I went home to visit Mom this weekend and she made the best pasta sauce I think I have ever had. It was a blush-style sauce but it was tangy and herby and did not have big hunks of tomato and onion to ruin the texture and it was pretty awesome. The recipe, it turns out, is a fairly straightforward doctoring of Prego Traditional sauce with a few additional ingredients. I thought about it, and this isn't the only off-the-shelf item that people upgrade when they get it - beyond even food. For example, I have an ordinary wireless router that I upgraded with DD-WRT so I can use it as a bridge and do all sorts of cool shit with it. Some people tweak their musical instruments or their cars. FOCUS: How do you take ordinary off-the-shelf items and upgrade them to work better for you? Share tips for the benefit of the TiB community.
I never eat frozen pizzas without dousing them in a blend of basil, oregano, rosemary, and chili powder. Makes them worlds better than served up as-is.
"I could teach you how to make a bomb out of a roll of toilet paper and a stick of dynamite." I know I just used this, but hey, can you ever over use Dale Gribble Quotes? Focus: Ramen noodles strained and then stir fried with a a tablespoon or two of crunchy peanutbutter is an easy way to change up the college classic. Id throw the peanut butter in the pan first and thin it a bit with soy sauce. Paper clips make good TV antennas when you have no money for those fancy store bought ones. You have to bend it so that one end is touching the inside and one end it touching the metal threaded end.
Guitars. A lot of people will buy good pickups to put into cheap guitars to make a decent sounding, cost effective instrument. Hell, I just spent $350 for new pickups to put into my Gretsch, which wasn't a very cheap guitar. Sometimes its about trying to nail down a specific tone.
For any activity/event/item/meal, add one or all of the following: -Beer -Bacon -Boobs Consider yourself upgraded. Edit: Seriously, though. Put Old Bay seasoning on everything. You won't be disappointed.
Call me lazy, but anytime I make any type of beef product on the grill, I add this and pretty much only this. It makes a world of difference. Makes burgers taste so much better. Bonus points if you mash it into the meat while you're forming the burgers.
I second that. Montreal seasoned burgers are heavenly. I also lightly butter burger buns, grill them on the BBQ, all in all - heavenly!
That, old bay, Texas Pete hot sauce, and cayenne pepper make everything better. My hangover cure is pedialyte cut in half with water, chicken ramen with an ass load of cayenne. As the guy before me said, when cooking burgers, lightly butter the buns, but then toast them by placing them directly on top of where you cooked the burgers on the grill. The montreal seasoning + fat from the burgers gets on the buns and toasts them perfectly. I also always, always mix hot sauce with ranch dressing. Salads, bread sticks, pizza, garlic bread, chicken wings -- anything you'd put ranch dressing on, add some hot sauce to it. Similar to above, when going to chick-fil-a, I mix hot sauce and mayo on my breaded chicken sandwich. Heavenly.
I have trouble thinking of food that can't be improved by this: Everything I have eaten in the last week could have benefited from some. Pizza, burgers...well my diet sucks but you get the point.
Everything posted so far in this thread is irrelevant compared to That's right, it's a fucking bourbon infused chipotle habanero hot sauce. Bask in its glory you foolish mortals. The stuff is like sex in a bottle, though admittedly you do NOT want to stick your dick in it... or even touch it right after using this stuff.
I put honey on pretty much everything. I've tried, but I can not think of a single food that cannot be improved with honey.
My favorite addition to things is crushed red pepper flakes. Boring pizza? Throw some on there. Need to add a little kick to your red sauce? Ramen? Of course you can't go wrong with Sriracha either. Personally I think this thread should've ended after the "bacon, beer, boobs" post with lhprop's cheese addendum.
This stuff Not this particular brand, some random tiny Mexican brand I get. I put it on so many things. Rice, meats, eggs, you name it. Chile, lime, and salt. There is a Mexican grocery I go to sometimes that has the perfect mixture. It makes chicken and rice go from boring to epic.
My hangover cure is one pack of headache powder and two cans of coke. It will clear up pretty much anything but wine, another reason why I don't drink it. Some poeple I know saying drinking a good amount of water before bed will prevent a hangover, but I'll pass because when people get shitfaced, they also piss their pants in their sleep and I'm too old for that.
Yeah? My grandpa still does and the nurse just giggles and calls him silly. I jailbroke my iPhone 3GS about a month and a half ago and the whole iPhone experience has changed as a result. I now have data tethering available (for free- AT&T wants to charge $30/month for it... Hell no) so if my internet goes out (as it does often) I'm not fucked for projects or communication. I also have several apps through Cydia that didn't make the cut for iPhone including a Flashplayer, DIV-X player (don't have to convert videos anymore) and plenty of cool themes to use to change things up with the interface. I also have a couple home desktop controllers and the ability to use my iPhone as a portable mouse if I forget mine... Jailbreak FTW