Ice Stick Advice

Time for something totally frivolous! If one cannot be frivolous for one's 3,000th blog post, when can one? Yup, big round number!

As I have mentioned, I have recently acquired new, wonderful water bottles from Corkcicle. Well, I wrote here about the first one, which holds 25 ounces. I don't know if I wrote that I got a 16-ounce bottle as well, later in the summer. The larger one is an all-day-out size, but a bit large/heavy for days when the need isn't so great.

Or, sometimes, I use both, as for instance when I went to Apple Festival last month. I loaded up both Thursday night, and driving on Friday, I drank from the smaller one. When I got into the car Sunday to drive home, I shook the larger one, and it still had ice in it. Very impressive.

Anyway, I recently had a bit of Amazon gift money to spend, so I went ahead and got the ice stick tray I had mentioned, figuring that it definitely counted in the "get something you want, but wouldn't buy for yourself" category. And it's fun! And easier than fiddling around with filling the regular trays half full. But there is a little learning curve, so I thought I would share that with you.

The tray makes a dozen ice sticks, and one of the things I really like about it is that, because of the silicone lid that you press down over it after filling, the tray does not have to be completely level in the freezer. The package, in fact, says that it can be up to a 45-degree angle, and while I didn't check with a compass, I can confirm that tilting it does not lead to a flood, as long as the lid is pressed all the way around.

Now, about that "after filling"; I found it very awkward to fill by the standard method of holding the tray under the faucet, since it tilts pretty easily as the weight of the water shifts it around. This could be partly because my hands are not as strong as they once were, but I found it much easier to put the tray on the counter, and fill it from a water pitcher.

Then you press the lid down to seal it over the cube spots, and tilt the tray over the sink to allow the water that got into the outer area to drain out. Not that it's the end of the world if it freezes there; if you look closely here, you can see I hadn't gotten all the excess water out last time, and it froze around the edges.

But it wasn't a problem. One thing that IS a problem, though, is if you believe one of the photos on Amazon, which makes it look like you should be pressing the lid down as you tilt it. Don't do that; you just lose some of the water in the end ice stick spots. Trust me.

The other tricky thing I found was when I tried to follow the package advice to run a little water on the underside of the tray before getting the ice out, to help keep the sticks* from, well, sticking. If you do that, hold the lid on with one hand! Otherwise, it will give in to the pressure as the ice loosens, and some of your ice sticks will end up in the sink. Again, ask me how I know.
*It feels surprisingly odd not to call them ice cubes. Apparently I have somewhat dissociated the literal meaning of "cube" from "ice cube."

But just lightly pressing it in place worked fine; the second attempt was far less tricky than the first. I also advise lightly holding the lid on as you are getting the ice sticks out, so that you can get one row at a time, instead of having them all jump out at once.

Unless, that is, you don't mind picking them up off the counter and the floor. Feel free to live dangerously, if you want to. I won't judge.