HOUSEHOLD HINTS

Southland Times, Issue 22915, 13 June 1936, Page 17

HOUSEHOLD HINTS

Block magnesia rubbed on a light carpet will clean it beautifully. Peas overcooked can be mashed through a sieve and become a puree. When replacing stoppers in bottles give them a twist round and they will never stick. Sour milk is very good for polishing linoleum; it will also remove rust from white fabrics. Add a little pineapple juice to apple sauce just before serving, this greatly improves the flavour. If pastry burns scrape off the burnt parts ( brush with milk, scatter sugar over and gently reheat. When jellies won’t set beat well and add stiffly beaten egg white. Turn into a dish and top with cream. Before cooking sprinkle salt on the stove, and grease will not mark it or leave an odour of burnt fat. Potatoes overcooked can be mashed with butter, pepper and salt. A little cream makes them delicious. To clean mirrors or windows, polish with tissue paper, which gives a lustre brighter than chamois leather does. To prevent shoes slipping sew a piece of medium-sized elastic, slightly stretched, inside heel part of shoe. A little carbonate of soda added to the water used for cleaning paintwork will destroy the eggs of the housefly. If grease is spilt on the kitchen table sprinkle the stain at once with salt; it prevents the grease from staining the wood. A cake with a “sticky” or sad inside can be turned into a buttered basin, steamed one hour and become a pudding. Lettuce will keep fresh and crisp jf wrapped in a damp towel and kept in j an airtight bucket in a cool, not freezing place. When milk has “caught” while being heated, stand the whole in a deep bowl of cold water (first pouring quickly into a clean jug). Salt soup can be put right by adding slices of raw potato and boiling a few minutes. A little sugar added often disguises the over-saltness. To make an oven milk pudding (rice, sago, tapioca) extra creamy add a nut of butter and cover the piedish for the first half of the time the pudding is in the oven. Another piedish inverted is good enough. Uncover and allow to brown on top as usual. This makes a wonderful difference, because the steam swells the grains. We all know how aggravating it is to get a favourite cup or a pretty plate broken while being washed. Next time an accident of this kind happens try this: Mix together a teaspoonful of powdered alum and a tablespoonful of water and place in a hot oven till it looks quite transparent Then wash the broken pieces in hot water, dry, and while the china is still warm, coat the edges thinly and rapidly with this mixture. Do it quickly, as it sticks at once. This mending will stand any ordinary using, even the ordeal of hot water.