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For years now a magazine, freely avaible in supermarkets everywhere, has been spreading disinformation about the trials and tribulations
of household life, and how to correct them. I intend to right that wrong.
Family Circle: Use a meat baster to "squeeze" your pancake batter onto the pan and you'll get perfectly shaped pancakes every time.
The Curtis way: Buy the pre-cooked kind you nuke in the microwave for 30 seconds. The hard part is getting them out of the plastic bag.
Family Circle: To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.
The Curtis way: Buy a box of mashed potato mix and keep it in the cupboard for up to a year.
Family Circle: To prevent egg shells from cracking, add a pinch of salt to the water before hard boiling.
The Curtis way: Who cares if they crack, aren't you going to take the shells off anyway?
Family Circle: To easily remove burnt-on food from your skillet, simply add a drop or two of dish soap and enough water to cover bottom of pan, and bring to a boil on stove.
The Curtis way: Eat at McDonalds's/Burger King/Pizza Hut every night and avoid cooking.
Family Circle: Spray your Tupperware with non-stick cooking spray before pouring in tomato based sauces and there won't be any stains.
The Curtis way: Feed your garbage bin and there won't be any leftovers.
Family Circle: To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh, but if it rises to the surface, throw it away.
The Curtis way: Cook and eat the egg. If you start throwing up later, you will know it wasn't fresh.
Family Circle: Potatoes will take food stains off your fingers. Just slice and rub raw potato on the stains and rinse with water.
The Curtis way: I'll give them that one, replace the anti-bacterial soap in the handy dispenser next to the sink with mashed potatoes.
Family Circle: If you have a problem opening jars: Try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non slip grip that makes opening jar easy.
The Curtis way: Try all the jars before you buy them, that way you'll never get stuck with tough lid.
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Family Circle: When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.
The Curtis way: Go to your mother's and get her to bake it. She'll even decorate it for you.
Family Circle: If you accidentally over salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant "fix me up"
The Curtis way: If you over salt that's too damn bad. My motto: I made it and you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes.
Family Circle: Brush some beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish.
The Curtis way: Take pie out of box, stick in over, end of story.
Family Circle: Place a slice of apple in hardened brown sugar to soften it.
The Curtis way: If the sugar has gone brown it is obviously bad, bin it and buy a new pack.
Family Circle: When boiling corn on the cob, add a pinch of sugar to help bring out the corn's natural sweetness.
The Curtis way: The can says there's already sugar in there, so don't bother.
Family Circle: Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.
The Curtis way: The only reason this works is because you can't rub a lime on your forehead without getting lime juice in your eye, and then the problem isn't the headache any more, it is because you are now blind.
Family Circle: Don't throw out all that leftover wine. Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
The Curtis way: Leftover wine, as if.
Family Circle: Now look what you can do with Alka Seltzer.
*Clean a toilet. Drop in two Alka Seltzer tablets, wait twenty minutes, brush and flush. The citric acid and effervescent action clean vitreous china.
* Clean a vase. To remove a stain from the bottom of a glass vase or cruet, fill with water and drop in two Alka Seltzer tablets.
* Polish jewellery. Drop two Alka Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and immerse the jewellery for two minutes.
* Clean a thermos bottle. Fill the bottle with water, drop in four Alka Seltzer tablets, and let soak for an hour (or longer, if necessary).
The Curtis way: Put your jewellery, vases, and thermos in the toilet. Add some Alka Seltzer and you have solved a whole bunch of problems at once.
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