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Helpful Hints
Note - I have not personally tried ANY of these... YET. They all sound good, and I'm awaiting my chance to try them.
Altho, I did leave my note on the bottom regarding dryer sheets, with my personal recommendation.
Happy reading!
Ruth

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store.
If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to
pick the little 'stringy things' off of it. That's how the primates do it.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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Garlic
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.

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Easy Dessert
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!

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Reheating Pizza
Heat up leftov er 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Weeds
Newspaper your 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 for-
get about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not
get through wet newspapers.

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

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

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Squirrels.... 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.

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Flexible vacuum hose
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.

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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.

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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.

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Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove
box of your car When the window s fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a
cloth!

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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.

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Shaving Legs with 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.

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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 fi nd those flies
drawn to the cup and gone forever!

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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 (see note below)
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'tSEE 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 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. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long! How about
that!?!

Personally (from Ruth) I use the 2 blue dryer balls you can get at Walgreens in the "As Seen on TV" section.
They work MUCH better and there is no dryer build up. "They lift and separate laundry so air can circulate more freely while the nodules (tips) massage and relax fabrics to a naturally soft and fluffy texture, without the use of chemicals! " Click the picture below to read about them!