Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Have you seen these helpful tips?

I've received this email a few times this month...if just one of the tips stick in my head...

Did YOU KNOW? ,
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; then beat them. ?

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.

Reheat Pizza
Heat 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 food 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. ?

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

Newspaper weeds away
Start putting torn newspaper 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.


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 (peanut butter, honey, etc.) 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! ?

Reopening envelope
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 of clothes.) 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. 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 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 ?at least every six months.
He said that increases the life of the dryer at least twice as long! How about that!?!

Wonderfully complete wheat-free grocery list

Monica at HealthyGreenMoms recently shared a terrific wheat-free friendly grocery list. Check it out and subscribe to the blog cause you know you will want to after this!

In her words,

"One major key to healthy nutrition is to eat food as close as possible to it’s original state. Simple Real Food. Food we recognize and ingredients we understand. My grocery list is pretty simple. Notably absent are products made with corn, soy and wheat – this also includes avoiding products that use these ingredients as livestock feed – organic or not! If it makes the animals sick, why would I eat it? We rely as much as possible on local suppliers and ask a lot of questions. If I were to describe our meals these days? Real foods, local fresh foods, organic, wheat free, reduced dairy, 50% raw and cooked from scratch."

Here at the P house, we're not wheat-free but I am aiming for simple real food as often as I can. Realistically, Mama loves her some carbs. But the ease of this list and the mere organization of it along with the fact that someone else typed it up and it reminds me of what all is available to my family all equal brilliance in my book.

Bless the beasts, the children and Monica.

30% off my favorite hand sanitizer!


I blogged about CleanWell a few weeks ago.
Lucky us! They're offering 30% off their products until Monday, April 23rd. Just enter code ED10 (as in Earth Day 2010).

Shipping is reasonable and I compared their prices with the discount to ordering off amazon.com and direct from CW is the way to go.

Best parts: alcohol free, safe for kids, leaves hands soft, fresh citrus scent, safe for sensitive skin, easy to use flip-top, never tested on animals.

CleanWell is all natural and non-toxic. It is made from rapidly renewable botanical sources and is part of a sustainable solution.

Now we're all stocked up on hand soap and sanitizer until Earth Day 2011!

I can't wait to try the new Orange Vanilla "sprinkles" (as the boys and I call it). Maybe this will help Mr. P stop moaning that our car smells like CleanWell all the time =)

Eat this one up soon....

Monday, April 19, 2010

It's a thought...National TV Turnoff Week 2010

Start with just one night =)
My kids think that tv is for UCLA sports and nothing else!
For links and stats that make you sad, click here

Get outside people!

Entrance fees will be waived at all 392 national parks April 17-25 for National Park Week.
Details

Interesting article about mothers' influence on daughter's eating habits

Quick but important read here

"Food is never just food. Food is love. Food is solace. It is politics. It is religion. And if that’s not enough to heap on your dinner plate each night, food is also, especially for mothers, the instant-read measure of our parenting. We are not only what we eat, we are what we feed our children. So here in Berkeley — where a preoccupation with locally grown, organic, sustainable agriculture is presumed — the mom who strolls the farmers’ markets can feel superior to the one who buys pesticide-free produce trucked in from Mexico, who can, in turn, lord it over the one who stoops to conventionally grown carrots (though the folks who grow their own trump us all). Let it slip that you took the kids to McDonald’s, and watch how fast those play dates dry up. "

Are you serious?

I'm...uh..scared.
Huggies