Do you have a secret trick?

elsien

annabanana82 said:

For dire lighting I use cotton wool with a dab of vaseline. 

Not tried it but apparently the wax from babybels work well as a firelighter

Pine cones are pretty good as well. I don’t use firelighters, I use newspaper and kindling to get my fire going and chucking  pine cone on really seems to help. Now I need to work out where I can pick some more up from.

bouicca21

@Moorviews. That tip just resuscitated some tired coriander that was left over from other things.  Ta.  I shall now try it on some basil.

Brie

If you are using lemons for anything keep the rind to help clean the sink.   So if I've used a half lemon to squirt juice or have a half/part lemon left after making G&Ts and it's starting to go meh I'll use that.  Sprinkle a bit of bicarb in the sink and then use the lemon, cut side down, to do a light scrub.  The acid in the lemon reacts with the bicarb to really fizz and the sink/drainer is shiny in no time.  Smells much nicer than kitchen cleaner or bleach.  You can also use vinegar with bicarb to clean things but the place does tend to smell a bit like a chip shop!

Moorviews

bouicca21 said:

@Moorviews. That tip just resuscitated some tired coriander that was left over from other things.  Ta.  I shall now try it on some basil.

@bouicca21 Glad it helped 😊 Basil doesn’t like the cold of the fridge so I am not sure if that would be successful.  If you cut the stems of basil below a leaf and remove the lower leaves, you can just put them in water in good daylight. They generally perk up and even root quite quickly.  You can then pot them up and keep growing lots of basil 🌿 I have only tried this out with the living basil. 

Moorviews

YoungBlueEyes said:

Fresh herbs - they'll very often grow if you poke the stalks down into some compost and keep the wee pots on a sunny windowsill  

I haven’t tried that so thank you for the tip 😊

RobM99

YoungBlueEyes said:

Does anybody have any tips for oven cleaning? That’s what I’m doing today. I’ve used those orange boxes of desperate chemicals before (oven brite?) where you put the shelves in a big plastic bag and they’re good but I don’t have one in. 🙁 I’ve done the washing powder thing before which I’ll prolly do today again, unless someone shares a better way…? 

My issue is - I did a roast on Sunday and the door seals seem to be a bit leaky. I had brown juices seeping out of the bottom of the door. I don’t use my oven all the often, and all that juice can’t have come from the dinner…. 

So is there a way to clean the internals of the thing? I cleaned it a few months ago and it produced a LOT of crud. 

I hope I’ve explained that right! 

You don't want brown juices leaking out the bottom - at any point in life!

Sounds like a job for "SparkleHob" - or similar professional cleaner!

Rosa_Damascena

Potternerd said:

Baking powder. I drink a lot of tea so I take a stainless steel Swell flask most places. It money saving and came in excellent condition from a charity shop. Recently it started tasting funny and was black inside. The trick is to soak a solution of baking powder and water inside overnight. Loads of big black chunks of gunk came out. The final stubborn marks came off after soaking the flask in boiling water. And cleaning with a bottle brush. Also doing OH’s 2 work flasks now. It takes a while but defo worth it, my flask looks as new and no longer smells. It might work for ovens 

I find the tiniest fragment of dishwasher tablet does the trick.

elsien

Not sure if this one is already here, I've lost track a bit, but if you've a dirty casserole dish or pan from cooking  if you sling a used teabag in with warm water and leave it to soak, the tannin in the teabag tends to loosen the baked on food so it's easier to clean. 

YoungBlueEyes

No that's a new one @elsien, and it's a good one too

millie

Longwalker said:

I remember years, Tupperware used to sell a lettuce crisper. It was basically a bowl, with a removable disk that had a bit of a spike on it at. You stuck the spike into the bottom of the lettuce , cabbage , cauliflower or broccoli , popped it all back into the bowl and put the lid on.  Dont know the exact science behind it, something about moisture content, but they did work

I have one of I would not part with it any amount of money, I can keep lettuce for weeks in it. Dont know why the stopped selling them.