How to Butter a Pan Without Mess!

This is the best way ever to butter a pan and NOT get messy! Take a sandwich sized ziploc bag, turn it inside out, grab hold of your un-wrapped stick of butter, and butter that pan!

When you're done buttering the pan, just turn the bag, butter and all, right side out, zip the bag, and store the butter in your fridge for the next time you need to butter a pan (or for your next big bowl of popcorn!)

Mama Bear

A Longer Life for Berries

I learned something new, thanks to Pinterest (if you don't know about Pinterest, you SHOULD!). I learned that if you give berries a water/vinegar rinse, they will last longer in your refrigerator!

Katie from FoodLush blog says this:
When you get your berries home, prepare a mixture of one part vinegar (white or apple cider probably work best) and ten parts water. Dump the berries into the mixture and swirl around. Drain, rinse if you want (though the mixture is so diluted I find you can't taste the vinegar,) and pop in the fridge.

The vinegar kills any mold spores and other bacteria that might be on the surface of the fruit, and voila! Raspberries will last a week or more, and I've had strawberries go almost two weeks without getting moldy and soft. So go forth and stock up on those pricey little gems, knowing they'll stay fresh as long as it takes you to eat them.

I tried this with a 2 lb. package of blueberries that I had purchased. I actually did it about 2-3 days AFTER I bought the berries, and it STILL worked! Those are the berries, up there in that photo...being "dunked" in the vinegar water. That was on August 15th. We ate the last of the berries (of which about 99% of them were still yummy and plump!) on Monday night, August 22nd! Imagine berries lasting for over a week in your fridge! The things you can learn on Pinterest!

Mama Bear