When You Don't Have Shaving Cream, Use Peanut Butter Instead [Clever Uses]

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When You Don't Have Shaving Cream, Use Peanut Butter Instead [Clever Uses]

via Lifehacker by Adam Dachis on 7/28/11

Whether you're shaving your face, your legs, or really anywhere else you can think of, you probably do it with shaving cream. As ridiculous as it may sound at first, peanut butter is actually a worth alternative—so long as you don't get the chunky variety. Top 10 lists site Listverse has the details:

Believe it or not, peanut butter makes a great shaving gel. Just apply it like you would apply the gel, and shave as normal. It works just as well and anyone that has bought a container of shaving gel will know, it is a hell of a lot cheaper. The end result is a very smooth shave and, as a bonus, the oils in the peanut butter are very good for your skin, so you don't need to spend even more money on moisturizer for your legs or face.

It makes sense, but I was a little skeptical. I was hoping to try this myself, but I couldn't find any peanut butter. Fortunately Listverse provided this video (contains naughty language!!), and I also found this one. It may not be your first choice for shaving aids, but it's a good trick to have in a pinch (or if you're just in the mood for spreading peanut butter all over yourself).

Photo by Breaktaker.com

Top 10 Unusual Uses for Peanut Butter | Listverse

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Line a Planter with Styrofoam Packing Peanuts for Improved Drainage [Clever ...

wow, we were like 4 years ahead of our time!

 

 

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Line a Planter with Styrofoam Packing Peanuts for Improved Drainage [Clever Uses]

via Lifehacker by Alan Henry on 7/26/11

If you're moving your favorite houseplant or cubicle-friendly companion to a new, larger planter, try adding some packing peanuts to the bottom of the planter. The peanuts beneath the soil won't compact, and excess water will drain cleanly through them without sitting in the bottom of the pot, slowly rotting your plant's roots.

Root rot is a serious problem after re-potting a plant. It's easy to over-water a plant in a new, larger pot because you think you need to wet all of the new soil even if the plant only lives in the center. Use Styrofoam packing peanuts to allow the extra water to soak out of the bottom of the pot, drain past the peanuts, and then out of the pot into a dish under the pot.

This way the moisture doesn't sit in soil at the bottom of the pot, slowly drying out, and possibly endangering your freshly re-potted plant. If you want an alternative, we've heard that aquarium gravel or pebbles work just as well. What are some of your best plant-care tricks? Share your tips in the comments.

Styrofoam Peanuts as Potting Mix | Real Simple

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Google Books Announces E-Reader Deal With Harry Potter Books

 

 

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Google Books Announces E-Reader Deal With Harry Potter Books

via The Consumerist by MB Quirk on 7/24/11

If there were ever two unstoppable money-making forces, it would be Google and the Harry Potter franchise. So it makes perfect sense that those two market dominators would team up for Google's eBooks.

Fans of the four-eyed wizard and his pals have been bemoaning the lack of Harry Potter on eReaders thus far. But now that J.K. Rowling's announced Pottermore.com will keep churning out Potter offerings to keep fans happy, Google has announced they'll be assisting in the e-reader launch with their own Google Books.

Techland points out a blog post by Google last week, which announced:

So when the series of Harry Potter ebooks launches on Pottermore.com in early October, these bestsellers will be available in the U.S. via the open Google eBooks platform. When you buy a Harry Potter ebook from Pottermore, you will be able to choose to keep it in your Google Books library in-the-cloud, as well as on other e-reading platforms.

Pottermore will be the only place to buy the books in e-reading format, and under this new deal with Google, "Google Checkout will be the preferred third party payment platform for all purchases made on Pottermore.com."

Nice little arrangement they've pulled off, eh? Could be seen as almost... magical.

Google E-Books Gain Momentum With 'Harry Potter' Deal [Techland]

 

 

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The Flavor Of Your OJ Is A Chemically-Induced Mirage

 

 

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The Flavor Of Your OJ Is A Chemically-Induced Mirage

via The Consumerist by Ben Popken on 7/29/11

There's a dirty secret in your glass of orange juice. Even though it says "not from concentrate," it probably sat in a large vat for up to year with all the oxygen was removed from it. This allows it to be preserved and dispensed all year-round. Taking out all the O2 also gets rid of all the flavor. So the juice makers have to add the flavors back in using preformulated recipes full of chemicals called "flavor packs." Mmm, delicious, fresh-squeezed ethyl-butyrate!

Author Aliissa Hamilton covers this in her book, "Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice." Of her findings, she writes on the Civl Eats blog:

Juice companies therefore hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. Flavor packs aren't listed as an ingredient on the label because technically they are derived from orange essence and oil. Yet those in the industry will tell you that the flavor packs, whether made for reconstituted or pasteurized orange juice, resemble nothing found in nature. The packs added to juice earmarked for the North American market tend to contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, a chemical in the fragrance of fresh squeezed orange juice that, juice companies have discovered, Americans favor.

Less you think this is some kind of organic hippy conspiracy theory, deaeration and pasteurization are very real in the orange juice and they do remove flavor. Here is a study to that effect posted on the USDA.gov site.

If this is the type of thing that bothers you, buying OJ from the store in May through June is the only way to ensure that most of the juice is from fresh Valencia oranges. The rest of the year it's reflavored sugar water from a tank farm.

Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes [Civil Eats]
Don't get squeezed when shopping for juice [Baltimore Sun]

 

 

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16 Tales Of Frugal Fathers

http://consumerist.com/2011/07/xx-frugal-things-your-dad-did.html

Cheerwine-Filled Krispy Kremes Are Back, Tennessee Can Bite In Too

mmmmmm....

 

 

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Cheerwine-Filled Krispy Kremes Are Back, Tennessee Can Bite In Too

via The Consumerist by Ben Popken on 6/30/11

The lovechild of a bottle of Cheerwine soda and a Krispy Kreme doughnut is back for seconds. It's the Cheerwine-filled Krispy Kreme! The doughnut maker has brought back these two classic Carolina flavors that were such a hit last year for a one-monthly only run starting in July. And this year they've expanded the deploy zone to also include Tennessee.

Cheerwine is a regional soda sold in the Carolina area that is very bubbly has a distinctive sweet cherry flavor. They also have a cult following. I once knew again who added a 100-mile detour to his trip just so he could pick up a case.

Part of the reason the two companies got together was because they're both based in Carolina and have been around since the early 20th century. They wined and dined each other on Rock Candy Mountain and decided they were perfect for each other.

The donuts will be sold by the half-dozen at regular Krispy-Kreme dispensaries, as well as BI-LO, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Ingles Markets, Kroger, Lowes Foods, Piggly Wiggly, Publix and Walmart stores.

"The Cheerwine Kreme Filled Doughnut is a true celebration of two southern heritage icons doing something quite magical for loyal fans in the south. It is a perfect summer treat, and with the limited run of production and the introduction of the doughnut into Tennessee, we think excitement is going to be through the roof," said Tom Barbitta, Vice President of Marketing for Cheerwine. "If last year is any indication, we have to tell people to make sure to get them while they can. There's nothing worse than watching someone else walk away with the last Cheerwine Kreme Filled Doughnut."

Aw, that sounds so sad!

PREVIOUSLY
Mmm... Cheerwine Filled Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

 

 

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Stretch One Chicken Over 22 Healthy Meals for Less than $50 [Food]

 

 

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Stretch One Chicken Over 22 Healthy Meals for Less than $50 [Food]

via Lifehacker by Matthew Rogers on 6/20/11

A whole chicken doesn't have to last one meal, only to become a day's worth of leftovers before making its way to the trash bin. Kerry Taylor managed to stretch one enormous chicken into 22 meals over a five-day period, and it's wasn't as insane (or meatless) as you might think.

To kick the whole thing off, she started by baking a 6.28lb chicken, whole. Doing this not only guarantees the first day's food, but it also leaves enough leftover materials (like the bones) to make a large pot of chicken stock. That stock is what allowed her to stretch the bird past the three-day mark, because soup and stew are both easy and filling.

Plenty of vegetables and herbs mean any two days' soup or stew can be completely different in taste, despite coming from the same chicken stock. There's also types of noodles, beans, or pasta to consider, making the combinations pretty easy to come by. Chicken White Chili may not be too common a sight in most kitchens, but it doesn't exactly sound bad, either.

A $20 chicken seems like a big purchase when you see it at the store, but if it can stretch out to an entire week's worth of meals with a minimal investment in side items, it starts to look pretty cheap. Getting the oven-use for the week done at the outset is also a great thing for Summer, which is an added bonus. Photo by Steven Depolo.

1 Organic Chicken, 22 Healthy Meals, $49 Bucks | Squawkfox

 

 

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