Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Kitchen Tip Tuesday

My kitchen tip this week is for the many uses for ice cream buckets. Every now & then I like to buy ice cream just because I love these buckets. Well, I'll eat the ice cream if you twist my arm...
Anyway, I love these because they are a good size, usually hold 1.5 gallons or more, & they have a nice handle. Once we've eaten the ice cream, I always save these big buckets & I use them for many things.
First, I use them for homemade ice cream. We actually make homemade ice cream more than we buy ice cream. In this picture you can see that that the label says Chocolate Revel ice cream. But the contents are actually homemade vanilla. I have an old fashioned hand crank freezer that makes a gallon and a half of ice cream, so I love these big buckets to store all that ice cream in!
They also make great cleaning buckets. I use them to spot mop the kitchen or bathroom floors. I have used them to spot clean just about anything. I have 5 babysitting kids, so spot cleaning a place on the couch (or anywhere) is very common. I only use ONE bucket for cleaning. I have marked it with a Sharpie, "CLEANING ONLY" & I keep it on a shelf in the laundry room with scrub brushes in it, so it never gets used for ice cream or any other food.

Another favorite use for my ice cream bucket it for weeding in the garden. I call it my weed bucket. (Isn't that clever? LOL) I've had this weed bucket for a while. It looks like I may need to go buy another bucket of ice cream so this one can retire. I love the handle. I think I've spent many hours with this particular bucket. It has held its share of weeds & one year a lot of rocks. I keep my little shovels & my gloves in it.


I also have two other uses for these buckets, but I'll spare you the pictures.
We have one marked as the "Puke Bucket". It stays hidden, but it is brought out whenever anyone is sick. Well, if you know someone is sick, they can have this bucket sitting on the bed table, ready to be used if needed.
It does help keep some of the mess down. It can be easily emptied & then washed out (& sanitized) & re-used... only as a puke bucket. It's NEVER used for anything else. We have a specific spot for it in the linen closet, & everyone knows what it's for & that it is never to be used for anything else. Ever.

The other use is to hold the plunger. You don't have to use a plunger very often (hopefully), but when you do have to use it, after you've finished, you don't have to set it on the floor. Just keep your plunger standing in one of these buckets (clearly marked that it's for use for the plunger ONLY). We keep ours stored in a far corner in the laundry room. But it's not on the floor, it's in this bucket.

I know my uses for these buckets are not just for the kitchen, but for many areas of the home.
Getting back to the kitchen, I've used these buckets for many strawberry pickins'. Back when our strawberry patch was really producing TONS of strawberries, I filled these buckets many times.
When I was picking dandelions the other day for fried dandelions, I used one of these buckets.
I bet I'll think of more ways I use these buckets after I finish writing this.
They have a handy little handle & they are a handy size.
They are handy buckets.
You just have to eat the ice cream out of them first.
It's a sacrifice, but someone has to do it.



You can read more Kitchen Tips over at Tammy's Recipes.

7 comments:

SnoWhite said...

we use ours for everything too! including... the "puke" bucket. glad to hear I'm not the only one who does that :-)

thanks for sharing.

Lenetta said...

Hahaha - I love the part about the sacrifice - so true!

annies home said...

I have used icecream buckets for many of the same ideas but also to hold flour, beans, sugar, and to carry food to potlucks

Joy said...

Great tips! I will just have to "MAKE" myself by more of these little "treasures". We love ice cream too..Thanks for sharing!
Joy

Rachel said...

A good friend of mine stocks up on the Easter buckets every year to use as "puke buckets"--I'll have to tell her your idea! At least it comes with ice cream! ;)

Great ideas for repurposing such a handy thing--I love the idea of using it for cleaning! So much easier than carrying around a huge mop bucket!

Shelley said...

Our kids tend to get carsick, so we keep a couple of these in the van at all times. We call them barf buckets. Thanks for all the other ideas!

Lori L said...

We use ice cream buckets for all sorts of things and label them with Sharpies too. (Including the plunger bucket, LOL!)
Our biggest use, though, is for storing flour, sugar, etc