Extending the Life of Cilantro

Oh, Cilantro!*

    People either love you or hate you.

What do I think about you?

     I love you in salsa (but there is always some of you left over that gets soggy and slimy so quickly that I throw much of you away).



So what's a 2nd Best Job in the World guy to do? 

       Why, simply extend your life... immensely!


Take the bunch of fresh cilantro,

place it in a glass of water,

cover with a plastic bag,

and place it in the refrigerator.

 And that's it!  I have kept cilantro fresh for well over a week using this method.

*This also works for fresh parsley.

  

Extending the Life of Leftover Lettuce

I hate throwing food away.  When we have salad as part of dinner, there is always leftover lettuce. (It's a tricky calculation to predict how much lettuce 4 people will consume at any given time!)  If I eat lettuce for lunch the next day, it is usually fine.

Quite often though, I don't feel like salad again and so it sits in the fridge until later that day or the next.  By then the cut leaves are browning and unpalatable. 

So what's a 2nd Best Job in the World guy to do?

Get better at calculating how much lettuce to clean and cut?

 No.  Find a better way to store the leftover lettuce.

 Leftover lettuce.

 

Ziploc bag.

Paper towel in Ziploc bag.

Lettuce on top of paper towel in Ziploc bag.

Filled with lettuce.

 

 

 

Squeeze out as much air as possible.

 

 

 

 Zip it shut.

 

 

This lettuce will stay fresh for days.

Easy Bedsheet Storage

I have better things to do during my day than folding sheets.  The impossible-to-fold fitted bottom sheets actually look worse after they are folded than before they were folded anyway.

And realistically, who the heck sees your nicely folded sheets?

So what's a 2nd Best Job in the World guy to do? 

Bag it!

 

1. Gather together matching sheets and pillow cases.

2. Open one of the pillow cases.

3. Stuff everything else into the open pillow case

 

4. Pick it up and...

5. Throw it in the closet.

Easy breezy.

Time for a nap.

When Life Gives You Lemons (or Limes)

 
In my earlier, less refined days, I never really considered that there was a difference between the juice from real lemons vs. ReaLemon juice. I bought the advertising - and its convenience and cheapness. However, reconstituted lemon juice totally pales in taste to fresh. One plus for ReaLemon is that it lasts 'forever' in the fridge; not so much fresh lemons.
I hate throwing away food that's gone bad!

So what's a 2nd Best Job in the World guy to do?  

I had to learn how to store fresh lemons better.
And as it turns out, it's quite simple:

1. Place lemons in a sealable freezer bag and put them in the fridge.  Easy breezy. 

I have found that lemons remain fresh for a month stored in this fashion.

 

And limes, too!

 

Tassimo Tea Hack

I love the speed and convenience of using a Tassimo, however some products, especially teas, are steep in price. (Pun most definitely intended!)

Here's an easy hack so you can use ordinary tea bags and have a cup of tea just as quickly as a Tassimo tea disc, but at a fraction of the cost.

1. Find your  cleaning disc. (It is stored behind your water tank in a slot on the back of the Tassimo and is probably yellow in colour.)

 

 2. Purchase one disc of any tea you like (Personal Service Coffee 3873 Walker Rd sells individual discs. Read the boxes carefully because cup sizes vary.)

3.  Identify the correct bar code to use and carefully cut it out.  A sharp paring knife works well.

(Actually, you can first make a cup of tea with the disc and then cut it out.  No use wasting a perfectly good disc.)

 

4.  Place the bar code (that you cut off) over top of the bar code of your cleaning disc (yellow) and secure with scotch tape.

 5. Insert the newly modified cleaning disc in the Tassimo. Place a cup containing your favourite tea bag underneath and press the start button.

6. Et voilà!  You now have a hot water dispensing Tassimo.  Enjoy!

p.s.  You will still need the cleaning disc to clean the scale from your machine periodically.  Just untape the "tea" barcode from the disc, clean and descale your Tassimo as usual, and then replace the "tea" barcode when you are done.

p.p.s.  You can use vinegar to clean and descale instead of the expensive Tassimo stuff.

  

Appliance Cord Composure

Administering Appliance Cord Control

They get caught, they get twisted, they get damaged, and they are unsightly, but here's a trick to keep those appliance cords under control.

There is one caveat - there needs to be a hole large enough for part of the cord to pass through. (the plug doesn't need to fit through, just a part of the cord) 
This Crockpot has no hole in the handles or lid so the stupid cord remains a constant nuisance. (I really should throw this one out anyway, because the crockery part is attached and can't be removed and the unit cannot be immersed in a sink of water to wash because of the electrical parts.

Who in their right mind thought this was a good design?!?!)

But I digress.

 This one works because of a hole in the lid's handle, and the other has a hole in the carry handle.

So, here's the step by step to harness those pesky plugins:

 

 1. Make a loop in the cord.

 2. Push part of the loop through the hole in the handle.

 3. Pull the plug end over the top of the handle...

 ... and pull it through the loop that was pushed through the handle.

 4.  Carefully pull the cord to tighten and make the loop smaller.

 5. Take the plug end back over the top of the handle.

6. And tuck it under the cord on the other side.

7. Et voilà.  Safe, secured, spick and span!

Here is the process again, using only pictures, and a Panini Press.
(Notice that the 'hole" is actually the very large area that the handle creates just by it being a handle.)

And there you have it... another solution for unruliness and disorder from the 2nd Best Job in the World.

Fruit flies... again!

Contrary to what my mom believed, you do not get fruit flies from the food that you bring into your house. Fruit flies have an uncanny ability to smell ripening fruit from a great distance and enter through the screens and open doors of your house. (I noticed during the last hot spell, when my house was closed up and air conditioned, fruit flies were non-existent. But once it cooled off and I opened up again... they're back!) 

So what's a 2nd Best Job in the World guy to do?


      Well, the passive approach would be to:
 

1. Pour cider vinegar into a shallow bowl.

2. Add a small drop of dish soap. (So they'll sink 

and  drown once they touch the cider vinegar, 

rather than floating around having a pool party)

3. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap.

4. Poke lots of small holes in the 
plastic wrap with a fork or a knife.

5. Set the trap out where you've seen
 the fruit flies. (Notice the little guys 
are already interested.)

6. In just a couple of hours - look what

I caught! Just peel off the plastic and

pour vinegar and all down the drain.

Easy breezy.

 

BUT...

          -  if you are of the more adventurous ilk, 

          -  if you prefer to take matters into your own hands,

           - if you'd prefer to use this for yellow jackets:

 

                      rather than this:

                 Well then, it's time to take an active roll in battling your fruit fly invasion.

 

1.  Place some of the fruit that has been attracting

   them into your kitchen sink stopper, but

  be sure to leave it drainable, not stoppered.

2.  Position the faucet (preferably in spray mode)

above your fruit fly ambush.

3.  Go do something else as you patiently wait.   

 

  4.  Sneak [insert Mission Impossible theme here]           

  back into the kitchen to find the tiny invaders, 

concentrating on their new fruity find.

 Be careful not to cast a shadow over them

 as they will fly away.

 

 

5.  Quickly turn on the water and flush those friggin'

 flies down the drain. The fruit will not wash 

down, but will remain in the stopper.

 

 6.  Reset and repeat as needed.  Now wasn't that

a lot more challenging, fun, and rewarding

than the previous method? 

I agree.