Tips Tips and lots of Tips...

Household tips:

• Cleaning Silver : Boil water and add salt together. Add a tablespoon of baking soda into it. Put the silver article in and add piece of aluminium foil to the mixture. If article is very discolored then let it sit in the solution for few extra mins. When the silver article is taken out it will shine as new

• Cleaning Brass : When cleaning brass articles use tamarind/lemon juice with salt to give an instant shine

• All-purpose Cleaner : Baking soda mixed with vinegar is a great cleaner for stove top, sinks etc

• Get rid of fridge odors : Opened baking soda in the fridge keeps odors away. Sliced lemon also does the trick

• Pressure Cooker Cleanup : To clean pressure cooker or any other aluminum vessel add potato/apple peels to them with water and boil for few mins.

• Cloth Color Bleeding : When you feel your new clothes are gonna bleed / leak color, soak them in a litre of water mixed with 1/4 cup of salt and 1/4 cup of vinegar. The color stays intact 

Cooking Tips:

• Remove excess salt from curries : If you add more salt to any curry by mistake then adding some potato slices to it. It instantly takes off excess salt

• Keep coriander leaves fresh : To keep coriander fresh for longer time try putting it in a glass of water and then put the glass in fridge

• Fry onions quickly : When frying onions add a little salt to fasten the process

• Squeezing lemon : When  trying to squeeze out lemon/lime juice roll it under your palm (on a table or countertop) for a few seconds and then cut into halves to squeeze. This makes it easier to take all the juice out

• No cracked egg shells when boiling : Add salt to water when boiling eggs. This prevents the shell from cracking

• Garlic peeling - the easy way : To peel garlic with ease, put them in the microwave for 5-7 secs. Peels come off in a jiffy

• Slicing coconut out of its shell : When breaking the coconut and making pieces, put the coconut (broken into halves) in freezer for 5-10 mins and then take out slices. It will be much easier

• Fresh green chutneys : Add a little lemon juice to green chutneys to help it retain color for longer time. Remains green even when kept in fridge for quite a while. Adding a spoon of oil to the top when storing in the fridge also helps

• Keep bugs away from rava/sooji/semolina : Fried/roasted rava stays longer when stored. Else if you feel lazy like me then you can always store the packet in the fridge :)

• Keep ants away from sugar jar : Couple of cloves in sugar jar keeps ants away

• Reusing cooked oil : When reusing oil that might smell food that was cooked/fried in it, cook a piece of ginger in it to take all the odors away