Do you ever stare at an everyday kitchen utensil and think, what else can I use this for? If you do then you’ve come to the right place. And if you don’t, you’ve come to the right place. We love experimenting and coming up with different uses for everyday kitchen items. Take ice cube trays for example; why only use them for freezing water? Ice cube trays have a variety of uses you may have not considered like portioning out sauces and food, or making bite size goodies.
Portion Control
Ice cube trays can be great for portioning out things like pasta sauce, baby food, and salad dressing. As most home cooks know, freezing your homemade sauce is essential because they lack preservatives. The average shelf life for homemade tomato sauce is 5-10 days, you can extend that about a year or more, depending on what the base of the sauce is, by freezing it. Putting the sauce into a silicone tray will allow you to pre-portion the sauce and to easily remove it from the casing once needed. Freezing the sauce in a freezer bag would make this process difficult because you would have to thaw the entire bag, even though you want only a small portion.
Desserts
If you have a sweet tooth,like yours truly, then this will be your favorite part. Chocolate covered strawberries, cookie dough, cheesecake bites, no bake bites, coffee cubes, smoothie cubes, chocolate peanut butter cups, frozen yogurt cubes...the list can go on! With the rising popularity of health consciousness, bite size desserts are the perfect way to satisfy that sweet tooth but stay in control. Additionally, for the busy bee who still wants homemade treats, desserts that don’t require any baking are perfect.
Try this quick recipe:
- Pomegranate Frozen Yogurt Bites
- All you need is a pomegranate, Greek yogurt, and some sugar!
- Mix together 1 ½ cups of Greek yogurt with 1/4 cup of confectioners sugar
- Add in 1 cup of pomegranate seeds
- Mix well and spoon the mixture into the ice cube trays
- Place in freezer and allow it to stay overnight
Embellishments
Brighten up any cocktail with beautiful ice cubes. Adding in some flowers or some fruit to garnish your cocktails when entertaining. Alcohol can also be frozen to create a cold, slushy beverage which would be perfect for summer. Of course you can also make Mocktails and smoothies using this method.
Healthy Smoothie Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 banana
- 1 cup of kale
- 3/4 cup of pineapple juice
- ½ an apple
Directions:
- Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Pour smoothie into ice tray and allow it to freeze overnight.
- When ready take out cubes and pop into blender for a few seconds then enjoy!
Why Eparé chose silicone
Why use silicone you ask? Silicone is great because it moves like rubber and won’t crack and cause spillage like regular ice cube trays. It’s also more durable in extreme temperatures, The most important reason why silicone is preferred is because plastic contains toxins that can be harmful to the body. Silicone is independently tested and is proven to not have any toxins like other non-stick materials do. Silicone is also odor preventing so it won’t take on any freezer odor or odor from other food. At eparé we sought to provide a versatile ice cube tray capable of creating a lot more than just ice. Our trays have 6 compartments, measuring 6 ½ by 4 ½ . This means you get the perfect size for creating single size portions that measure 2 by 2 inches. Each tray comes with a sealing lid, that ensures odors from your freezer are locked out. Our trays are made with BPA free and FDA approved silicone. They are also dishwasher safe. It is truly the ice tray... Evolved.