Helpful Hints for Everyday Living

These are just some helpful tips to make our everyday lives easier!!

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store.
If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster!
or, hang them and this helps too.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil.
It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.
Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.
(I’m not a huge fan of peppers, so I can’t vouch for this one!)

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef.
It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich
add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or
heavy cream in and then beat them up.

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed.
Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies.
Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic,
and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert.
Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples.
Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples.
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummy!
I’ve heard this is really yummy with lot’s of different kinds of chocolate bars.

Easy Deviled Eggs: Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag.
Seal, mash till they are all broken up.
Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly,
cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean
up.  This is how my mom had me do it as a young girl!

Expanding Frosting: When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store,
whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size.
You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount.
You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

Reheating refrigerated bread: To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were
refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water.
The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

(oh, I so wish we knew this when we built our first house…the weeds were so bad!)
Newspaper weeds away: Plant your plants in the ground, work the nutrients in your soil.
Then wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go,
cover with mulch, and forget about weeds.
Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.

Broken Glass: Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the
small shards of glass you can’t see easily.

No More Mosquitoes: Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper.
The cayenne pepper doesn’t hurt the plant and the squirrels won’t come near it.

Flexible vacuum: To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge
add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum.
It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip to eliminate static cling.
It works; you will not have a clingy skirt or dress.
Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose.
Place pin in seam of slacks and … Ta DA! … Static is gone.
Just wanted to add, that we’ve tried this out)

Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water.
Dump out the hot water, but don’t dry cup.
Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter,
and watch how easily it comes right out.

De-fog your windshield: Buy a chalkboard eraser and
keep it in the glove box of your car
When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

Re-opening envelopes: If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside,
just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Voila! It unseals easily.
This is so good to know, I can’t tell you how many envelopes I’ve destroyed
trying to reopen them for something I forgot.

Use your a mens shaving soap bar to shave your legs.
It’s cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth.
It’s also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought
but didn’t like when you tried it in your hair.
*This works really good, I’ve personally tried it many times!

Get Rid of Ants: Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants.
They eat it, take it ‘home,’ can’t digest it so it kills them.
It may take a week or so, especially if it rains,
but it works and you don’t have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!
(oh my goodness, we had the biggest problem with ants this last year,
I would have loved to find this solution then!”