Archive · Tips/Tricks
5 Ways to Recycle Used Coffee Grounds
Saturday, March 6th, 2010Why throw your used coffee grounds away when there are so many uses for them? Check out the list below to see if there are any ideas you can use for your old coffee grounds instead of just tossing them in the trash.
- Household
- Sprinkle coffee grounds around the edge of your house to repel ants.
- Plants. Add coffee grounds to your plants. This works in two ways:
- Fertilizer. Mix the coffee grounds directly in with the soil or soak them overnight in water. I used about 1/8 of a cup of grounds with 32 ounces of water – I let them sit in a plastic coffee container – then watered the plants. I have seen mixed claims as to whether coffee grounds are acidic or not. I will be looking into this further and I will post the results in the future. I have used this on coffee, banana, and evergreen plants with success.
- Insect repellent. Use the coffee grounds like the previous idea for fertilizer to also help keep bugs off your plants. My banana plant had tiny bugs and looked like it was going to die. I mixed some coffee grounds into the soil and used coffee water last week; I no longer see any bugs and the plant and already has 3 new sprouts.
- Smells. Coffee is a good odor absorber, and if you’re like me, it’s a good air freshener as well – although that’s more of the unused coffee grounds.
- Wash your hands with coffee grounds after you are done cooking with smelly foods like garlic or onions.
- Place 1-2 cups of dry coffee grounds in the refrigerator in an open container, such as a bowl or spread over a plate.
Using Egg Nog as Coffee Creamer
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009Try substituting a little egg nog for your creamer; it will add a rich, creamy flavor. This is especially good with vanilla egg nog, which I didn’t even know they made until a few days ago. I also saw pumpkin egg nog at Kroger, which may be good if you like those pumpkin spice coffee drinks that I have seen advertised everywhere. If you are counting calories though, don’t forget to add these in. Kroger’s vanilla egg nog comes with 170 calories per 8-ounce serving; that’s a little over 10-1/2 calories for every tablespoon you add to your coffee.
Save Your Old Coffee Carafes as a Backup
Saturday, November 28th, 2009-Oscar, via e-mail
Read this and other [non-coffeee] Dear Heloise tips at The News-Press, posted 11/28/09.
Use Metal Coffee Cans to Bake a Cake
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009It seems like more people are buying the 1-lb. bags of coffee, but there’s still plenty of metal coffee containers out there. These are very handy for putting nuts or bolts in, but have you thought about baking in them? In a letter to Dear Heloise, a lady wrote that her church group bakes cakes in small metal coffee containers to be shipped off as care packages for troops in Iraq. The cakes travel well and they stay fresh longer; this is a good idea.
Read the full letter to Dear Heloise, A whole new meaning to the term ‘coffee cake’ at The Washington Post.
Coffee Ice Cubes
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009It’s only 67 degrees in Louisville right now, and that’s warm compared to what it has been, so iced coffee may not be on your mind; if you were in Hawai’i though, an iced coffee would probably sound good right now. There are a lot of good iced coffee drinks out there, but they always get watered down as the ice melts. A quick fix to that is using coffee ice cubes, and they are almost as easy to make as the water ones.
Make a fresh pot of coffee and pour into ice cube trays. Place ice cube trays in freezer for several hours. Remove and add to your favorite iced coffee drink.
You can be a little more creative by making the ice cubes in a plastic candy mold, like I did in the photos above. The ice cubes melt pretty fast, but I like the look of it while they last.
Consider adding other stuff to your coffee prior to freezing it; you could try a couple whole coffee beans, milk, sugar, cinnamon, or anything else to add a touch of flavor. You could also make seperate milk or creamer ice cubes and add a few of those along with a few coffee ice cubes to each drink for color more variety.