We all love fresh herbs in meals, but let’s face it, it’s a pain to mince ‘em up.

I found the simplest way to add parsley, cilantro or any other leafy herb to a dish requires two instruments — a coffee mug and a pair of kitchen scissors.

Just rip off how much you may need of an herb, put it in the mug, and then mince it with the scissors to the desired cut.

Great mince, minimal mess, and no cutting board to clean!

Here’s the scenario: Your grocery store is offering a fantastic deal on a certain item, but when you go to the shelf, there is none left! Dang it!

Oh, but not to worry, you have two grocery shopping secrets under your belt:

I bought several limes today, in preparation for dinner guests coming in a couple days.

Following my own advice, I am going to serve pre-made Cosmopolitans, using this recipe, which calls for lime juice.

That brought to mind a tip:

I was doing 5 small limes, so I microwaved for 30-45 seconds.

Don’t ask me why it works, but it does make so much more juice come out — and so much easier. Try it next time a recipe calls for lemon or lime juice.

This is so easy — get $35 in Del Monte coupons by just entering your name, address and email. One immediately printed out, and the rest should be in the mail or emailed.

FYI: When you enter your address, make it your complete one with city, state and ZIP code.

Also, those entering the earliest will net the most coupons (it’s in the small print).

Click this link for $35 in Del Monte coupons.

Yes, even the garbage disposal needs to be cleaned occasionally, and it is so easy.

I assume we all know how you can throw a lemon, orange or any kind of citrus fruit down the drain to add a smell of freshness. (My personal trick is to put Pine Sol into it, when no fruit is in the house.)

But if you really want to clean the garbage disposal, here is the secret:

The ice cubes create enough friction on the blades to wipe away any bit of gunk, and it dissolves as the water runs. (This is also a great way to get rid of the “old” ice in your icemaker (the kind that smells funky.)

Follow up with a citrus rind or Pine Sol, and that baby is ready to roll — and smelling great.

Warning: Do not attempt this with a baby sleeping.

People rarely think about their can openers, but have you looked at the blade lately. Gunk city!

It’s so easy to take care of this task (that most people never do).

Just take off the cutting apparatus of your can opener, and run it through the dishwasher. Clean - and disinfected.

Sorry for the down post, but I wanted to report that today at Albertsons the cashier did not accept Internet coupons. From what I hear from the forums at Couponmom.com, this is getting to be prevalent.

If you run into the same problem, I strongly encourage you to take the time and talk to store management.

I’ve heard from cashiers that they are running into fradulent coupons (photocopied), but if you look at any Internet coupon, there is a security measure in the upper-right corner that cannot be photocopied correctly. The cashiers need to be trained to spot copied coupons — and the store management needs to know these are valid coupons, and you’re not going to accept the new policy.

My coupons were printed from the manufacturer’s site, and they would not accept them. This is wrong!

Let your voice speak loudly, because otherwise the stores will continue to adopt this idiotic blanket policy. Internet coupons are the wave of the future, and the stores need to know. This is money out of your pocket!

If talking with the manager does no good, I highly recommend calling or writing the District Manager. This raises eyebrows, I’ve heard from people who work in grocery stores.

OK, I will get off my soap box now — and you know I complained.

God knows I love Martha Stewart — she’s smart, an incredible business woman, and funny (as seen in this post).
But I had to chuckle at this message yesterday on her blog, where she shared photos of her “blogging studio.” First, my blogging “studio” is 2 feet on my kitchen counter. But, more importantly, get ahold of the chairs the blogging employees must sit in for 8 hours!

I have one word for you, Martha: Ergonomics.

The freebies and samples are rolling in at our house! I got ‘em from this site, which I blogged about in this post.

In the past week, I received:

So, yes, there are still some freebies in this world. Check out the post for more information. Let me tell you, it makes getting the mail a lot more fun!

“What can I bring?” — we all hear this question when we invite people over (for me, it’s usually a dinner invitation). I used to say, “No, thank you,” but I’ve learned now to say, “Yes, would you bring ….”

The item I request most often is an appetizer.

I don’t know about you, but when planning and preparing for dinner guests, items to snack on before the meal are always the last thing I want to deal with after an hour or two of prep work for dinner (I want to take a nap instead! Another good tip when having guests over.)

My favorite host on Food Network, Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa, says to prepare one item and assemble the others when planning appetizers. That means to buy the rest — pate, olives, cheese, etc. and then just put it all together on a platter, etc. In more flush times, this was easier for me to do, but money is tight, so I now take up my guests’ offers.

Here are a few tips:

Hope these hints help. You can find more entertaining tips in these posts. And for entertaining suggestions specifically from Ina Garten, check out this post.