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Here's a solution that my friend came up with:
Take a bunch of Styrofoam cups
Cut out the bottoms of the cups
Stack them up
Put the wide end of the top cup under the faucet, and the (cut open) thinner end of the bottom cup over the edge of the sink
Place the urn directly underneath the end of your Styrofoam cup chain
Turn on the sink
At the end, your ...
69
Similar to @Shokhet's answer you can also use a clean dustpan, as shown below:
Source: Trupser.com
51
Usually jars with stiff lids are fresh from the store and have been packed with the contents under lower pressure than the outside air i.e a vacuum. This pressure difference can increase the resistance presented by the thread and can make opening a jar for the first time difficult.
This approach that can be taken if a little damage to the lid is acceptable ...
43
You can wear rubber gloves and open it; usually, the extra grip helps.
Run hot water over the lid. The heat will make the lid expand temporarily and it'll be easier to open.
Put the lid on hot water (works as the above method)
Hold the jar horizontally and slap the lid
30
Used plastic bottle which has lid will help to keep the plastic bag sealed and works as a container. This will seal the bags which has liquid also if used properly.
Cut the bottle above the body and below the neck where it start to converge. Size can be changed to the need.
Twist the packet opening and insert it from inward.
Flip the plastic cover outside.
...
29
Your best option is to use a pipe cleaner. Add some dish soap to the pipe cleaner. I like to dip the pipe cleaner in a bottle of soap, but you can pour soap on it. Now just push the pipe cleaner through the straw and rinse it with water.
If you have a straw that has too wide of a diameter for on pipe cleaner, you can braid 2 or 3 together to make it wider.
27
Shoe Method
One way to loosen the corkscrew is to remove your shoe, place the bottom of the bottle in the foot hole (to protect the glass), and then bang the shoe against a stone wall repeatedly until the cork eases out of the bottle. This video provides a good demonstration. Just be sure to remove the capsule before trying.
This woman adapted this method ...
27
That question has been asked on cooking.stackexchange before, and the answer by Jolenealaska (and originally by blogger E is for Eat) quite qualifies as a life hack:
Basically, you cut off both ends of the orange, make a vertical cut along one side, and then unroll the whole orange.
I have tried this myself and it works, however results may vary depending ...
26
Step 1: Get a smaller container which actually fits in the sink.
Step 2: Fill it up.
Step 3: Dump it into the larger container
Step 4: Repeat Steps 1-3 as needed.
22
By putting the pancake batter into a squeeze bottle, you can create any shape you like.
There are products made for this purpose but you can also use any old empty squeeze bottle you have lying around, like so:
This method lets you draw cool stuff. Though I imagine line-art pancakes like those would be pretty hard to flip.
21
The Empty-Water-Bottle Method
Squeeze a washed empty water bottle.
Place the opening of the bottle over an egg yolk, still squeezing,
and slowly let go of your squeeze.
The yolk should get sucked right up.
In case you don't use water bottles or don't have any laying around, there are commercial suction separators like Pluck and Yolkr.
The Hand-...
18
First, make sure the jar (and lid) are clean. A dusty jar can make it hard to maintain a firm grip. Then make sure your hands are clean, for the same reason.
If your hands are too dry, you may also struggle to maintain a firm grip. That said, you don't want them to be wet (or covered in grease / lotion / corn husker's friend) either - if rubbing your hands ...
18
The best trick I've come across is to put the egg(s) in some water in a closed container and shake it around. The water prevents the eggs from getting completely destroyed but the banging around knocks the shell right off.
This works with plastic containers as well as a pot or bowl with a plate as a lid.
18
After watching me struggle with this a for a couple of weeks, the day-cook showed me a really simple trick for cleaning out the microwave:
Find a microwave safe bowl
Fill it half way with water
Microwave the bowl of water uncovered in the microwave for 5-10 minutes
Let the microwave rest for another few minutes to cool slightly
Wipe out the microwave with ...
17
The Finger Test to Check the Doneness of Meat, by Elise on Simply Recipes
Raw:
Open the palm of your hand. Relax the hand. Take the index finger of
your other hand and push on the fleshy area between the thumb and the
base of the palm. Make sure your hand is relaxed. This is what raw
meat feels like. (Check this out the next time you have a raw ...
17
There is a "right" and a "wrong" side to start. Note that the seam is typically made with one string, which is exactly the reason it's so easy to unravel.
Look at the side with the loops. You'll notice the loops kind of "pointing" to one side. This is the side where you'll have to pull. In this case, to the left:
Now, look at the end of the string. ...
16
You can easily open tight jars lid with duct tape. DYI . I have personally tested and worked in first attempt itself.
TIP: Place the jar on flat surface and hold if it contains liquid.
Here are the 11 summarized ways to open the tight jars lid.
16
Lots of people have mentioned rubber gloves. I agree, but I found while doing dishes in restaurant quantity, (EG, for way longer than you may be doing dishes at home), It would get a lot easier if I filled the gloves with cold/tepid water after putting my hands in, then put a hair tie around my wrists to hold most of it in. It feels a bit weird at first, and ...
16
I really like the Tupperware Orange Peeler. It is used by dragging the hook end around the orange skin, which opens the peel up all the way to the flesh of the orange. Then it's a simple matter of getting under the skin with the flat end, then peeling the skin off with your fingers. It's a really handy tool.
Here's a couple available on amazon.com
15
I have a lot of old 60ml syringes lying around. These make great water guns, but you can also use them to make pancakes. Just be sure you either get all the lumps out of the batter, or cut part of the end off so it can handle some lumps.
Simply stick the end into the batter, pull the desired amount into the syringe, and push it into the pan.
This is great ...
15
The dishes will get clean if you use water that's the hottest you can handle. Eventually your heat tolerance will improve also.
One thing you can do is put the dishes into a sink full of super-hot water, with some grease-cutting soap, and let them soak until the water is cool enough to handle. This will break down whatever's stuck on, and make it easy to ...
15
Use denture cleaners. These create foams that smell clean and clean deep within the straw.
Also, use long Q tips. These may push the dirt further in some cases, so also use with soapy water and water pressure helps to.
Additional Info
Straw cleaners.
14
There are a variety of devices to solve this problem, my first thought would be thimbles if you don't want to buy one, but I would encourage just getting such a device, there's both rotary and flat-board ones I've seen. The rotary ones are thus:
14
Most of the time when I am going to a long long vacation I just unplugged my refrigerator (making sure that it is empty first) while leaving only maybe 5-10 pieces of charcoal inside the refrigerator by putting them in a newspaper (make sure that the newspaper are open).
It is said that the charcoal eliminates odor effectively.
By searching it I realized ...
14
Put a little oil on the suction cup. Oil does not evaporate as quickly as water and also forms a better seal. In the kitchen, you should use an edible oil such as olive or coconut oil.
14
According to Popular Mechanics the most effective method was using baking soda and water:
Baking Soda and Water
Directions: Three bottles, 16 tablespoons of baking soda and 32 cups
of water, soak for 30 minutes.
Results: After 30 minutes, the bucket had two full labels floating on
the top—a very good sign. One bottle required a peel of the ...
14
Isopropyl Alcohol
If the typical 70% rubbing alcohol isn't removing everything, try the higher concentrations (90%+ solution). The 70% solution works, but not quite as well as the higher concentrations. As a bonus, rubbing alcohol also removes permanent marker if someone should accidentally take one to your board or refrigerator instead of a dry erase marker....
13
Wash them in vinegar. This is for berries, but I use it on all produce.
Make the solution a very mild vinegar solution.
The vinegar kills any mold spores and other bacteria that might be on
the surface of the fruit
From the Fox News Magazine:
Dry produce, you can keep them dry after washing them in vinegar by putting them in a strainer, drying every ...
12
Take two large bowls.
Put the garlic cloves into one of the bowls.
Place the second bowl upside down on top of the bowl with the cloves.
Shake the hell out of it.
In about 10 seconds, all cloves are peeled and you can fish them out of the bowls.
For a more visual explanation;
Youtube - How To Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds
Instead of using ...
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