How many times have you, Black Person, gone to a cookout, dinner party, fish fry, church picnic, family reunion or other food-related gathering and taken home a plate of goodies covered and/or wrapped in what? Yes, aluminum foil (sometimes called “luminum foawl”). I’ve heard some of the best African American cooks I know lament that, “These Negroes are going to use up all my foil taking plates home!” Oh, it can be a precious commodity. It’s not like your Aunt Pam is going to let you leave with her Tupperware…you didn’t bring it back the last time and she learned her lesson. LOL Only Aluminum Foil can stand up to greasy chicken, juice from collards and cabbage, and keep your grandma’s macaroni and cheese from getting hard. Paper towels, paper plates, wax paper, and plastic wrap can’t hold a card to Aluminum Foil.

There are a variety of uses for Aluminum Foil that the folks DIY Life have posted. Since we always have it around…we might as well get full use out of it.

15 awesome uses for aluminum foil

1. When my scissors get dull, I layer about 7 pieces of foil and cut through them, and the scissors are sharp once again.
2. I often forget to take my gold wedding ring and my silver cross ring off my fingers when I am doing dishes or grubbing around the house, so I put them in aluminum foil and put in some salt solution and leave it overnight. The next morning they look like new.
3. Sometimes I go on a baking streak, and I find my brown sugar has gotten hard. To soften the sugar, I wrap it in foil and bake it in a 300 degree oven for 5 minutes. To keep it soft, I leave it wrapped in the foil and enclose in a labeled ziploc bag.
4. Ball up some foil and use it to clean the gunk off your grill. It cleans just as well as a wire scrub brush.
5. Makes great gift wrapping paper in a pinch and can be decorated as you wish.
6. I use foil to clean the baked on gunk off my pots and pans. It works just as well as a steel wool scrub pad.
7. Wrap your hardware and doorknobs in foil so that they don’t get dripped on when you are painting.
8. Half way through the baking process, take a length of foil and wrap around the edge of your pie, securing with a metal paper clip. This will prevent your crust from browning too much.
9. Roll a double thickness of heavy duty foil into a cone shape, snip off the end, and use as a pouring funnel.
10. Use it as a temporary piping bag or pastry bag by rolling it into a double thickness and leaving just a tiny hole at the pointed end. Fold down the top of the cone so nothing oozes out or twist the top closed.
11. Put a length of foil on your oven rack to catch spills. Many pizzas have instructions that tell you to bake the pizza on the rack, but what a mess that can make. Putting the pizza on cooking sprayed foil will save a big mess.
12. Since I love grilled vegetables, especially mushrooms, I top them with some butter and whatever herb or spice I am in the mood for, wrap them in a foil packet and give them to my husband to put on the grill with the steaks.
13. To prevent stuck on food in my baking pans and cookie sheets, I will line them with foil. It cuts down on cleaning time and leaves my pans looking just as good as they did when they went into the oven. Rinse off the sheets if they are not to disastrous and save them for another baking session, or rinse them off and put them in your recycling bin.
14. To prevent static electricity in your clothing, throw a small crumpled up ball of foil into your dryer.
15. For clothing items that can’t take direct heat, such as rayon, silk, and wool, you can get the wrinkles out by placing a piece of foil on your ironing board. Put the garment over the foil, and pass 3 inches above the garment several times with the iron, holding down the steam button the entire time. The wet heat from the foil with rid the garment of wrinkles.