Makin' Do Tuesday: Bottles, Salt, and Cookware

Hello! Welcome to Makin' Do Tuesday!

Still working on cleaning my bottles, using what I already have. For most of them, the salt treatment followed by a vinegar soak, did the trick. The vinegar may have worked on its own, but I won't know that until I have the occasion to try it.

My step-mom always cleaned all her glass with bleach water, but I just don't want to deal with the bleach fumes. She also used a lot of ammonia, but I don't like that either, for the same reason.

The Sloans' Liniment bottle needed more work, so decided to give it the volcano treatment. You know what I mean. Vinegar and baking soda! How many science project volcanos have been created that way? Anyway, it's also a great cleaner. Watching it bubble, I remembered that many articles I read suggested using denture cleaning tablets to clean bottles. Makes me wonder what those things are made of.

 It still didn't come completely clean, but it will do for now. I put it and two other bottles in the large shadow box. The small bottle has sprigs of dried lavender and yarrow from last year's garden.

Another use for salt, and a very good reason to keep it next to your stove, is as a grease fire extinguisher. Ed has worked as a professional fry cook/grill operator for years, and he told me to always use salt. I know that you can use baking soda too, but you have to use a lot. Flour might spread the fire and is actually combustible. Whatever you do, NEVER put water on a grease fire! Many online sources encourage simply smothering a pan fire with the lid, but if your cookware is like mine, most of the lids have disappeared over the years. Mine have...except for the little one-quart sauce pan lid. Those never go anywhere. Probably because they only get used once a year.

Most of my cookware is either hand me down or thrift store finds. Needless to say, those did not come with lids.  I have had two sets in the last twenty five years. The first set is long gone. It was a T-Fal non-stick set. I don't even know for sure where they went. Then I got a low-end stainless steel set. They had glass lids. Guess what happened to those? Yep. Broke.

When I got married the first time, over 30 years ago, my step mom gave me a cast iron skillet, as well as a cast iron griddle. I still have them, and I use them nearly every day. I really like cast iron. I have some other cast iron skillets of graduating sizes that I have picked up from thrift stores, and flea markets. I would love to have a full set, including a dutch over with lid, but that isn't in my budget (unless I can find a used one) so I use what I have and make do. Here are the lids I use most of the time. One is a pizza pan, and the other is a salad plate.

Concerning yesterday's post, Miss Betty is doing better today, but my friend who had the heart attack is not doing well. We. of course, continue to lift both to the Lord.

See ya tomorrow.

Connie

Makin' Do Tuesday: Rubbing Off and Salt

Welcome to Makin' Do Tuesday! This is where we talk about all the ways we “make do” with what we have. While its true that some people seem to naturally make do, I think we can all train our minds to think like this.

Last week, we had to get some new space heaters because the old ones were making noises like rocks in a can.  Ed picks up the two old heaters and says. “I'm going to take the cords off these because I just might be able to use them for something else. “ Then he says, “See? You're starting to rub off on me!”

A day or so later, we were able to get outside and do some work on the wood Ed got the day he killed the clutch in the truck. A friend from church went with Ed to get the wood off the truck that was still in our other friend's yard.  The wood didn't need to be split, but it did need to be cut in smaller pieces.

The plan was for me to hold one end of the log still so he could cut it. Ok, I have very small hands, and don't really have a lot of strength in them, so this was not working. I could hold my end alright, but I couldn't keep the other end from moving. We needed another set of hands.  Ed looked around and found two little scraps of wood. He screwed them onto one end of a saw horse, just far enough apart to catch those logs between them. Voila! Two sets of hands. We laid one end  of the logs between the blocks of wood, I held the other end, and all the wood was cut in about 20 minutes or so.  So I guess I am rubbing off on him. Good! That means there are two brains coming up with ideas.

 By the way, Ed  made these saw horses from pieces of old fencing my oldest son gave us. He was tearing down the fence for someone else, and needed a way to haul it off. He told us if he could use our truck we could have the wood. Sounded like a good deal to us.

The other thing I wanted to talk about today is something almost everyone keeps in the pantry: Salt. Plain old table salt. We use it to season food,  preserve food, melt ice,  and get rid of slugs (if you like doing that sort of thing), but did you know you can clean with it?

Ed told me that his grandmother used to use salt to clean her cast iron skillets. He said she just dumped some salt in there and scrubbed the pan with a rag. Curious, I had to try it. Wow! It really worked, and it didn't remove the seasoning! I just rinsed the salt out with hot water and dried the pan. Next time I do that, I'll take pictures. I promise!

A while back, I was looking for information on some apothecary bottles that I have. I came across something that said you can use salt to clean them. When I decided to try that on my dirty bottles, I couldn't find the article. (Yeah, I know. That’s what I get for not bookmarking it.) I have found some other articles, but they are kind of vague, so I am experimenting.  Here are some pictures of my bottles.

I chose three of the dirtiest ones and put quite a bit of salt in them.

 Then I added some hot water and let them soak for about a half hour. Then I shook the bottles four about three minutes, or until my arm started getting tired. I let them sit some more and shook some more. Finally, I rinsed them out to see what I had. They are definitely cleaner, especiallly the "Sloan's Linament" bottle in the center. There was black gunk floating in the salt water, when I poured it out..

I refilled them and will let you know how that turns out. I'll do some more research this week and let you know if I learn anything more.

Other internet research showed that there are tons of ways to clean with salt, and even more if you mix them with our old buddy, vinegar!

Here is a link to some more salt info.

Cool huh?

See you tomorrow,
Connie