FW: Clever ideas
Hong-Nhung Vu
Take your bananas apart when you
get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.
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.
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 your 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. Yummm!
Reheat Pizza
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove,
set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust
crispy. No soggy micro pizza.. I saw this on the cooking channel
and it really works.
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.
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.
Newspaper weeds away
Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. 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..
Squirrel
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.
Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and 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.
Measuring Cups
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.
Foggy Windshield? 
Hate foggy windshields? 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. Viola! It unseals easily.
Conditioner 
Use your hair conditioner 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.
Goodbye Fruit Flies
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2'
with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix
well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!
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!
INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS
The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes
things around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us
something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint
filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter
after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us
something; he took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water
over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material .. I'm sure you
know what your dryer's lint filter looks like. Well ... the hot
water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn't go through it at all!
He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh
that's what burns out the heating unit. You can't SEE the film, but
it's there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes
soft and static free .... that nice fragrance too. You know how
they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box ... well this
stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is
also what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down
with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very
longtime (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that
filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush
(or other brush) at least every six months. He said that makes the
life of the dryer at least twice as long! How about that!?! Learn
something new every day! I certainly didn't know dryer sheets would
do that. So, I thought I'd share!
Note: I went to my dryer and tested my screen by running water on
it. The water ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the
water in the mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water and a
nylon brush and I had it done in 30 seconds. Then when I rinsed it
.. the water ran right thru the screen! There wasn't any puddling
at all! That repairman knew what he was talking about!
PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO OTHER PEOPLE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
NOT ONLY COULD IT SAVE SOMEONE'S HOME, BUT IT COULD SAVE a life!
