Excerpt: Joey Green's Fix-It Magic
Learn how to fix things around your home with items you already have.
July 15, 2008 — -- If you're looking for fun, off-beat ways to fix things around your home using brand-name products you own already, then "Joey Green's Fix-It Magic: More than 1,971 Quick-and-Easy Household Solutions Using Brand-Name Products" just may be the book for you.
Bestselling author Green is the guru of weird uses for brand name products and documents a host of creative uses in his new book.
Readers can learn how to start a car with Bayer aspirin, spackle holes with S.O.S. steel wool pads or even clean driveway spills with Coca-Cola.
Read an excerpt of the book below.
Cooking
Forster Toothpicks. Identify rare, medium and well-done steaks on your barbecue grill by using colored Forster Tooth-picks to mark steaks on the barbecue.
Maxwell House Coffee. A clean, empty Maxwell House coffee can doubles as an excellent disposable pot to be used on the grill to cook bratwursts in beer.
Morton Salt. After barbecuing, sprinkle Morton Salt over the smoldering charcoal to prevent the embers from flaring up into a roaring fire again.
Grill
Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. To clean a barbecue grill, make a paste by mixing equal parts Arm & Hammer Baking Soda and water, apply with a wire brush, wipe clean, and dry with a cloth.
Cascade, Glad Trash Bags, and Parsons' Ammonia. To clean caked-on grease from an outdoor barbecue grill, place the grill in a Glad Trash Bag and add one cup Parsons' ammonia, one cup Cascade dishwasher detergent, and two gallons hot water. Secure the bag closed. (The fumes from the ammonia help weaken the bond of the baked-on food and grease.) Let sit for forty-five minutes, then hose down the grill and wipe clean.
Dawn Dishwashing Liquid and Glad Trash Bags. Mix up a solution of one-half cup Dawn Dishwashing Liquid and one gallon water. Place the grease-coated barbecue grill inside a Glad Trash Bag, pour the soapy solution over the rack inside the bag, seal the bag shut, and let sit overnight. The following day, scrub the rack with a wire brush and rinse clean.
Easy-Off Oven Cleaner and Glad Trash Bags. Place the grill in a Glad Trash Bag. Wearing protective eyewear and rubber gloves, spray the racks thoroughly with Easy-Off Oven Cleaner, close the bag, and secure with a twist tie. Let set for four hours in the sun. Rinse well with a garden hose.
Glad Trash Bags. When your outdoor barbecue grill cools down, cover it with a Glad Trash Bag to protect it from the elements.
Pam Cooking Spray. To make cleaning a barbecue grill easy, coat the grill with Pam Cooking Spray before barbecuing. After cooking, when the grill is cool to the touch, scrub the grill with a wire brush. The cooking oil enables baked-on food to slide off much easier.
Reynolds Wrap. To make cleaning baked-on food from a bar-becue grill easier, place a sheet of Reynolds Wrap on the hot grill immediately after you finish barbecuing and close the lid. The next time you use the barbecue, peel off the foil, crumple it into a ball, and scrub the grill clean, easily removing all the burned-on food.
WD-40. To clean baked-on food from a barbecue grill, remove the grill from the barbecue, spray with WD-40, let set for five minutes, then wipe clean. Then wash thoroughly with soap and water.
