Brown sugar. It’s a tasty goodness that no baker, eater of grapefruit or oatmeal connoisseur should be without. However, unlike standard sugar, brown sugar can be a bit high maintenance. Clumping and hardening are two woes that seem to come up all too often when you’re ready to partake in a brown sugar treat. According to the folks at Real Simple, all it takes to keep your brown sugar in peak shape is tossing a few marshmallows into whatever you’re storing the sugar in. Give it a try and let us know how it works out for you in the comments below. Sweet!

Pistachios are a treat to eat, but they do take a little work. Most pistachios pop right open, but some can have very stubborn shells. That’s when I discovered it was time to fight fire with fire. Simply take a single half shell from another nut, and insert it in the gap between the stubborn nut’s shells. Then just twist the half shell like a screwdriver and the stubborn nut will easily open up and reward you with a tasty nut for your clever efforts.

So, you’re running a little short on countertop space? Fear not! This handy kitchen hack can multiply your kitchen workspace with ease. While the cutting board shown here is on the small side, this hack works best with a rectangular board that fits fairly evenly over one of your drawers. Just make sure the drawer isn’t over-extended and that the board is stable and well-supported, or the “hack” might wind up being from a knife injury. Once your cutting board is in place, enjoy your newly expanded countertop, whether its for actual cutting, or just additional space to set things on.

Getting juice out of citrus can be hard labor. That’s especially true if you’re juicing dozens of lemons manually for some nice, refreshing lemonade. It turns out that you can coax more juice out of your lemons by nuking them. Try microwaving about a half dozen lemons for around 20 seconds to optimize your lemon juicing efforts!

We’ve all had the unpleasant experience of taking out the trash only to discover a trail of liquid goop leaked out all over the floor. That’s especially true if you use plastic grocery bags for your trash, they seem to have holes more often than not. This simple hack involves folding up a few layers of newspaper and lining the bottom of your trash bag with it. The newspaper will happily absorb any liquid nasties that might normally find their way onto your floor (or your shoes)!