I bought these about a month ago in an attempt to waste fewer fresh herbs.  I don’t own ice cube trays so those were not an option.

First, the good.  They are easy to fill, and it is easy to remove the cubes from the green base once they’re frozen.  The recommendation is to remove them to a Ziploc bag after freezing, which I did.  They stayed separate in the freezer and went into my next recipe just fine.  Plus, with two trays per box there’s plenty of capacity to freeze the remainder of a grocery store bunch at once.

But … The lids are impossible to get off – at least that is my experience thus far.  I filled my trays and snapped them on no problem.  But, once frozen the lids have no give.  I had to use a screwdriver to pry them off (I seriously contemplated smashing them with a hammer or just throwing them away it was so frustrating).  In the process I drew blood from my hand as the screwdriver slipped multiple times. (Photo is from the next day.)

What’s worse is that I wrote to Ball with my experiences two weeks ago and … radio silence.  I admit it is possible I did something wrong.  Namely, I am going to try using them again but with less fluid so there might be some give at the top.  But, I read and followed all of the instructions that came with them, had issues, and got no response from customer service.  That is just wrong.

I wasn’t sure about this.  It got a lot of press to the run up to Christmas.  I saw one in October and thought maybe.  I saw one just after Thanksgiving, but figured it had been played with 100 times in the store so I should buy it online.  Trouble was, by that point, online was sold out and they were going for 4 times the regular price on Ebay/Amazon Marketplace/etc.  Of course, by this time I was sure it was what I wanted.  After much looking, I finally found one at the Fisher Price Store.  And, I’m glad I spent the time because it has been played with a lot so far.

There was some leftover apple pie filling in the freezer so I decided to try making apple turnovers.  I make apple pie with a precooked filling; it comes out so much better than raw apples.  Plus, after apple picking you can make a bunch of fillings and freeze them.  Then thaw, dump in (homemade) pie crust, and bake.

I’ve never worked with puff pastry before so I bought the cheapest option – store brand.  They were great and quickly disappeared.  But, one batch didn’t use all the filling so I went back for some more.  This time Pepperidge Farm was on sale cheaper than the store brand so I bought it.  I liked the store brand better.   Pepperidge Farm had a lot of extra flour, which did make unfolding easier, but it also made crimping harder.  It was also much stiffer so the dough cracked when it folded over.  It was flakier when baked, but maybe overly so.  I took some pictures though, because they’re still pretty good!

The short answer is yes.  The Babies R Us Lightweight Umbrella Stroller is good at what it does.  It’s $19.99 normally, but they regularly have buy $X worth of stuff to get the stroller free.  Last I remember it was $50, which is eminently doable if you’re still dealing with baby items.  But, you can buy anything in the store so presents for older kids work too in a combo Toys R Us/Babies R Us store.

It has no storage, which is a downer.  And, I don’t care for the sunshade (but it removes easily so just toss it).  But, even with my large kids it can be steered with one hand and it fold/unfolds very easily.  Since it takes up no space in my trunk it lives there for all the times I go in and out but need/want the baby to stay sitting.  Even if you have a fancier stroller, I definitely recommend picking up this freebie!