24 Quick Tips

By Terry Orr

(Facebook Post)

1. Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.. I didn't know that!

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

3. 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.

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

5. To make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonful’s of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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!

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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 an d gone forever!

20. 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!

21. Wash your dryer filter: Did you know that cleaning your lint trap with a dryer sheet can ruin it? 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, and smell good. You know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box? Apparently that stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down with it! You can test it by running the lint trap under water. If the water goes through you are good. If not then you need to clean it. The best way to keep your dryer working for a long time (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.

22. Drop a small object on the carpet and can't find it. Place panty hose over the end of the vacuum hose and start vacuuming. The panty hose will trap anything to large to fit through the tiny hose and keep it from getting sucked into the vacuum.

23. Wearing a skirt or dress on a windy day. Cut open a few sections on the bottom seam. slip in some heavy washers or flat weights (anything small heavy and flat will work) then sew the seam back up.

24. Need to cut some corn off the cob. Use your bundt pan. Place the ear on the opening in the center of the pan, and as you slide the knife down the ear, all the kernels will collect in the main part of the pan

Links:

www.facebook.com/groups/StaceysHealthyFriends

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Food Storage and Food Safety

Food Safety and Preventing Food Poisoning

Food poisoning is common, as the CDC estimates that there are about 76 million cases of food poisoning in the United States each year. Although most of these cases are mild, about 325,000 people with food poisoning are hospitalized and 5,000 die each year.

Since young children are among those most at risk for getting serious and even life-threatening cases of food poisoning, it is important for parents to learn how to prevent food poisoning.

Although the media publicizes the cases of food poisoning that are caused by the high profile contaminated peanut butter and pepper Salmonella outbreaks, know that it is probably more common to get food poisoning from foods that are improperly cleaned, prepared, and stored in your own home.

Safe Food Storage

So food doesn't go bad, store it in the right place and under the proper conditions, and don't exceed the storage limit or the food's expiration date.

To get started, it can help to:

• set the temperature of your refrigerator to about 35 to 40 F and don't allow it to get above 40 F
• set the temperature of your freezer to 0 F or below
• clean out your refrigerator so that it isn't overcrowded and so cold air can circulate around stored foods
• choose foods that aren't close to their expiration date when you are grocery shopping
• rotate older foods in your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer, to the front when you buy new foods so that you remember to use the older foods before they expire
• regularly check expiration dates on foods in your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer and throw out ones that are expired.
• refrigerate prepared foods and leftovers within 2 hours and within 1 hour if the temperature is above 90 F
• store foods in their own small, separate plastic or glass containers or zippered plastic bags, instead of grouping different foods into larger containers which may not cool as quickly
• regularly check foods for signs that they may be spoiled, including mold or a bad smell
• keep foods covered with plastic wrap or aluminum foil
• throw away any canned foods that have damage, including denting, swelling (a sign of botulism contamination), or leakage

Food Storage Guidelines

It is relatively easy to store and know when to throw out food with expiration dates. It gets harder to know what to do with leftover cooked foods.

How long can you keep last night's dinner in the refrigerator before it goes bad?

In general, eat leftovers as soon as possible. These food storage guidelines should be help, including that you only store (in the refrigerator):

• ground beef for 1 to 2 days
• steaks and roasts for 3 to 5 days
• pork chops for 3 to 5 days
• lunch meats for 3 to 5 days
• fish for 1 to 2 days
• chicken for 1 to 2 days, although fried chicken may be fine for 3 to 4 days
• pizza for 3 to 4 days
• milk for 7 days, although you shouldn't use milk that is more than 2 or 3 days past its 'sell by' date
• an opened package of hot dogs for 1 week

Most importantly, if you are unsure if a food has been stored safely and is still good, throw it away and don't serve it to your kids. It is not worth a bout of food poisoning just because your kids want the leftover pizza that has been in the refrigerator for a week.

Remember that just because a food doesn't look or smell bad, doesn't mean that it can't have enough bacteria on it to make you sick. It may have been stored improperly, be past its usual 'shelf life,' or be past its expiration date.