Kitchen "Wives tales."

[Rocklobster]

So, over time we hear loads of advice, tips, remedies, etc. for kitchen issues. As we know, not all are true or effective. Just recently I have read a few on here that have never been proven to work.
Do you have any sage advice that you have heard about that doesn't really have any proof, validity, or are uneccesary?

 

[4meandthem]

My MIL rubs the ends of her cucumbers hard on the counter and then cuts the ends off.she thinks it gets the "bitter" out of them. I laugh everytime

 

[Rocklobster]

My MIL rubs the ends of her cucumbers hard on the counter and then cuts the ends off.she thinks it gets the "bitter" out of them. I laugh everytime

That's a good one! I'd laugh, too.

 

[jabbur]

This isn't an old one. It's one my sister uses though to get her hubby and kids to eat some onion! She puts onion in the hamburger when browning it for things like tacos and spaghetti. She told her hubby that the meat cooks better with the onion. Hubby's mom is just a basic cook and uses a lot of convenience mixes so he didn't know and accepts the onions. Otherwise, he wouldn't touch them!

 

[justplainbill]

Oleo is healthier than butter.

 

[jennyema]

Searing meat keeps in the juices

 

[jennyema]

Add a potato to salty soup

Or soup with too much chile pepper

Or a soup with to much [blank]

 

[jennyema]

Dont add salt to dry beans or they won't soften

 

[chopper]

Put a big leaf of lettuce in your soup to soak up the grease. Remove the slimmy thing before eating!

 

[cmarchibald]

Add a potato to salty soup

That one actually does work for me, but only if it's just a little too salty. If it's WAY oversalted (happened once when I was making spaghetti sauce from scratch) it doesn't help much.

 

[Rocklobster]

What side of the tinfoil do you put up? According to Reynolds, it doesn't matter.

 

[AnnieDrews]

I think the potato in too-salty dishes works.

I also think this one works....to get the odor of onions or garlic off of your hands, rub them well on your kitchen faucet. Something in the metal seems to cancel out the smell. Of course sometimes, I don't mind the smell on my hands.......especially if I've also been chopping fresh cilantro.

 

[Zhizara]

I think the potato in too-salty dishes works.

I also think this one works....to get the odor of onions or garlic off of your hands, rub them well on your kitchen faucet. Something in the metal seems to cancel out the smell. Of course sometimes, I don't mind the smell on my hands.......especially if I've also been chopping fresh cilantro.

It's the stainless steel. You can even buy squares of SS just for this purpose. I have a SS sink. It does work! Lemon juice works too.

 

[AnnieDrews]

It's the stainless steel. You can even buy squares of SS just for this purpose. I have a SS sink. It does work! Lemon juice works too.

Yes, I've seen the little stainless steel bars you can buy. I just use the faucet. I've not had much luck with the lemon juice, but only tried it a couple of times.

 

[BigAL]

I have found that rubber gloves work best for keep'n garlic smell off your hands.

You could try rub'n them in your wifes hair. Guarantee your hands won't smell like garlic......cause you won't know, you'd be dead.

"watched pot won't boil"

 

[BigAL]

What side of the tinfoil do you put up? According to Reynolds, it doesn't matter.

silver side.

I've tried on many different things and it didn't matter. I agree w/Rey

 

[chopper]

I have found that rubber gloves work best for keep'n garlic smell off your hands.

You could try rub'n them in your wifes hair. Guarantee your hands won't smell like garlic......cause you won't know, you'd be dead.

"watched pot won't boil"

At least you said "your wife" instead of "the wife." Kind of a pet peve for me. I think I would have to at least hurt my husband if he sad "the wife" but I could just get him back with something worse smelling if he rubbed the onion smell in my hair. I know where he sleeps!

Anyway...I just thought of another one my Grandma used to say; "Roll up a ball of tin foil and throw it in the dryer instead of fabric softener to get rid of the static cling."

 

[Rocklobster]

At least you said "your wife" instead of "the wife." Kind of a pet peve for me. I think I wo7 "Roll up a ball of tin foil and throw it in the dryer instead of fabric softener to get rid of the static cling."

Hmm. Works for static cling and garlic cling

I heard a story on the radio once that I found amusing. This young lady always cut her boneless ham in half before she baked it. She had told people that you always have to cut it in half. She did it because that is the way she learned to do it from her mother. One day she asked her mother why and her mother told her that she didn't know, but that is the way she was taught to do it. So, they both went to the Grandmother and asked why did she always cut the ham in half before cooking it in the oven. The Grandmother told her it was because her first oven was so small that she couldn't fit the whole ham in the oven because it was too high, so she had to cut it in two.

 

[AnnieDrews]

At least you said "your wife" instead of "the wife." Kind of a pet peve for me. I think I would have to at least hurt my husband if he sad "the wife" but I could just get him back with something worse smelling if he rubbed the onion smell in my hair. I know where he sleeps!

Anyway...I just thought of another one my Grandma used to say; "Roll up a ball of tin foil and throw it in the dryer instead of fabric softener to get rid of the static cling."

"The wife" is much better than "ole lady" which I dare my honey to say when referencing me...

Wouldn't aluminum foil scratch the finish on the inside of the dryer?

 

[Skittle68]

"You can tell a pineapple is ripe if the leaves pull out easily, and the bottom of it smells very sweet."

WRONG!!

First of all, once you pick a pineapple, it doesn't get any sweeter, ever. Not like a banana. So, you have to find one that was left on the vine long enough, and not picked to early. If you look at a pineapple as it's growing, the little round eyes at the top are much smaller than the ones at the bottom. As it matures, they even out and become all the same size. The sweetest pineapples will be the ones like this. You don't want to pick one with a noticeable sweet odor, because that means has been on the shelf for too long and is starting to turn. It is also possible that the leaves get easier to pull out the longer they sit on the shelf, or they could just be easier to pull out because other people who also don't know what they are doing pulled out leaves that were surrounding the leaf you just pulled. Either way, that is not what I would use to pick a pineapple lol

I always have to bite my tongue when I see people using these methods, but I don't want to say anything because how do they know I'm not just telling them some other wives tale? (I learned this at the dole pineapple plantation in Hawaii)