While I'm not OCD when it comes to cleaning, there are little areas that start to grate on my nerves after awhile. Like the bottom of the water and ice dispenser on our fridge...

We have hard water, and when you pair that with five kids that just can't seem to grasp how to fill a water bottle without spraying water down the front of the refrigerator door -- well, you end up with crusted on hard water deposits that drive me insane.

Q-tips to the rescue! Specifically the new Q-Tips Precision Tips cotton swabs which boast the same cushy cotton swab tip you know and love compressed into a pointed precision tip perfect for reaching small spaces. These are ideal for a variety of other kitchen tasks such as:

• Cleaning kitchen cabinets -- Dirt and dust can accumulate quickly on the moldings and trim of your kitchen cabinets. Q-tips Precision Tips cotton swabs are small enough to get into these cracks and crevices and remove unwanted buildup.

• Tidying up condiment jar edges -- Use Q-tips Precision Tips cotton swabs to clean the spout or around the edges of your condiment bottles.

• Degunking stove knobs -- Q-tips Precision Tips cotton swabs easily remove caked on grease from stove knobs.

I'm sure you have dozens more ideas for how Q-Tips Precision Tips cotton swabs can be used. Share your tips in the comments for a chance to win a box of Q-Tips Precision Tips and a $25 American Express gift card!

Every reader has three methods available to enter this contest. Choose one each of any combination of method one, two, or three for up to a total of 3 entries!!!

If you are reading this in your email or feed reader, please CLICK HERE to visit the original blog post to enter. Email entries will not be counted.

Methods of entry:

1. Leave a comment.  Tell me how you would use Q-Tips Precision Tips cotton swabs around your home!

2. Subscribe to the Unsophisticook newsletter to have the latest recipes and tips delivered right to your inbox! You must confirm your email subscription for it to be a valid entry! Leave a separate comment letting me know you have done so. If you’re already a subscriber, simply leave a separate comment letting me know you’re already subscribed.

3. Follow Unsophisticook on Pinterest to share your latest finds. Come back and leave a separate comment letting me know you've done so!

Prize:

One package of Q-Tips Precision Tips cotton swabs + a $25 Am Ex gift card

This giveaway ends at 5:00 PM EST on Friday, 6/1/12 and is open to all U.S. residents 18 years or older. I’ll use And the Winner Is to select the winning comment. Winner will be notified by email and must respond within 48 hours of notification to claim their prize. Good luck!

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Today I’m participating in the Ultimate Blog Swap. You’ll find me posting over at Modern Alternative Mama about Crispy Baked Kale Chips, and I’m excited to welcome Melissa from Cajun Sugar Pie to Unsophisticook:

One of my favorite desserts to make during summer months is an ice cream bombe. They are so easy and make a great presentation for all your summer parties. Plus, there is NO baking involved, so you don’t have to worry about a hot kitchen!

A bombe is made by simply layering soft ice cream into a chilled mold and freezing each layer as you go. You can use ice cream or sherbet, and you can even add cake layers.

Today, I made a Neapolitan ice cream bombe with chocolate, vanilla, and cherry ice cream.

Hope you enjoy! I’d love for you to stop by Cajun Sugar Pie for more dessert recipes!

Visit Life Your Way to see all of the Ultimate Blog Swap participants!

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Typically I'm not big on semi-homemade recipes, and even when it comes to frozen drinks, we make them from scratch, juicing fresh limes and lemons for our frozen margaritas. However, my favorite strawberry daiquiri recipe calls for Bacardi Mixers Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri Mix. But don't think for a second that we just dump the mix in a blender with some rum and ice and call it a day...

Admittedly there's not a whole lot more to it, but it's those little extra touches that make this THE best strawberry daiquiri I've ever had -- not too sweet, not too tart, and deliciously thick and creamy. And it's hands down the easiest to make!

You'll need the Bacardi Mix, a package of frozen strawberries, a banana, and a bottle of coconut rum. Malibu Coconut Rum is our liqueur of choice -- the top shelf 24% alcohol version from the state store when we remember to buy during store hours. As for the banana, this is one of those occasions where I dip into my stash of frozen bananas to add creaminess and take away some of the tartness that strawberries can have.

We mix up our drinks in our Margaritaville Frozen Concoction Maker (LOVE this thing!), but a regular blender will do.

If you want to serve up a pretty strawberry daiquiri, you can dip the rims of your glasses in water or rub the rim with a cut lemon or lime. Then dip the glass in regular granulated sugar for a decorative look. Of course you can also just skip this step because they taste delicious either way!

My neighbors are going to be thrilled that I posted this "recipe". They're always asking what our secret is -- now you all know!

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Though cooking sprays have come a long way in recent years, I'm still a bit leery of using them. Instead I prefer to use a Misto Olive Oil Sprayer when a recipe calls for cooking spray.

Whether you use an oil mister or aerosol cooking spray, spraying your pans can be a bit on the messy side. My solution? Lay the pan on the inside of the door of your dishwasher when spraying. All of the overspray goes on the door and gets washed away with your next load of dishes!

Check out these other quick tips to save you time and money in the kitchen.

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Breakfast tendencies run the gamut in our family. My youngest daughter would just as soon skip it, my 4 year old, 7 year old, and 10 year old lean toward sweets, while my 9-year-old son prefers more savory items. Since he's the lone savory lover of the bunch, I came up with this cheddar sausage breakfast muffin recipe especially for him.

Did he like it? Well, he ate no fewer than four of them after getting home from his baseball scrimmage tonight, so yeah, I'd say it's a resounding yes!

Having a bit of a sweet tooth myself, I used Johnsonville Vermont Maple Syrup Breakfast Links as the sausage component and frozen sweet corn as well, but the sharp cheddar cheese and sauteed onions balance them out so there's only a hint of sweetness.

Of course I think any variety of Johnsonville Breakfast Sausage Links would be delicious -- I may try the Wisconsin Cheddar variety next time...

This recipe makes 24 of these savory muffins, which is perfect for our family but may be a little much for a smaller family. Freeze half of the batch after cooling to stretch this into two meals!

I'm submitting this recipe in the Wake Up With Johnsonville recipe contest. There's still time for you to submit your favorite recipe featuring Johnsonville Sausage as well. Enter through May13th at 11:59pm CDT!

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Whether savory or sweet, light and fluffy popovers are an impressive addition to any meal. Guests will think you spent hours in the kitchen, when in reality, this easy popover recipe only takes five minutes of prep time and 30 minutes to bake!

If you're like me, you may have assumed that beautiful popovers were impossible without a special popover pan, but you can easily achieve similar results with a standard muffin pan. A popover pan will certainly produce taller, narrower popovers; however, those baked in a muffin tin will still rise beautifully and remain light and airy.

This easy popover recipe only requires five simple ingredients, and they can be endlessly customized with various cheeses, spice, or jams. We often enjoy them drizzled with honey.

Today I chose to give them a different treatment though, one worthy of a Mother's Day brunch. My kids adore cinnamon toast for breakfast, so I thought why not give them a sweet cinnamon-sugar coating on top? They were delicious! I'll admit I ate two... and then I finished what the kids left on their plates too (which was very little).

Three important tips for making popovers:

{1} Warm up your muffin pan in the oven before pouring in the batter.
{2} Fill your cups about 2/3 full.
{3} Do not open the oven door until the popovers have baked for at least 30 minutes.

Do you love your mama? Thank her by making these popovers for her this Sunday (perhaps with a pot of French press coffee?), and you can thank me later...

Disclosure: I am a participant in the Walmart Moms program. Walmart has provided me with compensation for the time and effort spent creating this post. However, my participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own -- always have been, always will be.

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I happen to absolutely adore kitchen gadgets. It sounds silly, but walking into the homewares section of any store makes me a little giddy. Perhaps there are those of you that would prefer flowers and candy for Mother's Day, but that's just not me. While I wouldn't be disappointed with either of those items, my kids know that the real key to my heart is a new toy to play with in my kitchen!

However, I don't expect them to keep track of all of the items I already have and those that I want, so I spent some time this morning browsing Walmart.com to give them a few suggestions.

Figuring that there are at least a few of you that would love these items as well, I thought I'd share my list to give some other dads a little assistance. Psst... in case you forgot, Mother's Day is this Sunday!

{1} Cat Cora Silicone Cooking Utensils, $10.99 ea. -- I'm going through a bit of a green obsession, and these would be perfect in my kitchen!

{2} Two-Tone Bamboo Ladle, $19.99 -- I love the two-tone finish on this spectacular bamboo ladle!

{3} Silicone Blue Pinch Bowls (set of 4), $8.99 -- I prefer to stage my ingredients (mise en place) when cooking, so I can never have too many pinch bowls on hand!

{4} Bird-Shaped Lemon Squeezer, $17.99 -- This silver bird-shaped lemon squeezer would make juicing lemons for my lemon water much more fun!

{5} Ninja Express Chopper, $19.94 -- I think this Ninja chopper would be much easier to work with in most cases than my bulky food processor!

{6} Silicone Gripper Tongs, $12.98 -- Multiple sets of kitchen tongs are an absolute must, and these are tipped in green!

{7} Bunny-Shaped Corn Stripper, $10.07 -- I've always wanted a corn stripper, and this one is just too cute!

{8} Salad Spinner, $17.97 -- I've been kicking myself for donating my salad spinner when we moved!

{9} Bamboo and Stainless Expandable Trivet, $14.97 -- This expandable bamboo trivet will help protect my new kitchen table that's schedule to arrive any day now!

What kitchen gadget or gadgets are a must in your household?

Disclosure: I am a participant in the Walmart Moms program. Walmart has provided me with compensation for the time and effort spent creating this post. However, my participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own -- always have been, always will be.

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All year long, our family meals require some mental gymnastics to ensure that I prepare at least one item that appeals to each family member -- no easy feat with five kids! So I reserve the right to make Mother’s Day all about what I want to eat...

And just what is that you might ask? My favorite Italian restaurant appetizer, of course, the popular Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip, a la Olive Garden. Added bonus -- it's simple enough that my husband and kids can throw it together!

Find my lightened up recipe on Snackpicks and treat your mom too.

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My spice were in dire need of some organization. Really, I'm not joking! Because I like to keep things real around here, I'll let you take a look for yourself.

This is the sorry state of my spices as of last week -- still tossed haphazardly in the same box I placed them in when we moved five months ago...

It's been a constant thorn in my side while trying to cook lately. It was time to get them organized, but how? I settled on creating a spice drawer using baby food jars with chalkboard painted lids, keeping things frugal yet still attractive.

I found a ginormous Pampers box full of baby food jars in the basement during the move. Given that the expiration dates stamped on many of them were in '05 and '06, I clearly put them away some time ago, and I've not a clue as to what my intentions were. But I was glad to have stumbled upon them when I started thinking about how I might solve my spice organization issue.

I decided that repurposing them was the perfect way to organize my spices in a drawer, so I headed to Walmart to pick up some Plaid chalkboard paint, paint brushes, and chalk. I also ordered a chalk ink marker off of Amazon -- it did cost more than the previous three items combined, but I wanted to be able to label the jars neatly, and it definitely did the trick.

I didn't bother with masking anything off on the baby food jar lids and just started painting. According to the instructions, only two coats are necessary on most surfaces, but I found that the metal lids didn't hold on to the paint well and therefore needed three to four coats.

Then I left the paint to cure overnight. Finally the paint needed conditioned, which was as simple as rubbing some chalk into it well before writing on it with the chalk marker.

I transferred my spices into the jars (have to say I'm ashamed to admit just how many duplicates and expired containers I tossed), labeled them, and organized them in a drawer. I love this simple, easy, and inexpensive solution. Now I can find my spices easily and keep tabs on when I need to buy more easily!

Do you have another creative and inexpensive solution for organizing spices?

Disclosure: I am a participant in the Walmart Moms program. Walmart has provided me with compensation for the time and effort spent creating this post. However, my participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own -- always have been, always will be.

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I have a confession to make... I'm THAT lady -- you know, the one in the grocery store that squeals with delight when she finds marked down bananas and promptly loads up her cart.

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You see, while many people view marked down produce as spoiled and/or not worth the time and effort, I view it as an opportunity both to save money and to get a little creative. Those almost-too-ripe bananas can be frozen and used to make so-so smoothies amazing and creamy.

They're also the secret ingredient in my famous strawberry daiquiris -- and they're also a key ingredient in this banana cream pie milkshake recipe...

But the real star of this recipe is Biscoff Crunchy Spread. Perhaps you're familiar with Biscoff Cookies? You've likely tried them if you've flown Delta Airlines -- Biscoff Cookies are served on Delta flights. The spread is made with the cookies, and in addition to being totally delicious, it’s vegan, nut-free, produced in a nut-free facility and has no cholesterol or trans-fats per serving.

I should note that there's actually no ice cream used for this "milkshake". Instead, the frozen bananas and vanilla yogurt (my fave is Stonyfield Low Fat French Vanilla) combine to create a delicious refreshment that mimics ice cream, making this a much healthier alternative to a traditional milkshake.

Topped with some homemade whipped cream and a sprinkling of crushed up Biscoff Cookies, this cool and creamy treat is sure to please.

This recipe makes two one-cup serving -- or one large two-cup portion that's perfect for sharing!

Be sure not to over process the shake after adding the Biscoff Crunchy Spread. You don't want to break up all of those tasty little chunks of cookie!

Wondering where you can purchase Biscoff Spread? It's been available in Belgium for about 3 years, but it can now be found on Walmart Supercenter shelves. Pick up a jar today -- you won't regret it...

Disclosure: I am a participant in the Walmart Moms program. Walmart has provided me with compensation for the time and effort spent creating this post. However, my participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own -- always have been, always will be.

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