Hair dyers are pretty straightforward tools, but they can actually do way more than just dry your wet hair or defog your bathroom mirror. From the kitchen to the backyard, a blowdryer can help you solve common problems around the house and beyond, and here are our 10 favorite uses.
Beer isn't just for drinking anymore. There are many useful and surprising things that an ice-cold brewski can help you accomplish, from household chores to better-tasting food. It can even help you look and feel healthier.
There is something so satisfying about dipping your spoon into a perfectly smooth slice of cheesecake. There is something a bit less satisfying about it if the top of the cheesecake is cracked and cratered.
It goes without saying that a pizza stone is one of the keys to making a perfect pizza. The science behind pizza stones is relatively simple: the stone conducts and holds heat, which keeps the oven temperature steady even when a cold ingredient (such as an uncooked pizza) is introduced. This not only helps the pizza cook more evenly, but also allows the bottom to get crisp.
I think we've all had that childhood (or adult) desire to have ice cream for dinner. But veggies for dessert? It's something I had nightmares about as a kid.
As much as I love eating weird foods, when it comes to my favorite food, there is only one simple choice: cheese. Since cheese is my favorite to eat, it should come as no surprise that it's one of my favorites to make as well.
While I frown upon any form of uneaten cookie, sometimes we overestimate our late-night cravings for baked goods leaving us with extra cookie dough at 4 a.m. If you're in the privileged dilemma of not having enough excess dough to make another batch of cookies but just enough left over that you can't justify tossing it, don't fret. Here are five effortless and unexpected ways to salvage it.
Confession: I love bagels. I love to make them, but above all, I love to eat them. In college I ran a mini-bagel business from my kitchen, and on bagel-making day, it wasn't uncommon for me to eat the circular goodies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yet even with my obsession I can't always eat bagels fast enough to keep them from going stale. That's why I started learning ways to use bagels even when they're a day or three past their prime. As it turns out, there are a million and one thin...
Salt is one of my favorite ingredients, by far, and also one of the most overlooked foods in the kitchen. This is probably due to the fact that it's an essential component of almost any recipe; because salt is a necessity, it's easy to forget how dynamic and versatile it can be as well.
OR rather How to make the Backdoor Persistent: Hello, my Cold and Merciless Hackers,
If you're anything like me, you probably think it's borderline sacrilege to even think about a sandwich or a burger that doesn't have a layer of smooth mayonnaise. But I don't just keep a jar of it in my fridge for lunch—it's also there for practical purposes.
No one ever wants to experience pain, whether it's as small as a stubbed toe or as great as recovering from surgery. Yet so much of our lives causes pain, lasting or brief in its form. With a few mental tricks and unusual home remedies, you can relieve some of the most common aches and ailments that arise painlessly.
Enough with zoodles (zucchini noodles), spaghetti squash, and carrot 'pasta' spirals. A well-prepared dish of zoodles with sauce is beautiful and tasty, but let's get real, it doesn't fill you up. If you use it as a meal replacement, then you'll be hungry about 30 minutes later.
A little cooking mistake can lead to tough meat, spoiled food, and even a bacterial explosion in your kitchen if you're not careful. These five simple, easy-to-fix kitchen mistakes are some of the most commonly made in households around the world. Luckily, you can correct these innocent errors with just a few minor tweaks.
Like cigars and whiskey, Lapsang Souchong tea is an acquired taste. Some people never get over the pungent, tarry flavor and intense smell of the beverage, but using it as a rub, marinade, or other seasoning is totally smart. The tea adds a smoky yet not overwhelming flavor to dishes of all kinds. With it, you can easily get barbecue-like results for meats and vegetables, all without breaking out the grill. Lapsang Souchong tea smells like a dry campfire and tastes like a smoked sausage cooke...
There are those who prefer Thanksgiving leftovers to the actual official meal, much like people who prefer cold pizza over hot. I'm definitely in the latter camp. There's something luxurious about enjoying your perfectly cooked turkey and stuffing while wearing sweatpants and not having to make small talk with your weird uncle who drinks too much.
If you struggle with deciding which wine you should buy for an intimate dinner, or the type of beer with the highest alcohol content that doesn't taste like tree bark, then check out some of these great alcohol-friendly apps to make better booze decisions.
Shortly after the official release of iOS 8, news outlets like BGR, Gizmodo, and Huffington Post were instructing iPhone 4S users to refrain from updating (which were practically regurgitations of an Ars Technica piece).
The world of root is upon us, folks. While the LG G3 has be available for purchase for a couple of months now, rooting had been a shaky subject. International and T-Mobile variants enjoyed root from day one, while various security patches left the AT&T and Verizon Wireless variants as a mixed bag, and Sprint completely out in the cold.
Can you cook a steak or salmon filet that's straight out of the freezer and get good results? Ordinarily, I would say no. Usually your steak ends up a sad grey mass fit only for the family dog and the fish is burned on the outside with an icy, undercooked center.
There are many, many home remedies out there for relieving itchy mosquito bites. Everything from mud to banana peels and basil leaves to Alka-Seltzer tablets can help curb the itch. But before you even have to resort to any of those methods, you should be thinking about prevention. Wearing white clothing can help to keep mosquitoes aways from your skin, and there are many plants that will help mask your mosquito-attracting smell. But there's even more ways to keep those bloodsucking bugs away.
Certain ingredients that a professional chef might work with in a restaurant-style setting may seem bizarre, dangerous, and even downright scary to a home cook, and for good reason.
Look away from this screen and try to remember the sound of your childhood hero's voice. Did you do it? Do it again, and this time pay attention to your eyes.
Sometimes, stock just doesn't cut it. When you're sick of the limitations in Sense on your HTC One, a new ROM can be a ray of sunshine. By installing a custom ROM, you can add or unlock new features in Sense, or you can get a pure Android experience instead. It's all up to you.
Recently, Sprint announced a partnership with Harman Kardon to deliver exclusive sound FX technology to their variant of the HTC One M8. The joint effort between the two companies is both to entice customers to switch to Sprint as well as improve the overall audio quality coming from the already extraordinary BoomSound speakers. But while this is great for new and existing Sprint customers, it does leave the rest of us out in the cold.
A lot of people rely on the date on the packaging to tell them when food has gone bad, even with eggs, but the sell-by dates are often somewhat arbitrary and are not expiration dates. If you've been tossing your eggs based on the dates on your carton—you could be wasting perfectly good food.
Food is a necessity, sure, but every now and then it's so satisfying to eat something because it is fun and delicious. While eating a whole tub of homemade ice cream might satisfy your need for gluttony, there's a way to take it even further—make your dinnerware edible.
We've already taught you a few tricks for getting chilled, rock-hard butter to spread easily on toast, and some of you probably bypass that issue entirely by purchasing spreadable butter from the supermarket. But why waste your money when you can make a healthier, tastier version at home for a fraction of the cost?
Let's be honest, most of us buy the bottom-shelf vodka either because we're broke or because we're going to disguise the gag-inducing taste of it with juice or something fizzy. If you're cooking or baking with vodka (ice-cold vodka works wonders in pie crust), what's the point of buying Belvedere?
Most recipes don't specify what type they mean when they call for onions. While using whatever kind you already have won't necessarily ruin a dish, using the best one for what you're cooking will definitely make your food taste better.
Some women see Halloween as a once-a-year opportunity to dress in something skimpy without dealing with as much scrutiny as usual. That can be fun, but not everyone is comfortable enough wearing so little, and the costumes are so boring and repetitive. Some of us just don't feel like freezing.
Poison ivy, poison oak, and the lesser known skin irritator, poison sumac, can all cause a conundrum in the search of itch relief: to scratch or not to scratch. Fortunately, there are a number of home remedies one can try to help alleviate the itch(ing), with many like coffee, a banana, baking soda, or mouthwash likely already in-house for most.
I know Americans love to hate on the French, but from my standpoint, they've given us a lot of things we should all be thankful for, like French kissing, casual sex, Pepé le Pew, and of course, French fries. Well, maybe not...
There's nothing better than gulping down an ice cold beer to calm the senses and ease the mind. The holiday season can be very stressful as people scramble around trying to find the best gifts for friends and family. And we all know that gifts can be very hit or miss, but it's pretty hard to go wrong giving someone a nice bottle of whiskey or a nice selection of beers.
Summer is in full swing! Everywhere you look, plants are in full bloom and green is a way of life. Gardeners are clearly living up to their full potential. I cannot think of anything else that personifies summer better than gardening.
There's nothing worse than holding an ice cold brewski on a hot summer day and having no way to open it. If you're a Bud fan, you'll have no problem opening the bottle because most mass-market beers have twist-off caps. But if you have a taste for finer, more expensive brews, you'll more than likely run into the pry-off caps. Pry-offs are used mainly because companies believe it provides a better seal against one of beer's greatest enemies—oxygen. Plus it's a cheaper alternative for craft bre...
Apparently submerging a hand in liquid nitrogen isn't as painful as one might suspect (if you trust the Leidenfrost effect as much as Theodore of Gray Matter):
There’s a good chance that you’ll be alone in life one day, and no... I’m not talking about a couch-bound, dateless loser with a pocket pussy and a bag of potato chips. I’m talking about alone. In the wilderness. Hungry. Cold. Lost. You can’t stay in one place too long, so it would be nice to have something to carry your belongings in. Maybe it’s post-apocalyptic land where you’re the sole survivor, and all the backpacks and rucksacks in the world are but mere ash. Either way, knowing this si...
Be it the ocean, a lake or a river, there is no better way to enjoy the water and nature than by kayaking. Like all outdoor activities, being prepared and knowing how to use your equipment will help insure you have a great time.
Make sure your next apartment rental goes smoothly by properly checking the property before signing a contract. This way you will avoid unexpected disappointments or problems that you were not aware off. Moving is hard enough, give yourself all the advantage you can by going in prepared.
