Tips for Better Living

[Gr8Kat]

(At the risk of being told this has been posted before...)

I received this e-mail today (and a few times in the past), and while some of the tips merit a "well, duh," others are a little more out there. There are some I'm even sure are bunk. Have any of the TM tried any of these? What did you think of the results?

* Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips..

* Use a meat baster to "squeeze" your pancake batter onto the hot griddle - perfectly-shaped pancakes every time..

* To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

* To prevent egg shells from cracking, add a pinch of salt to the water before hard-boiling..

* Run your hands under cold water before pressing Rice Krispies treats in the pan-the marshmallow won't stick to your fingers..

* To get the most juice out of fresh lemons, bring them to room temperature and roll them under your palm against the kitchen counter before squeezing..

* To easily remove burnt-on food from your skillet, simply add a drop or two of dish soap and enough water to cover bottom of pan, and bring to a boil on stove-top - skillet will be much easier to clean..

* Spray your Tupperware with nonstick cooking spray before pouring in tomato-based sauces - no more stains..

* When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead - no white mess on the outside of the cake.

* If you accidentally over-salt a dish while it's still cooking,drop in a peeled potato - it absorbs the excess salt for an instant "fix me up".

* Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator - it will keep for weeks.

* Brush beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish..

* Place a slice of apple in hardened brown sugar to soften it back up.

* When boiling corn on the cob, add a pinch of sugar to help bring out the corn's natural sweetness..

* To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh - if it rises to the surface, throw it away.

* Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away..

* Don't throw out all that leftover wine: Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces..

* If you have a problem opening jars: Try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy...

* Potatoes will take food stains off your fingers. Just slice and rub raw potato on the stains and rinse with water..

* To get rid of itch from mosquito bite: try applying soap on the area, instant relief..

* Ants, ants, ants everywhere ... Well, they are said to never cross a chalk line. So get your chalk out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march - see for yourself..

* Use air-freshener to clean mirrors: It does a good job and better still, leaves a lovely smell to the shine..

* When you get a splinter, reach for the scotch tape before resorting to tweezers or a needle. Simply put the scotch tape over the splinter, then pull it off. Scotch tape removes most splinters painlessly and easily.

* NOW Look what you can do with Alka-Seltzer:

Clean a toilet - drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets, wait twenty minutes, brush, and flush. The citric acid and effervescent action clean vitreous china..

Clean a vase - to remove a stain from the bottom of a glass vase or cruet, fill with water and drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets..

Polish jewelry - drop two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and immerse the jewelry for two minutes.

Clean a thermos bottle - fill the bottle with water, drop in four Alka-Seltzer tablets, and let soak for an hour (or longer, if necessary).

Unclog a drain - clear the sink drain by dropping three Alka-Seltzer tablets down the drain followed by a cup of Heinz White Vinegar. Wait a few minutes, then run the hot water..

* If your VCR has a year setting on it, which most do, you will not be able to use the programmed recording feature after 12/31/99. Don't throw it away. Instead, set it for the year 1972 as the days are the same as the year 2000. The manufacturers won't tell you. They want you to buy a new Y2K VCR..

* A friend was helpful enough to send this to you, so now it's your turn to pass it along to your friends, too.

[SSgtBaloo]

I have some actual experience with a few of these:

• Place a slice of apple in hardened brown sugar to soften it back up.
  
  True. I once independently figured this one out by myself. My dad used to put a slice of apple in his tobacco humidor, to keep the tobacco moist. When I discovered that my stock of brown sugar had petrified in its Rubbermaid container, I sliced an apple and put in a piece, hoping it would do the job. I'm still amazed at how well it worked. Within minutes, it had begun to soften, and it had fully softened within an hour or so.
  
• To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh - if it rises to the surface, throw it away.
  
  When was the last time you had a rotten egg to test this one with? According to a friend of mine who raised chickens, an egg will stay fresh for several days even if not refrigerated. Those eggs you buy in the store? They can legally be kept refrigerated for up to 90 days and still sold as fresh.
  
• Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.
  
  True. The lime juice running into your eyes will make you forget all about the headache -- at least for a few minutes.
  
• Don't throw out all that leftover wine: Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
  
  ??? What leftover wine? That sounds like the advice of someone who uses only a teaspoon at a time; who actually risks it turning to vinegar before the bottle's empty.
  
• Ants, ants, ants everywhere ... Well, they are said to never cross a chalk line. So get your chalk out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march - see for yourself.
  
  ??? I'm skeptical about that. Chalk isn't much different from some kinds of dirt, and I see them walking on that stuff all the time. I can tell you with some confidence that they won't walk through vegetable oil. We once had a hummingbird feeder -- the instructions advised coating the string you hung it from with salad oil to keep ants from getting into the feeder. It seemed to work. Initially, we didn't follow the advice and ants got into the feeder. We followed that advice, and the ants stopped getting into it.
  
• If your VCR has a year setting on it, which most do, you will not be able to use the programmed recording feature after 12/31/99. Don't throw it away. Instead, set it for the year 1972 as the days are the same as the year 2000. The manufacturers won't tell you. They want you to buy a new Y2K VCR.
  
  Maybe, but if you don't have a Y2K compatible VCR isn't it probably about time to replace it anyway?

~~Baloo

[wevets]

I dunno about most of these, but this one:

Ants, ants, ants everywhere ... Well, they are said to never cross a chalk line. So get your chalk out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march - see for yourself..

Is at least partially true. I was TAing a introductory bio course with another grad student whose specialty was social ants. He brought some of these into the classroom for a demo, and we contained them by surrounding their box with thick layers of chalk. I have to say that they did get out eventually, but we thought it was because some students gave them the opportunity.

My collegue's explanation was that chalk has a very jagged surface and it hurts ants to walk on it. I don't know how much credence to give this explanation, but it did seem to work for about 48 hours before the ants got out. I think you might want to try something thicker than just a little chalk line, but the principle's the same.

[Skelji]

I got that e-mail, too. I have either tried, or already knew of, the following things that do work:

Salt in boiling water will keep eggshells from cracking (unless they slam into the bottom of the pot first)

Rolling any fruit at room temperature before juicing will yield more juice

My mother used to boil soapy water in burnt pans. I'm too lazy, and just let it sit in the sink overnight.

I was heavy handed with the salt making tomato sauce once, and the potato trick seemed to help (either that, or my taste buds were shot from constant sampling)

I always add sugar to corn when cooking it. Start with the corn in cold water, bring to boil for 5 mins, and serve. Longer than that - sugar or no sugar - and you'll have some tough corn on the cob

Bad eggs do indeed float - it's a build-up of some type of gas, I think. I have had "fresh" (according to the date) eggs float. There was one of those 20/20 type news shows that told of how many eggs are just re-packed with new dates stamped on the carton. Always check your eggs.

My wife is always yammering at me for using her rubber gloves to open jars with. "Fine, honey. You open the jar!"

Everything on your list below the rubber gloves I would tend to question. Chalk? Scotch tape? Air freshener? And the one use for Alka-Seltzer they left out was to drop it in the mouth of someone passed-out drunk at a party. (no, that's too cruel...well, depends on the person)

[wevets]

I should also mention that the chalk we used wasn't regular blackboard chalk. It looked similar, but it may also have been mixed with something, it was too think and chunky to be blackboard chalk. I don't know where he got it.

[Gr8Kat]

Wow, it's nice to know some e-mail are trustworthy

I have serious doubts about the lime curing a headache; didn't someone write into Ann Landers once and say a banana peal on the forehead would cure a headache? I wonder if that works, or if someone just wanted to see if she'd really do it.

[Rasa]

Ooh! Ooh! One of my areas of expertise--ice cream! I scooped ice cream for 6 years... the place I worked made their own waffle cones and we used the itty bitty marshmallows in the bottom for just that reason!

Just thought I'd share that.

[TVeblen]

Nooo, nooo! (thin, hysterical screaming) Martha's on the Web! Martha's on the Web!)-->flash to end scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers<--

For the egg/cooking stuff, check out Cook's Illustrated, the food science gurus. Frankly, if you have to worry about an egg floating, pitch it. Ever spent a mad, giddy few days barfing your guts out from food poisoning? Was it worth a stupid egg? (FWIW, I write purchase date of eggs on pencil as soon as I get them home.

Somehow, I don't measure my life by when I bought eggs, and can't remember science experiments at the best of times. Pencil the date on the shells; pitch if doubtful.

Vinegar in barely simmering water will tidily coagulate poached eggs, though.

But overall, (faking forgetting most of The List), vinegar rocks. Buy the gallon size of white distilled. It'll make your windows glisten, buffed w/ old newspapers; make drains of all sorts smell better and possibly replace Viagra.

On the other hand, poison kills ants. Fergit the handy, dandy folk remedies. Got ants? Forget chalk, lye dosed with pantry goods...kill the nest. And don't worry, the species will relocate happily and laugh (twitching their little antennea) anyway.

::Veb succumbs to wall-eyed, paranoid raving::

[Zenster]

Some more helpful hints:
[*]A line of liquid dish soap will stop ants
[*]For sunnyside up eggs without runny whites throw in a dash of water and cover tightly for the last minute
[*]Always wash your rice before cooking
[*]Cook your rice for 12 minutes and let is rest for the last 5-10 minutes
[*]Wash and dry grated potatoes for hash browns
[*]Salt your hash browns while they fry, not after
[*]A splash of oil in the water pot stops pasta from sticking together
[*]A dash of sugar in you oil and vinegar dressing rounds out the flavor, the same goes for spaghetti sauce
[*]One clove of garlic in your whole batch of potato salad makes it taste better
[*]Always let a cut of meat or bird rest for 5-10 minutes before carving
[*] Protect your knives from contact with other metal objects to keep them sharp
[*]Never leave any sort of knife in the sink
[*]If a pan catches fire place a cover on it to extinguish it quickly
[*]To clean up a large oil spill pour on salt to solidify it
[*]For perfect hard boiled eggs, boil for 8 minutes and let rest in the hot water for another 5 minutes.
[*]Rinse hard boiled eggs in very cold water to loosen their shells for peeling
[*]Use a dash of white pepper, garlic powder and onion powder in your mashed potatoes for extra flavor
[*]To save money, always buy powdered onion or garlic instead of galic or onion salt.


For more recipes and fun, please check this thread.