There is one trick, and it's already in your kitchen: a spoon. Who knew a humble spoon could be so versatile? It's one of the best hacks that will help you open stubborn jars. When faced with a stubborn jar lid, flip the offending container upside down and give the base a whack with a spoon. If that doesn't work, firmly tap across the lid or wedge the spoon underneath the lid and push upwards.
The trick is as simple as it is transformative. Just trim the root ends off your cloves, pop them in the microwave for 20 to 30 seconds, and the skins will slip free like silk stockings after a long night. The heat loosens the bond between the papery sheath and the clove's surface, slightly cooking the interior so it contracts away from its wrapper. You can practically hear the cloves sigh in surrender.
Once you've taken care to cut the outer peel from a fresh pineapple, you might just find some brown spots from the leftover peel, which are commonly referred to as "eyes." Albeit unsightly and unpleasant in taste and texture, the simplest way to remove these eyes while reducing food waste is with the use of a spoon. This is the quickest and easiest method that will leave the most fruit intact.
Ever hastily salted a bubbling stew with Morton salt and accidentally poured in an avalanche of the white stuff? Then you may be pleased to know that there's a hack for solving that first-world problem. In fact, you may have been opening Morton salt containers wrong your entire life if you've simply been lifting the metal spout and cooking up a storm. There's actually an additional step that can turn that big container of salt into a shaker: removing the cardboard tag inside.
But you may not always have a cake stand handy. Or you may be trying your hand at cake decorating for the first time and you're not quite ready to invest in one. Or you may live in a small apartment with nowhere to store one! Fortunately, there is one item that is already in almost every household that can totally get the job done in a pinch: your microwave tray.