Cool tips!
Here’s one…
If you use a microwave to bake your potatos, you know you need to poke some holes in them so the steam can escape and potatos don’t explode.
Have you ever nearly lost your hand muscles trying to pull that fork/knife back out? (Especially in sweet potatos!) The tip is - simply twist the instrument right and then left (or left and then right), put it back in the middle, and - abracadabra! - it slides out easily!
er…then simply toss the thing in with the soap water…
If I may shift gears to cooking bacon…
->Don’t separate the slices to put them into the pan.
When I was a kid, the instructions on the package said to peel off the desired number of slices as a hunk and throw the hunk into the pan. As it starts cooking, the slices can easily be separated.
Figuring this was universal knowledge, I was taken aback to see that almost everyone else laboriously peels each individual slice off from the uncooked slab, often with frustrating destruction of each of those slices.
->Don’t worry about overfilling the pan.
Bacon shrinks to one third its size when cooked. It doesn’t all have to touch the pan when you start.
I would see folks who did the peeling described above carefully lay each slice out with little or no overlap, filling up the pan’s surface with just a few slices, running out of room when they were cooking a large batch. I have cooked a pound in one batch in a 10" pan.
->To really make life easy, cut the slab down the middle and use half-slices.
They’re easier to tend and you avoid the burnt-in-middle-but-raw-on-the-edge syndrome.
And cook your bacon in a soup pot. It cooks just the same, takes nearly exactly the same effort as a frying pan to clean, and no splatters.
Wow, I knew about the cutting bacon in half thing but I never thought to leave em all together in a hunk before. Thanks!
When making eggs sunny-side-up it helps them cook quickly and evenly if you cover the pan for about half a minute.
(Any more than this and the yolks will be totally firm)
You know when you have a roll of very sticky tape and it’s hard to peel off when you need to use some? After using it, fold the end back onto itself making a little tab. The next time you use the tape, you can just pull up the little tab instead of scraping with fingernails and such.
This was a :smack: moment for me last year.
Wow, I just pull the ‘ON’ switch on the washer, and rinse off the cup in the fill water. 
Don’t throw away your children. You may want to save them for later on in life.
Don’t bother turning your clothes the right way round, simply buy things with no logo’s, cut out the labels and wear 'em inside out!
Then when you take em off again, they’ll be the right way round for next time!
When opening champagne, hold the bottle at a 45% angle and twist the bottle - not the cork. This way it wont pop or froth over.
When pouring champagne, pour a little in the glass first quite quickly, the bubbles will coat the inside of the glass stopping it from all bubbling over when you top up.
(This works for other really fizzy liquids too)
Instead of emptying all your draws when you move house, just cover the whole thing in a load of clingfilm…
Rince bacon under cold water before frying, that stops the amount of shrinkage.
Honey helps pervent nearly healed wounds from scaring too badly. I haven’t tried putting it in an open wound though…
Stop ants getting in your house by leaving a line of salt or pepper across the threshold. They wont cross it.
Bicarbonate of Soda will neturalise most odours.
To get wax out of clothes, put a sheet of tissue paper over the wax and then iron, the wax will remelt into the tissue and come out of the cloth.
I got loads more, but I have to go out now…
I don’t have any nifty tricks, but I would like to give the link to the master, Heloise.
You can use superglue to hold together a cut if you don’t want to get stitches.
Here’s one of mine that was actually printed in “Hints from Heloise.”
Bachelors! Do you have a tupperware container in the back of your refrigerator that has been in there so long that you don’t remember what’s inside? In the words of George Carlin, “Could be meat… could be cake”? And now it’s developing an ominous bulge in the lid, and you’re afraid to open it because you might be overcome by the fumes and lay unconscious while the contents of the container ooze into your ear and take over your brain? And you’d just throw it out but the tupperware belongs to someone else and they keep asking for it?
Just do what they did to the Blob - freeze it! In this case, you sling the whole thing into the freezer overnight so that the cold stuns it; then, the next time trash day rolls around, just pop the whole frozen mess out and get rid of it before it thaws with a howl of cheated anger.
Here’s one I invented myself:
Take a plain nylon underskirt and sew it into a trouser-skirt.
Wear it on hot days under a skirt or dress.
Keeps your thighs from clinging together or chafing. Feels really wonderful and cool, and the dress falls so much nicer over it.
you can use a towel wetted down with VERY cold water to help catch snakes. After they’ve been chilled a bit with the towel, they get sluggish enough to handle easily. Yes, there’s a story…
Don’t spend mega-bucks on makeup brushes from the makeup counters. What they’re selling is the same stuff you can get at any large craft store with a decent painting section. The only difference is the length of the handle. I figured this out two ways. First, I noticed a brush from a makeup company being advertised as a Taklon brush for $28. I was in Michael’s later that day and noticed that they sell the very same brush - Taklon bristles, same shape (with a longer handle) for $8. Second, I bought a few of the paint brushes to compare and they feel and apply makeup that same.
And if the longer handles bother you, cut 'em down & sand them.
I do something like this – I cut about an inch off of each side. I still end up with longish pieces of bacon, and then I save the small pieces to use for cooking in other dishes. Of course, I use bacon for cooking a lot.
I bake my bacon in the oven (about 15 minutes at 425 degrees). I do have to separate the slices, but that bit of work is more than made up for by the fact that I don’t have to turn the slices, they come out nice and flat (great for sandwiches!), and the kitchen (not to mention my glasses) doesn’t get all smoked up and greasy.
thicken up runny low fat yogurt by stirring in a spoonful of lard.
Similar thing, get a pair of tights and chop 'em off above the knee.
That was a godsend in Thailand!
ooooh, do tell!
Ok… some more I know of…
Remove rust with aluminium foil or wire wool dipped in coke.
Rub white marks from depodorant with vinegar.
If you loose a contact lense (or other small item that’s a bugger to search for) in your house, get a pair of tights, streach them over the end of a vacuum and go over the area you reckon you lost it. Turn off the vaccum over a table and the item should drop off, or you can check for it on the tights.
Put a couple of grains of rice into a salt shaker, that will absorb any moisture and stop the salt clogging the holes.
If your photos get stuck together, use a hairdryer to heat them till they fall apart.
To remove glue from stickers rub it with vegetable/baby oil.
If you accidentally put a coloured item in with the white wash, don’t allow anything to dry, rewash all the white stuff, it will quite often get rid of the taint.
Cucumber will remove the harsh edge from an alcoholic drink.
If you get chewing gum on clothes, stick the item in the freezer overnight, then pick off the frozen gum the next day.
To check to see if you have bad breath, lick your wrist, wait for the spit to dry then smell your wrist (doesn’t work if your breath smells of wrist ;))
You can shine your shoes with banana peal.
If you have a big date and you have dark circles round the eyes, rub a little egg white on them, this tightens the skin… bear in mind it only works for a few hours, it gets crusty after that.
Eat an apple rather than have a cup of coffee in the morning, it wakes you up better and will give you a longer lasting energy boost.
If you feel sick, anything with ginger in it should settle the stomach. Ginger beer always works for me. Peppermint is also very good.
If you get a ladder in your tights, put a dab of clear nail varnish at either end, that will stop the ladder from running any more.
To get really shiney hair, crack an egg in it and rub in, leave for 15 mins then wash out in luke warm water (hot water will cook the egg… ick!)
Beer(bitter) is also very good for your hair.
Dab perfume or toothpaste on spots to dry them out.
Liquorice will releave constipation.
Chewing liquorice root will greatly enhance the flavour of anything you eat after it, although it might also make it taste very odd. Liquorice root followed by a pint of Guinness is DEVINE!
Lemon juice rubbed in the skin apparently makes you tan faster - I dunno what happens if you combine it with sun cream.
Plug a gunshot wound with a tampon, it will expand to fill the hole and help stop bleeding. (you still need medical help though!)
If you need to take your pet in a car for a long journey, don’t feed it for about 6 hours before you leave, it’ll help stop them getting travel sick.
If you got the farts, go for a dump and then a jog, helps get the gas outta your system.
Cranberry juice is very good for UTIs.
ummm…
Make your honey extra sweet by giving him lots of hugs! heee!
I like my bacon extra-crispy and non-greasy, so I do it in the microwave – use a microwave-safe plate, two thick (more if they’re thin) paper towels on the plate, no more than four slices of bacon per batch, at least one paper towel on top. Cook for 4 minutes. Voila! Crispy, non-greasy bacon. (Of course, the paper towels are disgusting, but that’s what the trash can is for!)
WD-40, in addition to removing tar, is also good at removing sticker gum or goo. My dear son when a small child covered his bedroom door of our rental house with stickers. A little WD-40 and everything came off perfectly.
And the True Master[sup]TM[/sup] Heloise is where I learned the hairspray for ballpoint pen ink trick.
As long as we’re doing household hints, I have a request.
Anyone know how to get underarm sweat stains out of light-colored fabrics? Nothing I’ve tried has worked. I wear antiperspirant in an effort to prevent the problem, but some days it fails and I end up with those nasty yellowish stains.