Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Easy Clean Up with a Messy Dish

Over the weekend, we went to a church group gathering where we needed to bring food! What's a church group gathering without food! Anyway, it was requested by those in charge of the event that each family bring either a main dish and dessert or salad and dessert or combination of things. With the help of my family I decided that I was going to bring my BLT Pasta Salad and BBQ smokies.

The pasta salad is a good travelling dish however, the BBQ smokies can be a bit on the challenging side to get from my house to a gathering without them making a mess. Usually if I am going to bring the BBQ smokies to a gathering I will bring all the ingredients and then make them once I get to where I am going. However, with this gathering being a picnic type event, I knew it was going to be a little difficult to make once I got to the event. So instead of making something else that would travel easier, I went ahead and made the BBQ smokies.

I made them up in a pan on the stove to get them cooked and heated through and very hot. I needed them to stay hot until we ate an hour later. I poured them into one of Pyrex glass 9x13 dishes, covered with foil and then the plastic lid and stuck them into my insulated tote.

Before I stuck the dish into my insulated tote, I came up with this brillant idea...


put a section of newpaper in the tote first before I put the dish into it.




Then set the dish on the newspaper in the tote! This worked wonders in not only keeping the dish warmer but it also catches any spills that might occur, which for this dish is almost a guarantee!

After I got home from the picnic, I was able to throw away the soiled newspaper and I didn't have to clean up barbeque sauce out of my insulated carrier! Having the newspaper in the tote made coming home and cleaning up a lot easier.

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5 comments:

Signing Out said...

What a great tip! I always end up getting the insulated carrier dirty, along with the dish. This will eliminate having to clean the carrier! Thanks!

Jane

Alea Milham said...

Great idea! The idea of cleaning out the carrier has impacted what I bring in it.

Caleb said...

Great idea, thanks for sharing.

Sharinskishe said...

Awesome! I have lined my carrier with a towel before and that worked well. Although I had to wash the towel, the carrier had little to be cleaned, just a quick wipe out.

But the newspaper is awesome, because it would also act as an insulator and so it would be a dual insulator and spill catcher! Can't beat that. And you just roll it up and throw it away or recycle the clean parts and burn the soiled parts in the firepit!

Great tip!!!

Shari

Connie said...

I can't wait to share this idea for lining the insulated carrier with newspaper. We take a dish in a carrier like this almost every week to Sunday School. Like Sharinskishe, I've tried dish towels.

Another disposable option is box flats, like you get at Sam's. They work great without the carrier. When wanting to use the carrier, the flats are often times the wrong size. That's not a problem if using the newspaper!!

Thanks again!!

Many blessings ~ Connie

P.S. I homeschool my kids, too! We'll begin our 12th year this fall!