I was taking it out of the crock pot. The whole chicken was super tender and moist. And, there was tons of concentrated chicken stock at the bottom of the pot.

We ate all that we wanted the first night and made burritos out of the leftovers the second. This still leaves a chicken quarter for Hubby to take to work for lunch! Yay whole chickens!!

Do you have any "its so easy I can't believe I didn't know about that" type tips?? Comment below!

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Sunday Savings Tip: Bye, Bye, Papertowels!

As I experimented with cloth diapering a few years ago, I was introduced to the whole paperfree community. I learned that every disposable item in our house, even toilet paper (!) can be replaced with cloth. While I'm not quite ready for bathroom stuff, I know there are plenty of other places where I could switch out cloth for paper.

As a simple beginning step, I stopped buying paper plates. I know they are completely unnecessary but I often bought them anyways to save on dishwashing (which I hate with a passion). A second simple swap is hankies. Not necessarily for everyone in the family, but for me. I bought 3 really cute vintage hankies that reminded me of the ones I used to take to elementary school (before pocket tissue packs were invented).  I keep them tucked in a zippered coin purse in my bag and ready for quick nose wipes, crying cleanups, etc. Since I have several, its not a big deal if I don't get to washing the dirty one or forget to get the clean one back into my purse right away.

I've been working up to tackling our biggest paper consuming room-- the kitchen! With a few basic supplies from my local mart-type store, I now have a convenient and tidy clean up center that uses cloth instead of paper towels, without too much fuss or inconvenience. Because we all KNOW that if it isn't easy, people won't use it or stick with it!

I know many of you are saying-- well, why doesn't she just use a kitchen/dish towel for clean up? I have a 5 year old, a 2 year old and a dog. There are just some things that once you clean them up, you can't reuse that towel without washing. I do have a half dozen nice kitchen towels but I am hesitant to use them to wipe down counters or clean up spills with them, knowing they are likely to be permanently stained.

Here is my simple plan:

2 packages ($3.48 ea Wal-Mart) of 9, kitchen utility towels
1 pair of scissors
1 plastic shoe box ($.97 Wal-Mart)
1 small plastic trash can ($4.88 Wal-Mart)



By cutting the utility towels in half, they fit perfectly in the shoe box. That also happens to be the same size of the smallest towel in the select-a-size brand paper towels we've been using, so it feels familiar. I don't plan on hemming the cut edge of the terry towels unless they start to fray too much. For right now, I'm just going to see how they hold up. I picked a nice basic beige to hide a plethora of stains (and it is a nice a neutral as well). One package of 9 towels becomes 18 and actually fills the box to the top. That means I'll have a set to use and one to wash.

The shoe box fits right behind the kitchen spigot for handy dispensing. The trash can is on the shelf right above the garbage, so its close to where the throw away impulse is likely to take people.

So far, this has been working great. We still had about 1/2 a roll of paper towel a week ago when I set this up and its still about 1/3 filled. The towelette bin isn't completely emptied out, we've been averaging about 2 a day. I'm finding myself using each towelette several times-- once to dry a dish, once to dry some hands, once to wipe a face and/or once to clean/dry the counter and then toss it.

We all know its better for the environment, but it also helps the wallet when you don't have to keep buying items to replace those that have been used once and thrown out. For my initial "start-up" costs of about $18, I can expect the savings to be returned to me in 1-2 months of not buying more paper towels. You could easily cut costs further by only purchasing one set of towels and washing more frequently and just hanging a simple plastic grocery sack for the laundry bin. That would take the cost of the project down to under $5. That's a winner in my book!

Comment below and let me know what you think! Is this something you could see yourself doing? Do you do something like this already?

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Sunday Savings Tip: Buying Organic

Okay, so we're trying to eat healthier-- what some groups of people call "whole food" eating and others call "clean" eating. Basically, to me, this means I am trying to feed the family minimally processed foods-- things that are as close to the form they exist in nature as possible. Fresh peaches instead of canned. Whole grains instead of white flour. Avoiding premade store bought foods that typically have "high fructose corn syrup" or "partially hydrogenated soybean oil" as ingredients or anything else that's more likely to come from a chemistry lab than a typical pantry. And, that means we are eating lots more fruits & veggies.

I have come to realize that besides just eliminating extra ingredients, I also have to start considering if the produce I buy at the supermarket is safe for my family. In an ideal world, we'd just grow our own food. But unless you live on a farm or in a fairly rural area, that just isn't happening. I know that the next best thing is to buy local, organic produce. Unfortunately, the primary crops in this area are oranges and strawberries. Not exactly a balanced diet.

The next problem is that it costs waaaaaaaaaaaay more to buy organic produce at the grocery store than conventionally grown produce. So, what's a person (on a budget & wants to eat healthy) supposed to do? The answer:   Prioritize!!

An environmental group (EWG) has compiled pesticide testing data from commonly consumed crops (each sample was washed & peeled as a consumer typically would) and ranked the results. The 12 worst offenders are referred to as the "dirty dozen" and are the foods you definitely should buy organic. On the other side, the "clean fifteen" are the foods with little to no contamination that you can continue to eat conventionally grown without concern. By knowing which foods to spend the extra money on AND which it isn't necessary, you can save money while getting the best nutrition for your family!!

As an interesting (and slightly scary) sidenote, this year's testing also included jarred baby foods. Varieties from the dirty dozen still showed notable pesticide & chemical contamination while the varieties from the clean fifteen showed no residues. I would hypothesize that these results can be carried over to frozen and canned varieties as well, letting you know which canned/preserved items should probably be purchased organic as well.

Download a cute reference card here from the ewg website. This list was updated for 2012 by ewg within the last week or so.

The 2012 Dirty Dozen

Apples
Bell Peppers
Blueberries
Celery
Cucumbers
Grapes
Lettuce
Nectarines
Peaches
Potatoes
Spinach
Strawberries

+ Green beans & Kale/Greens (which technically don't have the most but do have the worst kind of pesticides)

The 2012 Clean fifteen
Asparagus
Avocado
Cabbage
Cantaloupe
Corn
Eggplant
Grapefruit
Kiwi
Mangoes
Mushrooms
Onions
Pineapples
Sweet Peas
Sweet Potatoes
Watermelon

Sunday Savings Tip: Less time = less money!

When I actually calculated what it would cost to replace me and all the jobs I do here at home, the amount I came up with caused me to increase my personal life insurance! Whether you are paid for your work (inside OR outside the home) or not, your time is worth money. So, the less time spent on any particular job, the better!  

Right now, with our healthy eating program, I'm spending a majority of my "work" time in the kitchen. Cooking, cleaning & prep work has taken over the bulk of my to-do list! To try to cut that down, I've been skimming the internet for new recipes & techniques. In my research, I keep coming across one MAJOR time saving idea--This is something so simple, yet so revolutionary: 

Prep/cook once, eat twice (or 3 or 4 times!)

So, this is something I've been trying to do more of. I like cooking, but not everyday. Some days I'm just plain tuckered out. I'm thinking: Wouldn't it be nice if all I had to do was throw something in the microwave or oven??

I've always made a little extra in most of our meals for Hubby to take as a lunch but this is a more deliberate increase in volume. I'm specifically setting out to make a full extra dinner portion for the whole family. If you're gonna be cooking anyways....

Some ideas I've been trying:  freezing whole portions of soup in large tupperware containers or gallon ziptop baggies. Prepping/assembling casseroles or pasta dishes in disposable aluminum trays. I've also found that doughs also freeze well, wrapped in wax paper & stored in a large ziptop baggie- this is AWESOME for cookie doughs. (If you rolled it into logs before freezing-- you'll have your own slice & bake varieties!) 

What if I don't have enough for 2 complete meals? I've also been freezing individual components like prepped veggies. What a time saver to have something difficult (like butternut squash) already peeled & diced! I've also found that you can also freeze fruits but they tend to mush up when defrosting so this is best for ingredients that will eventually be mashed, pureed, made into a smoothy, etc.

Any other freezing tips I've left out? Comment below!!

Sunday Savings Tip: Bananas

If you are anything like me, you compulsively buy bananas at the grocery store. Sometimes the little dudes will gobble them up in a few short days, sometimes even the hubby packs a few for his lunch. And then sometimes you get to the end of the week and end up with something that looks like this:

Its kind of embarrassing. I hate throwing away food but they are just too mushy to be good for out of hand eating. However, they are GREAT for baking, smoothies and in babyfood (see this post). But by the end of the week (when I'm stuck with all these brown & spotted bananas) I might be too busy, tired or just not in the mood for banana things.  Simple solution: FREEZE them. That's right, they freeze beeeauuuuutifully! Just pop off the peels and any bruises, halve or slice and drop them in a baggie.

They'll work well in any recipe calling for mushed bananas AND you save yourself from wasting food/money plus you'll always have perfectly overripe bananas on hand! As a nice bonus, if you use them straight from the freezer in a smoothie, the result will be a cold and creamy treat closer to a milk shake than a drink!

Sunday Savings Tip: Resurrecting Wilted Produce!!

My goal for this year, instead of dieting, was to get both myself AND the whole family eating better-- more fruits and veggies, more whole grains, less processed junk! I've had a pretty decent success with it-- but it means buying a LOT more produce than I'm used to. It can also be a little bit more expensive (why do fresh, high quality foods cost more than junk?) and watching your money shrivel, dry up or droop all over your fridge is frustrating.

This week really we overloaded on the produce as we had our first delivery from our CSA co-op. I opted for a larger box, every other week to start with, and I found myself trying to stuff : 1 honeydew melon, 1 1/2 lbs sweet potatoes, 3 fuji apples, 4 peaches, 1 pint blueberries, 4 sweet peppers, 2 lbs of baby bok choy, 1 bunch of carrots (with 18" long tops attached!), 2 stalks of broccoli, 1 bunch of spinach and 2 hearts of romaine-- all into the fridge. This was of course on top of the other stuff I had bought last week that hadn't gotten eaten up yet.

I did manage to get it all in BUT some of the veggies got a little buried on the back shelf. I noticed yesterday that both the romaine & spinach were looking much worse for the wear. This is not necessarily anything new-- its easy to forget about fresh produce if its hidden at the back or down in a drawer. 

Many years ago, I saw a tip on how to resurrect limp celery. You make a fresh cut at the base and stand it up in cup or pitcher of cold (or even icy) water. This will get the water back into the tissues of the plant,  restoring the water and crispness.

I decided to give that technique a try with the romaine first as it wasn't too badly off, just a few droopy leaves on the outside of the head. I cut the base of the romaine heart off and dropped the whole head into a large pitcher of icy water (filled about 6 inches high. I just left it alone for an hour or so and when I checked it-- voila-- perky lettuce greens!!

Now for the big challenge-- the bunch of spinach I had was SEVERLY limp-- not slimy though (this technique will NEVER save those kinds of veggies!). Most people's feelings upon seeing this bunch of spinach would have been to take it straight to the bin. I used the same set up as the romaine, cut about 1" off the bottom of the spinach stems and plopped them into the pitcher-- overnight this time (Not for any particular reason except I was tired and wanted to go to bed!).

When I got up this morning, I was greeted by a very nicely restored bunch of spinach!! Not all the leaves were crisped up but I would say about 90%. Much better than throwing the whole thing out!

This technique can also be used for other stemmy veggies like asparagus. I even remember a cooking show that recommended keeping the asparagus in a cup/vase of water inside the fridge.

Leave a comment below and let me know if this technique was helpful to you-- what veggies were you able to save?