Category Archives: Life Hacks

Life Hacks I Love # 9: Blue Dawn + Vinegar

Dawn and VinegarI saw this on Pinterest a long time ago and was so tired of commercial cleaners that didn’t work, I thought I’d give it a try. Our home was built in 1921 and still has the original cast iron tub in the main floor bathroom. We had it refinished when we redid our bathroom several years ago, but it just doesn’t clean easily. I was so excited when I tried this out and it worked!

How to Make Your Own Tub/Shower Cleaner:

The ratio for this mixture is one to one. I find that 1/3 to 1/2 cup of each is plenty for one tub.

  1. Measure 1/3 cup  (or 1/2) of vinegar in a glass measuring cup.
  2. Microwave the vinegar. You want it hot.
  3. Pour the vinegar into a spray bottle.
  4. Add an equal part of Blue Dawn dish soap to the spray bottle (either 1/3 or 1/2 depending how much vinegar you used).
  5. Add the spray bottle cap and give the bottle a gentle shake just to mix the two slightly. Do not shake vigorously or you’ll get lots of bubbles.
  6. Spray onto the tub and shower surface and let sit for about 10 minutes.
  7. Wipe clean.

You will notice that the grime wipes clean easily with little to no scrubbing at all. The vinegary smell is quite strong but dissipates quite quickly and the results are really worth it.

My daughter decided to make-up some kind of an oil mixture for her hair and body this week and our tub is disgusting. Normally, the natural consequence for this would be for her to clean the tub, but I wanted to post about it, so I decided to do it myself. Whatever concoction she used, attracted every bit of dirt and grime conceivable to our tub. Here is a picture of the an area I’ve wiped versus an area that hasn’t yet been cleaned. I went to use my Dawn + Vinegar cleaning solution and realized I was out of Dawn. I decided it would be a great time to try out the Sunlight dish detergent I have on hand. I simply substituted the Sunlight for the Dawn and it worked like a charm. We buy a huge container of Sunlight from Costco and I would just buy the Dawn separately for cleaning my bathroom. Not any more ~  from now on I’ll be using my Sunlight for my bathroom as well and saving the extra expense. I actually had Eden shoot a little video clip of me wiping down the tub, but I am having trouble with my YouTube account, so I decided to post without it. Here is our disgusting tub!

tub cleaner

This is one of those Life Hacks that really works. It is so much better than any of the commercial cleaners I’ve used. It’s much cheaper and takes so much less effort. I highly recommend this fabulous solution. Based on my little experiment today, I would venture to guess that it might work with any good quality dish soap you have on hand. I’d love to hear how it works for you, so leave your comments below. Happy cleaning!

Hard Boiled Eggs in the Oven?

If you frequent Pinterest, I’m sure you have seen the pins showing how to bake eggs in their shell instead of hard boiling them on the stove. If you read my Devilled Egg post back in the summer, you would understand why I jumped all over this idea. So, I decided to try this out for our Easter eggs.

Directions for Baking Eggs:

I basically did exactly what was suggested on the “pins”. I preheated my oven to 325 degrees. I placed my eggs in a muffin tin and baked them for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes I removed them from the oven and transferred them to an ice bath.

The Good News:

The eggs cooked perfectly.

The Bad News:

Like some of the other pinners, my eggs ended up with brown spots on the shells and even some spots that looked a bit scorched. Decorating wasn’t high on my kids interest list, so we ended up peeling and eating some of the dozen that I baked.  All of the eggs had little brown/scorch marks on them in a place or two. It had no impact on the taste, but if presentation was of concern, I would not recommend this technique. I’m not sure what causes this, but I have to admit I did not turn the eggs during the 30 minute bake time. Some suggested turning them half way through the baking time and others didn’t, so of course I opted for the easier of the two and didn’t bother turning them. I’m not sure if turning would have prevented this or not. Although my muffin tin was clean, it is well used and “seasoned”. I’m not sure if this was the problem or not.

The Verdict:

This works well if you are making egg salad sandwiches for your family, but I wouldn’t recommend this method for devilled eggs you plan on serving to company or for decorating Easter eggs. Having said that, it didn’t really impact the few eggs we decorated this year. We just made sure to “colour” over the spots and you really couldn’t see the brown marks, but it would totally depend on how you were decorating your eggs. Based on my one experience with this cooking method, I think I’ll probably stick to the traditional method and just boil them. Cool idea though!

Place the eggs in an ice bath.
You can see the discolouration on the eggs.
Most of the marks washed off this one, but 1/12 isn’t a great result.

FYI They didn’t peel any easier either! 

Life Hacks I Love #8: How to Remove Sticky Adhesive

You may remember me posting about our ladybug invasion a few weeks back. Well, I was in a bit of a “state” and picked up a few sticky fly tape things thinking that the ladybugs would be attracted to them and stick to it. I never read the directions and if I would have I’m sure I would have learned that they don’t really work for ladybugs. I put up two of them and out of the hundreds invading our house, the traps caught 4. I did manage to “trap” my daughter though! She tried on her dance recital outfit and ignored my advice to take it off as soon as we knew it fit. The result was that she backed into the “fly trap” and got sticky residue all over the back of her brand new dance recital outfit. Ugh!

How to Remove Sticky Adhesive:

First of all, the adhesive was left untouched for days. This wasn’t so much part of the plan, but more about having no time to deal with the issue. I’m not sure if the exposure to air helped or not, but as I said it was left hanging up, completely untouched for several days before I attempted anything. My first thought was to try duct tape. I googled to see what others had to say about removing adhesive and there were many ideas and suggestions. Duct tape was actually on the list of ideas, so I decided to try that first. My thinking was that the risk of damaging the jacket would be minimal with the duct tape, so I went for it. All I did was cut a piece of tape slightly bigger than the sticky patch and pressed it on firmly, rubbing it into the adhesive. I slowly peeled it off and sure enough it removed most of it. I continued to press and peel with the tape until it didn’t seem to be taking any more off. I cut a second piece of tape and repeated the procedure. This took about 2 minutes in all and it removed virtually everything. I did think that it would be 100% with a good wash, but I didn’t want to take the chance of it fading or the colours running before the recital. I hung it back up and decided it was good enough. When I went to write this post, I realized I had forgotten to take an “after” photo. I took out the jacket to take a picture and couldn’t find the exact spot where the adhesive was. I actually can’t believe this looks as good as new. It was a major sticky mess when she first showed me it and I thought it might be ruined. So, if you find yourself in a similar situation, you might want to try to conquer sticky with sticky. You know what they say, when all else fails….use duct tape!

Here is a shot of the jacket before I started, but after sitting untouched for 4 days.
Stick duct tape over the adhesive, press firmly and peel off slowly.
Here is the back of the tape. It shows some of the adhesive that was pulled off.
Can hardly pin point the exact spot where the adhesive was.

*I would suggest testing this method on an inconspicuous area of your fabric first. Although this method worked really well on Eden’s jacket, I’m sure that different types of fabric could react differently. I saw one post that said the duct tape left the article of clothing a bit “pilly”.

How To Salvage a Flopped Cake

Last night, I got home from work and had to muster up every ounce of energy I had to whip up a cake and pop it in the oven. We are having my dad over for Easter dinner tonight (Good Friday) and I’m making birthday cake for dessert. April 19th will be my dad’s 78th birthday! I decided to make a Chocolate Layer Cake.  This is one of my favourite recipes, and it always works! Except for last night. What a perfect time for a cake to flop – it coincided perfectly with another rare and untimely event – I ran out of flour! Yep, I was so relieved when I scraped up just enough flour from the jar to make the recipe in the first place. I literally have no more than a few teaspoons of white flour in the house and its Good Friday, one of the only days in a year when stores are actually closed for the entire day. I’m famous for having to “re-do” things, but I simply didn’t have the time or energy to pull it off this time. Instead, I thought of a creative solution to my predicament.

Birthday Cake Disaster:

I had whipped up a double recipe of my favourite chocolate cake recipe and popped it in the oven.I knew that a single recipe was not big enough for two round pans, but the double was a bit too much. I should have taken some of the extra batter and made a few cupcakes, but I was honestly just too lazy. I knew the cakes would need additional time, because of the additional batter, so I wasn’t surprised when the cakes weren’t cooked in the suggested 30 minute bake time. I have always felt that my oven is a bit out of sync and that the actual temperature is a lower than the setting. I sometimes set the oven a few degrees higher to compensate, but I was too tired to think of this.

After the first check at 30 minutes of baking time, I proceeded to set the timer in 5 minutes intervals to stay on top of things and not over bake the cake. I continued to bake and check regularly for what seemed like forever. I was totally exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. Finally,after what I am guessing was more than an hour of bake time, I tested the cakes and the poker came up clean – finally!  It was not until I went to remove them from the oven that I realized that the oven really didn’t seem that hot. Well, that’s because sometime between the original 30 minute timer and the time I removed them, I must have turned the oven “off” instead of the timer. Ugh! Within 10 minutes both cakes had sunk ~ one not so bad, as it must have had slightly less batter to begin with, but the other would have made a a great cake if the party theme was “sink holes”! I decided to cover them with a towel on the cooling rack and deal with it this morning. 

Steps to Recovering a Ruined Cake:

Starting over really was not an option as I had no flour in the house (like that has ever happened before!) I could have borrowed from a neighbour, but I feel like I have done that a few too many times already. It seems I am often over looking a necessary ingredient. So, I decided to proceed and see what the interior of the cakes looked like. My plan was to make a 4 layer cake by cutting the two round cakes in half. When I cut them open, I realized that one cake really was fine. It had only sunk slightly and was cooked all the way through. However, the second cake was basically a pile of mush in the middle with a ring of cooked cake around the outside. I came up with a plan. Here’s what I did:

  1. I used the bottom of the “good” cake as the base for the layer cake. I frosted this layer.
  2. I then took the “bad” cake and scooped out the center of both pieces.
  3. I took the cooked outer “ring” of cake and placed it on the bottom frosted layer. I frosted the top of the ring.
  4. I then took the other outer cooked ring of cake and broke it into pieces.
  5. I mixed the broken cake pieces with the remaining filling/frosting and filled the center of the ring.
  6. I then added the final layer which was the top of the “good” cake and completed the cake.

When all was said and done, I had to toss about 1/4 of the cake or the equivalent of one layer. My final cake is a 3 layer cake with this yummy filling in the middle. You can’t tell at all from the outside and no one would ever know this was not the original plan. (I don’t think my dad reads my blog, so I’m pretty safe.) So, Good Friday birthday dinner will take place after all!

Here is the cake with sink hole in the middle.
This is the bottom of mushy cake.
Here is the top with the mushy middle that I had to scoop out and toss.
The frosted bottom layer.
Here is the salvaged outer ring of cooked cake.
Mocha filling ~ yummy!
Other outer ring was broken into pieces and added to the remaining filling.
Mix cake with filling.
Frost ring and then fill inner ring with mixture.
Add final layer.
Here’s a shot of the finished cake.
bunny curls

This white chocolate bunny provided the chocolate curls needed for the finishing touches.

I had originally planned to post the recipe for this Mocha Cake and will eventually share it. It has a whipping cream frosting and I added white chocolate curls for a simple look. Just because things hadn’t gone so smoothly with this cake, I was sort of expecting to come up empty when I checked the crisper for white chocolate. I was only disappointed for a moment and then got a twinkle in my I remembered that my kids “smugly” informed me they no longer believe in the Easter Bunny. This ended up being a life saver! I didn’t even feel bad when I opened up the white chocolate bunny and sliced off the bottom of it for chocolate curls. I wonder if they’ll notice that the bottom of the bunny is missing and that the bag has been taped up?

 

Life Hacks I Love #7: DIY Fire Starter

I am all about reusing and repurposing what others deem trash. I had found this idea on-line quite sometime ago and find it is a great solution to the “no kindling” dilemma we sometimes face when building a fire. We have a wood burning fire place and I often find that the fire wood box is lacking the bits of pieces of kindling that are key to building the perfect fire. The solution….paper towel roll + dryer lint = fire starter.

This is a great solution and is created from everyday waste that you have at home. Keep a stash of old paper towel rolls in your laundry room and stuff your dryer lint in the empty rolls. Throw one of these in with your logs when you are trying to build a fire. Once it catches fire, it burns longer than regular paper and thus provides the flame needed for the logs to catch on fire. The more compactly packed the lint, the better it works!

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Mug Cake Turned Cake Pop

Last week, I was putting together a little gift box for my kids’ teacher for Valentine’s Day. I really wanted to include one of my new favourite things to make, cake pops, but I didn’t have any frozen cake or cupcakes on hand and really didn’t want to make a whole cake for one cake pop (because then I would have cake in the house – again!!) I had never made a mug cake before, but they seem to be quite popular and I thought why not make a mug cake and then turn it into a cake pop.  As a newbie to mug cakes, I do not have a “go to” recipe, so I followed this recipe from the Instructables.

It turned out fine, but there was a bit of cake in the very bottom of the cup that seemed a bit hard and crusty (not sure why). Of course, this didn’t matter to me as the cake was tasty enough and I only required enough to make one cake ball. However, for future reference, I was able to make 4 cake pops from one mug cake.

I am not sure that I would have noticed this had I not been forming the cake into balls, but the cake did seem a bit oily to me. There was a comment on the original post that mentioned using only 2 teaspoons of oil and then substituting the balance with applesauce. I think I would play with this a bit in the future as well, unless someone has a great Mug Cake recipe to share?? I would love to have a “go to” recipe for mug cakes. I love that one mug cake could be used to make a  small batch of cake pops or you could make two and break them up into 4 bowls and have dessert for the whole family. The kids would love warm chocolate cake and ice cream!  I will continue to be on the lookout for that perfect recipe ~ share if you have it!!

Cake Pops:

  • break cake into small crumbs
  • add a spoonful of icing (not too much)
  • form into a dough like texture and roll in to balls
  • dip in melted chocolate
  • add sprinkles

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Life Hacks I Love #6: Brown Sugar Saver

Don’t you hate it when you go to get some brown sugar for that special recipe and find it all stuck together and as hard as cement. Well, my mom taught me two little tricks that I along with many others have been using for years. Just add a slice of bread or a slice of apple to the sugar container/bag and it will help to moisten hardened sugar and keep fresh sugar in that moist state. However, I have found that the sugar immediately surrounding the bread/apple seems to get a bit hard and chunky and even discolours a bit. The rest of the jar is nice and moist as was the intent. I usually end up tossing that bit of sugar that has been effected. At one time I even purchased one of those terra cotta brown sugar savers and it worked great, but you have to soak it in water every once in a while to replenish the moisture in it. Somehow in this process, mine got tossed in the garbage.

The other day, I came across yet another solution for the hardened brown sugar ~ a jumbo marshmallow! What could be easier than tossing a marshmallow into a jar and the best part is that after over a week, there has not been any adverse effects on the sugar. It does the job perfectly. I can’t comment on how long it will be before I need to replace the marshmallow, but it certainly seems to do the trick.

You will notice that my brown sugar actually looks a little funny, almost two-toned in the picture. That’s because it is. I generally prefer the “golden” sugar that is a finer grain of sugar and lighter in colour, but my husband came home with the dark coarse sugar and so the two are intermingled in my brown sugar canister. (I used commercial sized pickle jars to make this set of canisters ~ here’s the link if you’re interested in checking out my Upcylced Pickle Jars.)

If you are in a hurry and you have found yourself face to face with sugar that has solidified into a brick, no worries as there is a quick fix as well. Just pop the sugar in a microwave-safe both with a damp paper towel, cover the bowl with a lid or plate and microwave for 20 seconds. The heat and damp paper towel help to transfer the moisture back into the sugar. Don’t forget to add a marshmallow to the remaining sugar to soften it up for future use.

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Life Hacks I Love #5: How to Prevent an Avocado from Browning

Add onion to cut avocado to avoid browning.
Same avocado 12 hours later.

I put avocado and apple in my lunch almost everyday. I make my salad in the morning before work and the avocado only seems to get brown if it was already over ripe when I put it in the salad.  Otherwise, both the apple and avocado maintain their colour and still appear fresh and appetizing at lunch time. This always stumped me because when I store the other half of the avocado in my fridge the surface always browns. I do understand that avocados “oxidize” when they are exposed to air, much the same as an apple or a potato. However, what I failed to comprehend was why both seemed to maintain their colour in my salad, but not when stored in the fridge. I honestly don’t remember where I read this, but I think it was embedded in a recipe that called for avocado ~ sorry, but I couldn’t find the source. Anyways, the poster suggested adding a bit of red onion to your salad to prevent browning. Well, clearly I didn’t have to test this theory because I eat the same salad almost everyday ~ mixed greens, apple, avocado, raw pumpkin seeds and you guessed it….red onion! I finally had my answer. The onion prevents both the apple and avocado from oxidizing in my salad!  So, this got me to thinking….”I wonder if it would it work if I stored a little piece of red onion in the plastic wrap with my avocado?” Sure enough, after 12 hours in the fridge, it looks no different from when I placed in there that morning. (Had I been thinking, I would have removed the plastic wrap so that you would have a better view, but I didn’t so this is the best shot I have to share.)

When looking for the source of the above tip, I did come across what seems to be another great idea. On “thekitchn“, Faith suggests pouring a layer of water over guacamole to keep it from browning. Pour off the water and give it a stir when ready to eat.  She also suggests not using plastic wrap as it is too porous and still allows air to penetrate the food. She also shares a few of their favourite guacamole recipe, so follow the link if you want to check out her post. Thanks for the great advise Faith!

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Life Hacks I Love #4: How to Eat a Cupcake

This is one of my favourite hacks ever. This idea was shared with me about a year ago and it is absolutely brilliant! I always find it hard to take a big enough bite of a cupcake to get the “full height” of the little cake in one mouthful. You know, frosting on your nose and a big sticky mess. So classy! I am an icing lover and unlike some, I could for-go the cake altogether and just have a small bowl of icing! That being said, I want every single mouthful of cake to have icing with it, that is why this idea is so perfect for me. I originally heard about this at a wedding in which cupcakes were being served. Of course, the timing was perfect as I was able to enjoy my cupcake without the usual anxiety of wondering how much of it I was wearing on my face.

Sure enough, when I went to post the concept, I was able to find a video that demonstrates this fantastic idea. It really does work beautifully with the exception of super moist cupcakes that don’t hold their shape well. It is an absolute must try the next time you eat a cupcake. Check out the video!

How to Eat A Cupcake:

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Life Hacks I Love: #3 “Balloon-aid”

The Story Behind the Balloon-aid:

Okay, I have to start this post by confessing that my husband is always getting after me for my inappropriate use of tools around the house. It is like I have my very own Work Place Health and Safety Officer ~ lucky for me, that he has not yet fired me. My motto is not so much “Safety 1st!”, but more so “Get ‘r done!”. For the most part, I have been seemingly unscathed other than the hidden effects of self-inflicted lead poisoning over the years. (I am much more cautious now and always wear a mask, but not so much in the past. Yikes!!) So, my husband was not surprised when I cut my thumb on Sunday evening preparing supper. Just so you know, those handy little “mandolin” slicers do thumbs as well as carrots! Yep! Took the end of my thumb right off. I wouldn’t really describe his response as sympathetic, more of an “u-hu…”, you know kind of like “I told you so” without using the actual words. He did help me bandage it up and attempted to reassure me by telling me not to bother going to emergency as they wouldn’t be able to do anything and that there was really no need to keep the tip I had so carefully dug out of the carrot bowl. Ugh!

He had to leave for work shortly after it happened and I was supposed to get my son to hockey practise, but thought I would phone Health Links to see what kind of pain killers might help. In the end, I had to lie to the nurse and tell her I would find someone to drive me to emergency. She said they would stitch it or glue it, but I knew that wasn’t happening because the end of my thumb was already in the garbage by that time. I did take her advice and continue to apply pressure in an attempt to stop the bleeding and tried to keep it elevated. The bleeding had slowed, so I packed Shay up and got in the van for hockey, but as soon as I began to move and stopped applying pressure the bleeding started all over again. We came back in and Shay texted the coach to say we wouldn’t be able to make it. I called my cousin, a nurse practitioner and my own personal medical consulted, and she agreed that there was no point in going to the ER. She gave me some suggestions and it seems better today.

Luckily, it is my day off, so I am able to sit around and not do much. I am even able to type using the side of my thumb without too much pain. However, I was in desperate need of a shower and feeling a bit worried about breaking it open again when the wound is still so fresh. Suddenly, I had a wave of brilliance and thought of a possible solution. My first thought was a balloon of a more personal nature, but we don’t have any of those, so I opted for the bag of dollar store balloons I still have from the snow lanterns. It worked! No wet soggy band-aid falling off and I didn’t re-open the wound. Yay! You might just want to add a balloon to your first-aid kit. Although you could use latex gloves, I was really not wanting to wear a whole glove and the elasticity of the balloon neck really helped to seal it off.

My Balloon-aid:

S
Great for taking a shower or washing dishes!

Warning: Although this is a great way to protect your bandaged wounds from getting weight, it also means that you may be back on dish duty!

I am not claiming to be the inventor of this idea, but thought it up all by myself and thus have no one to offer credit to. So, to those like-minded individuals that may have had the same brain wave, prior to mine, I apologize if I have stolen your thunder. You know what they say “Great minds think alike”!

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