Gina Eykemans

Forget about that stinky self-cleaning function!

When the coffee you brew starts to taste bitter and funky, it’s time to give your coffee machine a little extra love.

You can use a cast iron skillet for almost anything — as long as you take the time to maintain it and keep it in good condition. Here's how.

Over time dishwashers can collect food debris, soap residue, and inexplicable gunk that needs to be wiped away to ensure your dishes are getting a proper shine.

Related: You really should clean your toaster.

Draw a nice, warm bath for your ... oven racks? It sounds pretty out there, but it actually works!

Oh, how I love the glorious citrus season that erupts during California winter! The weather is still brisk when I go out for my walks around my neighborhood, but the trees in my neighbors yards are bursting with color. There are oranges, lemons and limes dripping off of trees, spilling over fences and begging to be used up!

Who cooks and eats here: Shawna Mullarkey, her husband, and their three children. Where: Novato, CA When I walked into Shawna Mullarkey’s kitchen, I think I audibly gasped. The light floods into the space, illuminating the clean, white walls and custom cabinetry. The chandeliers sparkle (yes, I said chandeliers, plural). A single beam made of reclaimed barn wood punctuates the space with rustic warmth. Antique flea market finds, succulents, and an enviable cutting-board collection, oh my!

Lauren Scott has no trouble telling you how to find her Petaluma, California home. “It’s the only one on the block that looks like a giant Easter egg,” she says. She and her husband live in a big, pink Victorian-style house that can’t be missed. When I arrived she welcomed me inside and showed me her kitchen. Little did I know I’d also get the chance to adore her beautiful, four-month-old baby girl and eat a delicious lunch she whipped up fresh from her garden.

I love a clean and organized fridge. I relish the time after a grocery shop where I can put everything away so it makes sense and looks pretty. However, it’s easy to ignore the gunk. You know what I’m talking about: the little bits of dried up kale dried in your veggie drawer, the sticky patch on the middle shelf where some rogue jam made its great escape.

Stainless steel appliances look great in the kitchen, but they’re prone to showing hard water marks and fingerprints. You frequently see this on the dishwasher (so many water stains!) and the handles of the refrigerator (hello, overuse). So, to restore my flat and dirty appliances back to their happy, shiny, robot-looking selves, I decided to make my trusty stainless steel toaster my test subject. What would I need to get it looking like new again? Two things: vinegar and oil.

Freezers read like a crime scene. If a forensics expert took a look, the conversation would go something like this: “If you’ll refer to Exhibit A, you’ll see the dinner party leftovers from four months ago that should be been eaten by now. And Exhibit B, the surplus of Costco ground beef purchased last month because it was “too good a deal” to pass up.

When it comes to cleaning my food processor, 99.9 percent of the time I gently rinse it out and run the pieces through my dishwasher. But the high, dry heat cycle can be rough on the plastic components, and the dishwasher doesn’t always get into the nooks and crannies of the machine. (And I hate finding food stuck up in the handle or on the underside of the blade!) So we decided it was time to figure out a good way to clean all the tiny, cramped spaces of a food processor.

I recently moved to a new home and have steadily become acquainted with my new appliances. As someone who’s only ever used a gas stove, this whole electric stovetop seemed a little like alien voodoo magic. What do you mean there are no burners? It’s just gonna get hot? No fire? Clearly, this has been hard to wrap my brain around. (Like I said, we’re still getting to know each other.) However, one of the best things about my new stovetop is how easy it is to clean!

There’s something natural about cooking over an open flame. I’m not talking about a campfire (though now I’m dreaming about S’mores). I’m talking about a simple gas stove. I grew up cooking on stoves like this, I understand stoves like this. Something about the hum of the blue flame is comforting, and there’s no question about its impact on cooking.