Asparagus: Choose bunches with bright green and firm stems.
Beans: The pods of shell beans should be leathery but firm with no yellowing. They should snap when bent, and the beans should be felt easily through the pod.
Corn: Look for tight, bright green husks. Kernels should be shiny, plump, and tightly packed.
Apples: Should be firm when gently pressed. Avoid ones with soft spots or punctures.
Avacados: Look for bumpy, dark green to almost black skin. When ripe, they give to gentle pressure.
Bananas: Find the ones with peels that are yellow all over.
Here’s some cool uses for vodka. And silly me, I’ve been mixing it with cranberry juice and drinking it over ice for years!
A lot of people love baked potatoes but hate the cook time for them. A lot of people also don’t know that you can make them in the microwave for considerably less time and they come out tasting just the same. Grocery stores now sell potatoes that come pre-wrapped in clingwrap that you can put in the microwave, but they cost more. Since we’re all cheap, I’ll show you how to do it at home with a regular unwrapped potato.
Yet another forward! This one is all about everyone’s favorite form of caffeine.
Here’s some coffee recipes, too.
1. Dye fabric brown inexpensively. Soak the fabric in a bucket of strong, black coffee. This technique is also a good way to cover up an irremovable coffee stain on a white tablecloth.
Our mantra: One regular sized can of spraypaint can save money by preventing you from buying something new! So far in our house we’ve spraypainted shelves, lamps, furniture, picture frames…the possibilities are endless. Don’t you just love aerosol?
It seems like more often people are throwing out perfectly good stuff. Take an old lamp I’ve had since high school, for example. I found a neat shade for it for a great price at Wal-Mart, but the shade just didn’t fit the look of the lamp. The solution? I found this really cool “bumpy” spraypaint at a hardware store (although I’m sure you could find it other places, too!) that looks like a spongey textured effect when it comes out. Viola; I didn’t have to buy a new lamp! Spraypaint is awesome.
Another handy forward e-mail from Mom!
Bed Sheets
After drying your sheets, put both sheets and one pillowcase in the other pillow case. Fold neatly in a square. Next time you change sheets, you just take the one pillow case and all the sheets and pillow case are inside. There’s no need to look for matches.
My mom sifts through tons of forward e-mails from her friends, and usually passes the interesting or helpful ones on to me. She sent me this one today, which details how you can use plain old peroxide for a lot of different things.
The Health Benefits of Peroxide
by Becky Ransey of Indiana
I would like to tell you of the benefits of that plain little old bottle of 3% peroxide you can get for under $1.00 at any drug store. My husband has been in the medical field for over 36 years, and most doctors don’t tell you about peroxide, or they would lose thousands of dollars.