 Yeah, I smelled the mustard because I want to smell it so that I can predict. Hi, I'm Heather and welcome to Hack Chat. Today I'm going to be talking about TikTok hacks. I'm going to be rating them as usual on a scale of helpfulness and easiness, but also because it's TikTok hacks, I'm going to be rating them on a scale of fun because I've learned from my TikTok consultant, my 14-year-old daughter that they have to be fun. TikTok hacks must be fun. I'm going to do the egg sandwich hack. Egg sandwiches are one of the best things in the world and this hack I was so excited to try. I have the feeling it's going to be amazing, but I'm just going to just stop talking and just try it out. I'm going to put some butter in even though this is already nonstick because butter is good. So here's the thing about this one. I don't know who invented it. If you invented this, let me know in the comments down below because I would like to give you credit. Whisk it up. All right, here we go. So you put your eggs in, let them cook a little bit, season it up. I like a lot of black pepper. Put it down, put it down next to it. It smells really good like the best Sunday morning. I want this to flip over perfectly. I'm putting American cheese on this because my preferred breakfast sandwich is a bacon egg and cheese. I'm going to put some bacon on here. I'm going to put some hot sauce on here. Fold it up into a pocket. Okay, that is extremely satisfying. Here's what I want to discuss about this. First of all, I'm very excited. Second of all, I'm hungry. Third of all, look at the proportions. Proportions are very important in a sandwich. So here we go. I'm going to cut it like a triangle because that's how I like to cut my sandwiches. Mmm. The bread is really soft. There's like a cheesy layer in there. Yeah, look at that. It's a perfect proportion. It's so good. Okay, my ratings are helpfulness, four, easiness, fun, five, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. I'm sorry, I need to keep talking but I want to put this in my mouth. Like perfectness, four, like five. I don't know, can you give something a five for perfectness or will the world explode if that happens? Like you just don't need to do anything ever again. I think this is a beautiful thing. I give it a thumbs up. The next hack that I'm going to try is mashed potato chips by Sam the cooking guy. There's something about the texture that I'm really curious about. I've decided to test this with sour cream and onion potato chips because that is the best potato chip flavor. The first most curious thing about this recipe is that we're using a kitchen scale for precision. Three ounces exactly. So I'm going to just heat up this water. Have to wait for it to boil. I did do a little bit of research beforehand on this one and a lot of the conversation has to do with the price of a potato versus the price of a bag of potato chips. Is it more expensive to make mashed potato chips or is it more expensive to make plain mashed potatoes? Okay, so I have the chips, putting them in. This might be good if you were camping. Really everything tastes better when you're camping. Like all foods improve by like 50% when you're camping because you're just hungry. Okay, so this has only been about 10 seconds. These are softening up. They feel a little gluey. So this is like stirring like a really thick cake batter. Okay, so we're going to add a fourth of a cup of half and half. It's created a sort of a lumpy sauce. I'm going to try to cook it down a little. This appears to be very, very, very, very lumpy. I'm trying to give this really its best shot. Like I want all of the hacks to work. I don't think it's ready because it's still liquid. And I know that because when I push my spoon through it, it fills in the channel. Like if I were parting the red seat, nobody would be safe. Nobody could get across. I'm going to let it boil. Okay, so we're ready to plate it. I've followed the TikTok as closely as I possibly could. I'm going to give this its best shot here. Chop up some scallions. Here I go. Okay, so it's possible that I did something wrong. And it's possible that the brand of chips is really important. But this is really lumpy and very liquidy. So it's like somewhere in between a soup and mashed potatoes. It's not like good. On a scale of helpfulness, it's like a two or a one because I got my hopes up. It like went from a two to a one because I got my hopes up and then they were sort of dashed for easiness. It's a two because it's like it's not harder to make mashed potatoes. I don't know, on a scale of disappointment, it's like pretty high. It's like a five. Fun doesn't work in a linear way. Fun, it's cumulative. So like you could have fun riding a skateboard, but if you fall and break your knee, it like retroactively becomes not fun. Overall, I give it a thumbs down. Lumpy. For this TikTok hack, I'm going to be making Dalgona coffee. I think that I'm going to be a good test case because I have not actually watched this video before and I've never made it. And then apparently you have to dance and pretend to play a flute. So I wonder if I'm going to just be whisking all day, but I also could use a workout, especially on my top half. So that's two tablespoons of each thing. Sugar, coffee, water. Oh, this is already frothing. This is already becoming thick. It smells like coffee, but also kind of like dirt. It's a beautiful color. It's like very ribbony. This is fun so far. I'm going to use oat milk. So here I go, half glass of oat milk. And here I go. Look at that. It's just fun to look at it. It also floats, which shouldn't really be surprising because it's filled with air. All right, here it is, the moment of truth. It's super good. It like sticks to your top lip. It's kind of warmish on the top and then it's really cold underneath and then you get two different flavors. Bitter sweetness, that's fluffy. Then you get like cold blandness. Here are my remaining questions. Do I have to mix it up? And is it better if I mix it up? Is it better if I drink it straight out of the glass or if I use a straw? Definitely don't like the straw. I don't think it's going to turn out well. Yeah, that just turned into instant coffee. So yeah, it's better if you drink it out of the glass unmixed up without a straw. So here's what I want to say about the rating scales in this world is that like fun is so important. Fun and helpfulness are sometimes at odds with each other. It's kind of like in a curved scale just for TikTok. Like this coffee in real life, it's not really that helpful, but like if you want a delicious fluffy coffee that's pretty fun to make, I'd say that you are helped by this. And so I'd say that helpfulness, it's a four. Easiness, it's like a three. This is the longest rating of any ratings ever. Fun, it's a four. I mean, that's pretty fun. Overall, thumbs up. The TikTok hack that I'm going to try next is Pesto Eggs. I love it because you take a store bought thing that's already delicious and it has a lot of fat in it and you use it to cook the eggs. I'm acting like I've made this before. I've never made it before, obviously. But sometimes I've seen ones, this is way too hot. Way, way, way, way too hot. It doesn't find everybody. Don't worry. The sizzly sound is one of the best sounds. So what's happening here is like the oil separates out. I'm seeing it happen. The eggs are cooking, the flavors getting all around them. So what's happening underneath here, I want to tell you because I don't know if you can see it, but like a lot of crispiness is happening that maybe some people would consider burnt, but other people would consider caramelized. It smells like pasta in the summertime, herbs and cheese and like the olive oil. It's very, very fragrant. All right, it's done. I'm kind of a little bit of a purist, but I'm going to do this combination anyway. So this is ricotta cheese. You know, if you don't try new things then life is going to be boring. I have already sliced an avocado, flatten it up. I'm going to put some salt on here. I'm going to put some Pesto Eggs on here. Now I don't know if anybody is as excited as I am. Probably not because this isn't in your house yet. This is drizzly honey in a bear. Okay, so I plated up this Pesto Eggs. It's like a whole entire meal. I would totally eat this for dinner. I don't really think it's a hack. I think it's just a really good new recipe. It's so good. I just, I just hit my cutting board really hard. It's really so incredibly tasty. The toastedness of the Pesto, which I was slightly worried about is really doing a lot. It's like really, really serves a purpose. I mean, it's kind of just perfect as it is because it has like the fat and the flavor and the cheese and the herbs and it's all together already and it's sort of fresh. There's like nothing phony in there. So here we go. Let's talk about it. On a scale of helpfulness, I give it like a three. On a scale of easiness, it's like four. So it's exactly the same difficulty level as making eggs in another way. But as a fun element, I give it like a two because it's exactly like making eggs in another way. I guess like the thing that makes it a hack is that you get to have all of these flavors that are very, very good with eggs. Overall, as a hack, I'm gonna just have to give it a thumbs down not because I don't think it's delicious because I don't really think it's a hack. This next hack that I'm gonna try, it's peppers with cream cheese and everything bagel seasoning. It's by this nurse, Janelle Roner. Is this a hack? Because to me, it's just putting three foods together. But maybe it's because like, it's using a pepper instead of a bagel. Also, my daughter loves Miranda Sings. I also love Miranda Sings and I saw her try it the other day. So I want to try it out. Let's see what it's all about. All right, so we take a pepper. I'm gonna get rid of all of the insides. So I think that this snack exists for people who don't really want to have like a ton of carbs. I'm also gonna do this thing that I discovered when I was camping. You take the cream cheese and you squish it up a little bit and you cut off the corner and then you kind of just can squish it in. I'm sneaking a mini hack in here. Here we go. This is not difficult, putting a lot on. This is like predictably good. It's like chili, creamy with like, I can't even believe how much I put on there and you can actually see my tooth marks. It's really tasty snack, but I don't think it's a hack. Do you think it's a hack? Well, you let me know in the comments below. So I'm gonna rate this. It's not super helpful as a hack because it didn't invent something new. So it's like a two. It's very easy. Five for an easiness scale. For fun, it's like a two. It's an ordinary snack level of fun. On a scale of like being awesome, I give Janelle Roner a five because she's a nurse. As a snack, I give it a thumbs up. As a hack, I give it a thumbs down. The watermelon mustard TikTok challenge. I'm not afraid of it at all. I don't know what could be so bad about it. I'm gonna just watch Lizzo do it because I just could watch her have a facial reaction all day long. She somehow slices her watermelon by snapping. She just has so many emotions, like in a row on her face. It's like, she's not sure. She thinks it's gross. She thinks it's good. She goes back in for more. Yeah, that's fantastic. Let's do it. I'm gonna do a giant chunk because I thought that was really fun looking. I was told that the mustard had to be yellow. Here we go. Yeah, I smelled the mustard because I wanna smell it so that I can predict. Cause you know, if you smell two things at the same time, you can often tell whether they're gonna be good together. Did you know that? Squiggle. All right. This tastes so much like mustard on watermelon. You'd hardly believe it. I don't know. For easiness, I give it a four. So I think like for fun, I guess I give it like a three for like helpfulness. I give it a two. I'll give it a two because I like trying new things for predictability. I give it a five. Overall, sure. You know what? Yeah, give it a thumbs up cause it's fun to try things out. So we're gonna talk a little bit about what we did today. We tried a lot of TikTok hacks. We talked a lot about what hacks are and what they're not. When is it a recipe and when is it a hack? Can you please tell me what you think? I seriously want to know. I need to talk about my least favorite first just to get it out of the way. Potato chips, mashed potatoes is only good if you have a desperate craving for mashed potatoes and you are locked in a convenience store with a little bit of boiling water. But my favorite thing and it really like shines more brightly than anything in the whole entire universe of TikTok hacks that I tried today is this egg sandwich and it's the perfect hack and you know why? Because it improves upon the egg sandwich. It's like, can you really improve upon that? And the answer is yes. I literally read your comments so please tell me what hacks you want to see. You know, I'd like to talk about back to school. I think that's a really good time for hacks.