Story of the Day - Page 4 of 56

When To Go Organic & When Not To Bother

January 27, 2014/2 Comments/in FOOD, Food & Drink, HEALTH, Nutrition, SAVE MONEY, View All Food Stories, View All Health Stories /by Editor

The experts at Licious Living share their list of the “cleanest” and “dirtiest” fruits and veggies in your supermarket.

GOOD TO KNOW | “Should I buy organic or is it just a waste of my money? I get this question a lot,” says Deanna Embury, who, with co-founder Katie Rodgers, operates Licious Living, a healthy eating company that supplies Vancouverites and Torontonians with super-tasty home-delivered meals plus operates wallet-friendly cafés in British Columbia and Alberta. Read more

Technique: Make Dulce de Leche In The Microwave

January 13, 2014/0 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, Recipes, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Most recipes for making dulce de leche require slaving over a stovetop. Here’s how to beat that heat and whip it up quick.

EASY LIKE THIS | When friends of ours returned from a holiday in Argentina a while back, they brought us a jar of the country’s finest dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is a traditional Argentinean dessert made by caramelizing sugar in milk. It is not to be confused with North American caramel sauce, which made by caramelizing sugar in water. Dulce de leche is more subtly sweet than ordinary caramel sauce is; it’s also infinitely creamier, making it perfect on top of ice cream or inside treats like brownies and cheesecake. Read more

Magic Eraser Really Does Remove The Most Stubborn Stains

January 10, 2014/0 Comments/in Cleaning & Maintenance, HOME, Home & Garden, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All Home Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

The stain was so stubborn I thought I would have to replace my bathtub. Turns out all I needed was a small miracle.

THIS THING WORKS | Shortly after we moved into our house, the acrylic tub in the master bathroom became stained. It looked as though something had spattered the finish and damaged it, but whatever the cause, the problem was finding a solution. Read more

Get All Your Fave Mags For Just $10 A Month

January 9, 2014/0 Comments/in CANADIAN CONTENT, Culture & Leisure /by Editor

If you love popular newsstand magazines and own an IPad, Android or Windows device, then the Next Issue app is going to be right up your alley.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT | As someone who is at this very moment staring at a mile-high years-in-the-making pile of magazines that needs to be schlepped to the dump, I look forward to switching from print publications to digital ones. Read more

To Break An Unwanted Habit, Do This One Thing

January 6, 2014/1 Comment/in Culture & Travel, HEALTH, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, SAVE EFFORT, SAVE ENERGY, View All Health Stories, View All How-To Stories, Well Being /by Editor

To break a single bad habit, use this famous technique to support your decision one day at a time.

SIMPLE & EFFECTIVE | I never make New Year’s resolutions (unless they’re the Babylonian kind, which are really all about settling up—CLICK HERE for the Frugalbits story), but on 01 January 2013, I decided to inch into the game. For years I’d wanted to remove (oh-so-bad-for-you) Coca-Cola from my diet but, for a million lame reasons, had never been able to go more than a few days without succumbing to the drink. Read more

Technique: Make Perfect, Crisp Bacon In The Oven

December 12, 2013/0 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, Recipes, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Nothing says lovin’ like bacon from the oven; it’s no fuss, no mess and quick.

EASY & DELISH | The holidays are all about group meals like big breakfast spreads and brunches. Both of these multiplate affairs are always improved when sizzling strips of bacon are on the menu, though slaving over a sputtering frying pan to cook up a temperamental batch is a task fewer and fewer of us choose to tackle. But what if you could cook perfect bacon for a crowd while sitting in the living room balancing a Buck’s fizz in one hand and a cheesy blintz in the other? You can if you bake your bacon instead of frying it.

PICTURE THIS

December 9, 2013/0 Comments/in BUY THIS. MAKE THAT., Culture & Leisure, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, TRAVEL, View All How-To Stories, View All Travel Stories /by Editor

This is how you take an unforgettable Photo: 228 ideas, tips and secrets for taking instantly better photos.

WHAT TO GIVE | Are you casting around for an inexpensive gift for someone you don’t know all that well, or for someone you do know well but, for whatever reason, everything you can think of to give that person doesn’t feel like a fit?

You won’t go wrong by shooting them a copy of esteemed American photographer George Lange’s The Unforgettable Photograph, written with the assistance of journalist and onetime Vancouverite Scott Mowbray. Everyone is snap happy these days—it’s not for nothing that “selfie” was named Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year for 2013—and most of what is being shot would be instantly improved by adopting any of the 228 dead easy non-technical suggestions put forward in this meaty $6 picture book.

Here are three favourite takeaways from my now dog-eared copy. Read more

Use A Work-Back Sheet To Get Stuff Done

November 28, 2013/6 Comments/in Culture & Leisure, Holiday, HOLIDAY, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

Take the stress out of planning any event with this tool used by event planning pros. (WORKSHEET)

FREE WORKSHEET | The holiday season will never be as carefree for adults as it is for kids—we have too much work to do behind the scenes—but this year why not make things easier on yourself by using a simplified version of a “work-back schedule,” a tool employed by event-planning pros, to get everything done in a less hurried, more orderly and enjoyable manner. Read more

You Will Love The Drops Frame From IKEA

November 25, 2013/0 Comments/in BUY THIS. MAKE THAT., DECOR & DESIGN, HOME, Home & Garden, View All Home Stories /by Editor

How to get family snapshots out of Cyberland and into your living room.

CHEAP & AWESOME | Although they did not confirm this number themselves, Buzzfeed reported last year that humans take 380 billion photos a year. To that figure I would like to add my own unsubstantiated statistic: 99.99 percent of these photographs will forever reside out of view, most of them in Cyberland.

And maybe that’s a good thing, but displaying some printed photos in your home does keep good times and good people visually at hand without logging into a computer or staring at a digital flip screen. My new favourite way to display snapshots on paper is in an inexpensive Drops collage frame from IKEA. Read more

4 Ways To Dress Up Plain Paper Lanterns

November 21, 2013/0 Comments/in BUY THIS. MAKE THAT., Chic & Easy Projects, DECOR & DESIGN, DIY, HOME, Home & Garden, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All DIY Stories, View All Home Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

DIY | While inexpensive paper lanterns used en masse contribute enormously to the festive mood in a room (try imagining the space pictured above without them), a plain pendant lantern used on its own can easily look like an uninspired afterthought.

Of course a single Noguchi Araki light sculpture would be beautiful, but shades like these, which are fashioned from handmade washi paper and authentic bamboo ribbing, are anything but cheap.

If you are going to use a cheap Chinese paper lantern alone in a room, why not personalize it in a way that makes it distinctive? Here are four of our favourite eye-catching ways to embellish paper lanterns, plus a how-to video from Martha Stewart that covers some of the basics. Read more