6 CREATIVE USES FOR YOUR COFFEE
Coffee is dubbed as the aboslute nectar of the Gods, which somewhat makes sense. Coffee is what saves you when you didn’t get enough sleep or need a boost of energy, it is the perfect conversation starter, and it tastes like perfection!
These reasons alone make coffee a magical thing in our books, but did you know that coffee can do so much more? Check out this list of things you can do with your coffee and coffee grounds.
Cook with It
Minus the grounds (if you’re drinking Lebanese/Turkish coffee), what you are left with is essentially coffee-flavored water, which you can use in your cooking and baking. Coffee is a good complement to chocolate, so consider adding some to any chocolate baking you might be doing. It is also a meat tenderizer, and can work well as a steak marinade.
Compost and Fertilize
Coffee grounds contain several key minerals that are essential to plant growth that most soils do not have or are depleted of as plants grow. You can fertilize your plants by sprinkling your leftover coffee grounds on the soil surrounding them. Alternatively, grounds can be composted along with other components of a compost bin.
Insect Repellent
Coffee grounds contain certain compounds that are highly toxic to insects; which you can use them as a natural bug repellent. Simply sprinkle them around your outdoor seating area. You can also keep bugs away from your plants by sprinkling some grounds around them, creating a barrier that slugs and snails do not like to crawl over. You can also burn some grounds in an ashtray on the lunch/dinner table to keep mosquitoes away. Some research also suggests that you can bathe your pet in your used coffee and/or grounds to help prevent fleas, as the latter also don’t enjoy coffee.
Neutralize Odors
If you’ve ever walked into a perfume, you’ve probably noticed that they have a small bowl of coffee beans that they tell you to smell in between testers. This is because of coffee’s great odor-neutralizing capacities – which you can use to your advantage. Set a small bowl of your leftover grounds in the fridge to help kill off any pungent or rancid that might come out. Also, you can keep them in a small bowl by the sink to wash your hands with whenever you chop onions or garlic and need to get the stink off. Lastly, you can fill old socks or pantyhose with some grounds and put them in your shoes to keep them from smelling bad.
Clean With It
Aside from their abrasive and coarse texture, coffee grounds have antibacterial and antiviral properties, making them perfect to remove buildup on surfaces that are hard to clean. If you want to try to opt out on those harsh cleaning chemicals, try using coffee grounds to scour your sinks, grill, pots, pans, and other hard-to-clean cookware.
Beauty Brewing
Coffee can do wonders for the skin. Its coarse texture makes it perfect to exfoliate dead skin. Mix it with some coconut oil for a gentle body scrub, or with some honey to make an easy lip scrub. The caffeine in coffee grounds also has antioxidant properties that can protect the skin from sun damage. What’s more, it increases blood flow and can break down superficial fat deposits, which brings us to the kicker: it can help reduce the appearance of under-eye circles and cellulite – by using the coffee body scrub on affected areas.
