HELPFUL TRIVIA

When a recipe calls for the juice of one lime or lemon, about thirty minutes before you start cooking or baking:  Cut the fruit in half
- Place it cut side down in a microwave safe bowl
- Heat on high for 45 seconds
- Remove from the microwave and let cool Most of the juice will be on the bottom of the bowl, just squeeze the halves with your hand and if necessary, strain the pulp and seeds. It works great!

- Wipe the inside of the pan dry with a paper towel
- Cover the bottom of the pan with lemon juice (fresh or bottled) and wipe the inside pan wall with lemon juice
- Let the juice soak in for at least thirty minutes or overnight if you really burned something onto the bottom of the pan.
- Wash the pan, the stuck-on food should wipe out with soap and water.

 Enough of the lemon juice for now, let's try catsup or ketchup or whatever you call it... the red stuff. For discolored copper bottom pans or brass, spread a good amount of catsup or ketchup (here I go again) on the dry metal surface, rub gently with a paper towel after a few minutes and then wash with soap and water and dry. Leave the window open when you are getting ready to try this, the chemical reaction can get a bit rough.

- Place a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom of a large glass bowl or roasting pan.
- Pour a couple of quarts of water over the foil and sprinkle with a few tablespoons of boric acid (buy it in a drug store, they usually stock it in the eye care aisle) and let the powder dissolve a few seconds.
- Gently place a few pieces of silverware in the bowl, making sure the metal touches the foil and is covered with water. If your silverware happens to touch, all the better, it seems to speed up the process.
- When the tarnish disappears, usually in less than a minute, use tongs to remove the silverware and wash it with soapy water and dry with a soft towel.
- When the foil looks dull and tarnished or the water cools, throw it out, empty the bowl and do it again from start to finish until all your silverware is tarnish-free.

 If you store the silver in plastic bags after it's completely dry, you won't have to go through that process again when you are ready to use it.

To remove a blood stain (old or new) simply get out the hydrogen peroxide (the kind you use for cleansing pierced ears and only costs about 79 cents in the drugstore) and apply it to the stain. It magically starts bubbling the stain out. Then just toss it into the wash with the rest and Voila! the stain disappears completely.  

I learned a great, non-toxic for killing wasps/bees/any flying critters with an exoskeleton: in a hand-held garden sprayer (or a plain old squirt bottle) mix a pretty strong solution of water and dish soap. Spray the flying boogers, and they drop immediately. Apparently, the soap dissolves their exoskeleton!  It costs just pennies to make a gallon, and it won't harm pets, kids, and plants.
 

My big, never fails, laundry tip is to use hairspray to get out ball point pen. The hairspray binds with the ink and lifts it right out - you can actually see it happen when you spray it. Sadly though, it doesn't work on sharpie marker marks.

Also, if you get ants in the kitchen (or anywhere) and don't want to use toxic sprays to kill them, try using Lysol or other alcohol based room sprays. It'll kill the ants, and it also seems to disrupt the trail so they don't come back - at least not right away. It also smells better than Raid.

If you have a little fruit flies (I think that is what they are called) that hang around your kitchen, they only have a very short lifespan. However if you have plants around your home, take a little bit of Dawn/Liquid Dish Soap, about a tablespoon or so. Put it in a cup of water and pour the water into the plant dish. The plants will not be harmed by the soap, at least mine never have been. The soap causes the flies to go away and not linger around your house or your plants.

If you are in the Southwest and you get Scorpions, here are two tips that I have found useful. Scorpion Spray from a pest control company really doesn't work. There isn't a chemical out there that will totally eliminate them. It may block their path because once they walk through it, they will get poisoned. However if they never cross that path, they won't die. Make sure all holes, whether small or big are covered. Put vent covers over your vents that you can buy at Home Depot for very cheap. Buy a black light and turn off all lights in that room. Place the black light throughout the floor and look for anything that lights up. Scorpions leave a track that can only be seen in black light. If you find that they are coming from a certain area, you can set up a cheap glue trap to catch them.