No. 752 - TWENTY-FIVE GREAT USES FOR COFFEE FILTERS

No. 752
Jim Davidson -- NEWSPAPER COLUMN
TWENTY-FIVE GREAT USES FOR COFFEE FILTERS

As a reader, what do you look for in a column or newspaper article? Do you look for content that is interesting, thought provoking, amusing, entertaining, practical, informative, and something that adds to your knowledge base? While I don’t always succeed in providing one or more of these qualities, I try, because I know your time is valuable. Sometime back a man asked me what my column was about, and before I could answer, my pastor who was sitting there, said “It’s a smorgasbord” because it has a little of everything. To be sure, I am always on the lookout for content and ideas that I feel would be of interest and benefit to you.
Today’s edition is on the practical side. A friend in West Virginia sent me a great article on “Coffee Filters” that contained 25 practical ways they can be used. In today’s economy they are really a bargain, as you can buy 1,000 at the Dollar Tree for almost nothing, even the large ones. See if some of these practical uses for coffee filters might benefit you.
1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers. 2. Clean windows, mirrors, and chrome…coffee filters are lint-free so they’ll leave windows sparkling. 3. Protect china by separating your good dishes with a coffee filter between each dish. 4. Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter. 5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.
6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter. 7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter. 8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale. 9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods. 10. 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.
11. Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two as needed in a coffee filter. 12. Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips of coffee filters. 13. Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc. on them. It soaks out all the grease. 14. Keep in the bathroom. They make great “razor nick fixers.” 15. Use as a sewing backing. Use a filter as an easy-to-tear backing for embroidering or appliquéing soft fabrics.
16. Put baking soda into a coffee filter and insert into shoes or a closet to absorb or prevent odors. 17. Use them to strain stock soup and to tie fresh herbs in to put in soups and stews. 18. Use a coffee filter to prevent spilling when you add fluids to your car. 19. Use them as a spoon rest while cooking and clean up small counter spills. 20. Use to hold dry ingredients when baking or when cutting a piece of fruit or veggies. It saves on having extra bowls to wash.
21. Use them to wrap Christmas ornaments for storage. 22. Use them to remove fingernail polish when out of cotton balls. 23. Use them to sprout seeds. Simply dampen the coffee filter, place seeds inside, fold it t into a plastic baggie until they sprout. 24. Use coffee filters as blotting paper for pressed flowers. Place the flowers between two coffee filters and put the coffee filters in phone book. 25. Use as a disposable “snack bowl” for popcorn, chips, etc.”
Well, there you have it. Hope you have found a few practical uses for coffee filters around your house that you may never had thought about. I am pulling more KP these days, so I can use many of these myself.
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Davidson is a public speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034. To begin a bookcase literacy project visit www.bookcaseforeverychild.com. You won’t go wrong helping a needy child.)