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Here’s a great idea taught to me by my mother that’s been passed down just in time for your holiday dish clean-up. Use a combo of a wooden spoon and a wash cloth to clean the stuck-on food stuffs off of your dirty dishes.
This cleaning trick does double-duty dish washing action. The spoon gives you leverage to really dig into the grease and grime, and it keeps your hands out of the soapy water — so you can get it as hot as you need to, without burning your precious, food-preparing, holiday feast-enabling hand flesh.
wow, this is totally a “baskets” moment for me. Thanks Megan, I am so trying this out tonight on the broiler pan!! I spray it with toxic chemicals and let it sit for the day/night, then don gloves and grab a scrubby, but I think a scrubby on the end of a wooden spoon might be brilliant!
You can try a scrub of baking soda and peroxide, too, (letting it sit for a while) if you want to avoid chemical fumes.
Good idea, but I usually just use rubber gloves to get into the hot water.
Yup. Me too. I’m SUPER EXCITED right now, because I finally found some cute gloves big enough to fit my enormous hands (I’m super tall, so they’re proportional, but still). I’ve actually enjoyed washing dishes this week. It’ll pass, but yay!
This is a great idea.
I have to say though, I am kind of chuckling at that picture of one already-clean pot being wiped down with clean soapy water in a clean sink and no other dishes in sight. I realize that y’all know this is highly unrealistic, but that it’s kind of gross to show other people’s dried-on food bits in a published photo.
But I can’t help but laugh. Nobody’s dishes look like that when they’re being washed except in commercials and stock photos.
HA! My mom had already finished washing that pan when I realized what she had been doing. I made her re-wash the damn dish so I could take a pic for Home!
Um… do you people not have a dish washing brush (with a long handle)? I thought that was how everybody did the dishes.
Nope! I think the bristles on those things are too far apart to do the job efficiently. A good soak and a sponge are all I use.
Ok that makes sense ^^ I thought this was another moment of “wait, you don’t have this in the USA?”
They make sponges on sticks too 🙂
For gunked-on pans, I just add a tbsp of baking soda, fill with water, and simmer it. The gunk comes right off. You can also use a spoon to get the gunk moving on the stovetop.
In Aus we have sponges and scourers on hollow handles that you can fill with detergent, which are super useful!
Those are available in the US as well.