The many uses of coffee filters

A few months ago my mom sent me an email with a bunch of great ways to use coffee filters. I got a french press for Christmas so I had over 100 coffee filters that have been sitting in a kitchen cabinet. I thought I'd post them here, along with some pictures. (Pictures make everything better, right?) They are really useful, and with each one I find myself saying "Why didn't I think of that??"

1. Cover bowls and dishes in the microwave. If you've ever had refried beans explode in your microwave, this will be the first thing you start using the coffee filters for.

2. Strain yogurt for making dip or frozen yogurt. Place filter in a wide-mouth jar and secure with a rubber band. Spoon yogurt and drain until desired consistency. This was perfect for me, I never have cheesecloth.

3. Protect china by separating your good dishes with a coffee filter in between each dish. (I don't own such china, so I demonstrated with my fiestaware)

4. Weigh food in a coffee filter on kitchen scale. This is genius! And so convenient.

5. Use coffee filter as a small disposable snack bowl.

6. Protect a cast iron skillet. Place a coffee filter inside skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.

7. Clean windows, mirrors and chrome. Coffee filters are lint-free so it leaves them sparkling clean.

8. Use strips of coffee filters as waxing strips for your eye brows.

Here are a few more I didn't have the chance to photograph.

• Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.
  
• Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes
• Keep your hands clean when eating a popsicle. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.
• Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc on them. It soaks out all the grease.
  
• As a sewing backing. Use a filter as an easy-to-tear backing for embroidering or appliqueing soft fabrics.
• Use them to strain soup stock and to tie fresh herbs in to put in soups and stews.
• Diffuse the flash on a camera. When you’re taking a close-up, soften the brightness by placing a coffee filter over the flash.
  
  

If you have these lying around I hope you find this helpful. And if you don't have them lying around, you can buy a few hundred for a $1.


Have a good weekend! I'll be painting some furniture, having a bon fire with friends and catching up on the ever growing stack of library books.

Oh and if you haven't entered to win the Bake it pretty gift card make sure you do so before Sunday night!