HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 122, 22 May 1920, Page 20

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

'During the hot weather meat takes a slightly shorter time to cook than during cold.

Use newspapers to wipe 'knives after they are cleaned. It does just as well as a duster.

A small quantity of whiting mixed with methylated spirits cleans and polishes piano keys splendidly. Put a pinch of salt into everything in which sugar is used. It is a fact that if salt is added less sugar is needed.

Put a little salt in tbe water in which you wash new potatoes before scraping. It prevents them staining your hands.

Save some of the syrup when you have tinned fruit. A'<id it to fresh fruit that is being stewed, and. hardly any sugar is needed.

If one gets a 'fish-bone hi tbe throat a piece of lemon -should be eaten as soon as possible. The lemon will cause the bone to dissolve immediately.

For Washing Flannels.—lnto three quarts of water put one 'bar of yellowsoap, shaved fine, and four tablespoonfuls of powdered borax. Boil until the soap is thoroughly dissolved. Put the mixture in jars having screw tops or some sort of airtight covering.

When fresh, paint marks on clothing can be removed by rubbing with turpentine or paraffin, applied with a bit of cloth. 'If they lhave dried on, rub with a mixture of equal parts of turpentine _n_ pure alcohol, and clean off with benzine. Keep away from any light.

Dilute brass paste by adding enough methylated spirit and paraffin (jquai parts) to make it so thin that it 3aa be shaken up in a bottle. Never apply it with a rag, but with an old tooth o. nail brush. Applied in this way it doesn't fill up the crevices in engraved brass.

Malce Your Own Briquettes.—Save your strong paper bags that come from the grocer and your coal dust. Remember when your supply of coal is finished to shovel all the "dust" carefully to one side before 'the next supply is dumped dowu on top on it. Get a pail, fill it three-quarters full of coal dust, saturate tbe coal dust with water into which a little common salt has been dissolved, ifill the paper bags with -the mixture, packing it quite tight. Tie up the mouth of the bag with string. The wet dust will .harden and the bag will become like a brick. One or two of these bricks will keep the fire in for hours and save coal and- trouble.

An English paper commenting on tbe shortage and price of tea, writes: Now that there is talk of a sharp advance in the price of tea, if the housewife will prepare her tea as follows she will readily halve the consumption. Instead of making your tea in the ordinary way in a teapot, take precisely half the quantity you generally use, put it in an enamelled saucepan, which, of course, must be faultlessly clean, pour on to tbe leaves cold water instead of iiot, bring it quickly to the boil, and the moment it actually boils take the sauce- ' pan off the fire and strain into a teapot. The tea is -excellent, and it tastes just as | good as when made in the ordinary way. Tea made in this way can be re-heated, |and tastes just tbe 6amc as fresh tea.