Frugal Tip

After discovering that my middle son needed to be on a gluten free diet it became necessary for me to "re-learn" how to cook using ingredients that had never been  staple items in my kitchen before.   One of those ingredients is cornstarch.  Thankfully, he is not allergic to corn so I use cornstarch to replace flour regularly if I want to make gravy, fry chicken, make cream of soups, etc.)  Well, those neat little plastic containers that the "Argo" cornstarch come in are wonderful for kitchen use.  Since we use so much cornstarch I have an abundance of those little containers and I have had a hard time making myself throw them away.  Soooo, I decided I needed to find some good uses for them.  They are great for a number of things, but I use use them mostly for storing my dried herbs and homemade seasoning mixes.  I also use them for our herbal salves.  Here's a picture of them on one shelf of my kitchen.  I have many, many more of these nifty little boxes on other shelves in my kitchen and I use them to store a variety of herbs and spices, such as:  dandelion, comfrey, plantain, peppermint, catnip, chamomile, lavender, blessed thistle, mullein, licorice, cinnamon, fennel, fenugreek, thyme, sage, oregano, rosemary, nettle, basil, chili seasoning, and taco seasoning, to name a few.

The openings are large enough so that I can clean the container and the label peels off very easily.  The outside surface is large enough that I can label each container with the item stored in it and usage information if needed.  They come in two sizes.  The smaller ones that I have stacked there and if you look to the right you can see part of a larger container.  I know that everyone would not like to have bright blue and yellow boxes stacked in their kitchen pantry, but for me it works.  Have a great Wednesday!