Saturday, August 15, 2009

#84 Uses for Leftover Coffee

Don't throw away your leftover coffee, the leftover grounds or the filter. First, compost that filter. You are not only saving it from spending years trying to decompose in a landfill pile, but you will help creat your own fertilizer for your garden.

Now, what to do with those grounds. Here are a few suggestions:
* Sprinkle the cooled grounds right on to the ground of outdoor & indoor plants. The grounds will give a slow-release of nitrogen that will help fertilize your plants. Plus it will help keep slugs away.
* Sprinkle on your lawn to help fertilize the lawn naturally.
* Compost the grounds right along with the filter.
* Let them dry out & put in a bowl to use as a deodorizer in your fridge/freezer
* Re-steep them and use to make a dye, great for eggs or crafts projects.
* Use as a body scrubs for arms & legs while in the shower.
* Rub them on your hands & rinse to remove garlic, onion or other smells.
* Put around plants that you don't wants cats near. Cats don't like the smell and it will deter them.
* Sprinkler whereever you have ants, inside or outside. It will naturally repel the ants.
* Make Coffee ground play-doh (I have not tried this yet)
* Make coffee ground fossils
* Make Dinosaur Digging Rocks/Eggs. This looks like a fun thing to do and you could use other small trinkets inside if your kids aren't into dinosaurs.
* Make homemade “sand”

Ok, so now you have use the filter & the grounds, what about the coffee. That list is almost endless.

* Reserve the liquid to use in most any muffin, bread, brownie or chocolate cake.
* Use to marinate meats, make a gravy or in stew.
* Use in making a BBQ sauce.
* Use to make a frosting.
* Make coffee ice cubes & serve iced coffees later. The coffee ice cubes will prevent it from getting watered down the way it would with regular ice cubes.
* Add to chili.
* Water your houseplants with it.

What do you do with your leftover coffee & grounds?

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