How To And Housekeeping Cleaning
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How To Clean Stainless Steel Countertops To a Shiny, Streak-Free FinishKitchen
Are you the proud owner (or renter) of a set of stainless steel countertops? They’re very common in commercial kitchens, but I haven’t seen them in many homes, save for an industrial-grade island or cart like the one in Julia’s kitchen. I don’t know why they haven’t remained in vogue — of all the quirks of my 1940s era kitchen, they’re the one feature I’ve truly fallen in love with.
Jun 8, 2019
How To Clean Stainless Steel Pots and PansKitchen
They look so bright and shiny when you first buy them, but over time stainless steel cookware can acquire brown spots and discolored areas that won’t go away with routine dish washing. This type of staining is fairly common for stainless steel, but it’s a little unsightly, particularly if left untreated. Thankfully, no matter how stained your pot is, there is a super cheap and easy way to get it looking new again.
Jun 8, 2019
How To Clean Wood Kitchen Cabinets (and the Best Cleaner for the Job)Kitchen
Spot-cleaning kitchen cabinets after spills and drips is easy enough, but finding a process and product that removes the grime and grease from daily use takes patience.
Jun 6, 2019
How To Clean a Reusable Water BottleKitchen
You don't have to clean them all that often. But they do need a thorough washing periodically. Here's how to do it.
Jun 5, 2019
How To Clean Those Greasy Glass Shades on Your Kitchen’s Pendant Lights
How To
The grease! The dust! The pet hair! Here's how to clean those glass pendant shades.
Jun 3, 2019
How To Clean the RefrigeratorKitchen
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.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean a Kitchen Trash CanKitchen
This is a household to-do that's easily overlooked, but it's really gotta be done!
May 30, 2019
How To Remove Grease StainsKitchen
Perfectly wonderful and pricey clothes can meet their match with one quick spill or unexpected splatter.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean The FreezerKitchen
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.
May 30, 2019
How To Remove Stains from Butcher Block CountertopsKitchen
One good dinner party with friends and an unattended red wine stain is there to stay. Or so you'd think.
May 30, 2019
How To Polish a Stainless Steel Sink with Flour (Yes, Flour!)Kitchen
This is a tip you'll shrug off and then eventually grudgingly try. And then you'll say: "Oh man, that was so easy and awesome! Why didn't I do that sooner?"
May 30, 2019
How To Clean a Slow CookerKitchen
With all the ease slow cookers add to mealtime, it’s a shame these things don’t clean themselves, too. Actually, they kinda do when it comes to caked-on messes inside the pot. (See: The Most Ingenious Way to Clean a Slow Cooker Is Also the Easiest.) If you need to give a deeper clean (say, maybe after a season of boiled-over stews or kids serving themselves chili), the good news is that you probably have everything you need.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean a Stand MixerKitchen
The flour and batter spills that come along with each use will show in time.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean Painted Kitchen WallsKitchen
Have you ever vacuumed your kitchen walls? Some cleaning gurus recommend it at least once a month — seriously! — and not just the ones in your kitchen. If that sounds overwhelming, I’m with you. But if you think about all the wear and tear and grease and grime that leave their mark on your kitchen walls, it makes sense. You probably want to do more than just a spring cleaning of what is most likely the gathering spot of your home, right?
May 30, 2019
How To Clean and Disinfect a Dish BrushKitchen
There’s an age-old argument about the best option for cleaning dishes: dish cloths, sponges, or dish brushes. My friend still defends her grandma’s crocheted cloths — you know the ones I’m talking about? — but dish brushes, hands-down, are the most hygienic option.
May 30, 2019
A Homemade Stain RemoverKitchen
Let’s be honest — kids are dirty little creatures. They spill everything. Plus there are paint stains from the budding artist, and grass and dirt stains from the future soccer star. And, my favorite, potty training stains. Between these and the spaghetti sauce stains from the — you know — adults of the household, a good stain remover is a must-have. Here’s my go-to formula for getting tough stains out.
May 30, 2019
Homemade Wet Wipes for Sticky FingersKitchen
I have a love-hate relationship with wipes. I love their convenience for dirty hands and sticky faces, but I hate that conventional wipes are expensive and made with a long list of ingredients. Until recently I had no idea how easy it was to make my own disposable wipes. Now I carry my own to the playground and use them to wipe down a shopping cart. Plus they are gentle enough to use on sensitive little faces. Here’s a simple tutorial for making your own.
May 30, 2019
How To Make an All-Purpose Kitchen Cleaner Using Lemon PeelsKitchen
You could buy a lemon-scented all-purpose cleaner at the store, or you could make your own using real lemons and some white distilled vinegar. You see, thanks to its concentration of acetic acid, vinegar is a potent cleaner and it’s wildly useful around the kitchen for all sorts of tasks (think: windows, countertops, cabinet hardware, and more). The only problem is that it, uh, smells like vinegar. That’s where the lemon rinds come in.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean Dirty Backsplash GroutKitchen
The backsplash in your kitchen takes a beating. Here's how you keep that porous grout looking like new.
May 30, 2019
How To Make Your Own Drain CleanerKitchen
Dead skin cells, soap scum, random food scraps, human hair, pet hair, and just regular ol’ dirt — these are all the things you regularly wash down your sink or tub’s drain. And if they sound gross now, image how much worse they are once they’ve congealed into a stringy, slimy ball of gunk inside your pipes. Yuck! You want to prevent any of this gunk buildup before it becomes a real problem — especially in homes with older pipes or large families.
May 30, 2019
How To Use Vinegar to Clean Your Kitchen WindowsKitchen
Have things been looking a little dim in your kitchen lately? Unless a lightbulb has gone out, it’s likely that your windows are dirty. (Sorry to break the news!) It’s not your fault: Kitchen windows get pretty grimy pretty quickly — grease splatters and steam can launch tiny particles of food throughout the room —creating a thin, gray-ish film on your used-to-be-clear windows.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean Your Kitchen Sink SprayerKitchen
I don’t have a sink sprayer in my current apartment, but I sure miss the one from my last place. I loved being able to pull out the sprayer to rinse fruit. And I especially loved being able to pull it out to give one final rinse all around my sink at the end of the night. It was so satisfying! But over time — especially if you live someplace with hard water — gunk can build up in the sprayer’s holes, clogging them up to slow down the water stream.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean Your CoolerKitchen
Whether you’re using your cooler to chill drinks on the patio, tote an entire picnic to the park, or feed the hoards after baseball practice, it can get pretty icky after a season of heavy use. And because you’re usually using it on the go (or while you’re just busy doing fun things!), it’s easy to put off cleaning up spills or to forget to empty it until the day after — but doing that can leave dirt, bacteria, mildew, and more on the inside (and outside!
May 30, 2019
How To Clean a Can OpenerKitchen
Seriously. It needs to be done.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean a Moka PotKitchen
You should never, ever use soap to clean your moka pot or put it in the dishwasher.
May 30, 2019
How To Get Sticky Cooking Grease Off CupboardsKitchen
While we tend to clean up grease splatters on and around the stovetop as they happen (paper towels work best to absorb the grease), the real problem is the fine layer of grime that builds up little by little on our kitchen cupboards until the day we look at them and go, “I thought my cabinets were white?” Fortunately, cleaning grease off of cupboards is not particularly tricky — it just requires some elbow grease if you haven’t done it in a while.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean Any Coffee MakerKitchen
When you’re sleepy and under-caffeinated, the last thing you probably care about is how clean your device happens to be. (At the very least, it’s not the single most important thing you’re thinking about.) You just want coffee — or tea! — and you want it five minutes ago! You’d drink out of a shoe if you had to. Once you’re caffeinated and feeling better, that’s the time to clean your coffee maker.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean Reusable StrawsKitchen
It’s funny — I thought when my kids stopped drinking out of bottles that I was done with that phase of cleaning all sorts of bits and bobs associated with their drinkware. Alas, they went into straw cups next, then to insulated water bottles that they, to this day, carry with them to school or daycare every day. And then we all realized just how terrible those plastic straws you get at restaurants are for the environment. All of that’s to say: I clean a lot of straws.
May 30, 2019
How To Make Your Own Dish SoapKitchen
It's really not hard — there are just a few key things you need to know.
May 30, 2019
How To Properly Wipe Down Your Germy Appliance HandlesKitchen
As busy as they are, kitchens are just about the germiest places in our homes — especially all those handles. You touch food, you open the oven. Your kids come in after touching who-knows-what and head straight to the fridge (or maybe it’s just mine?). With all that touching comes the risk of cross-contamination of foodborne illnesses and the spread of germs (flu season is coming!). But the reality is, many of us don’t think about cleaning our appliance handles.
May 30, 2019
How To Clean a Casserole Dish with Burnt-On FoodsKitchen
Whether I’m making an actual casserole or a lasagna, or just baking chicken, this time of year my casserole dishes are in heavy rotation. They usually clean up pretty well, but if I’ve overcooked something or I let something sit too long, they can get stubborn stains or crud that’s hard to remove.
May 30, 2019
How To Make Soap at HomeKitchen
Until recently, I believed handcrafted soaps were best left to the artisans who make and sell them in specialty stores and boutiques. But thanks to my dear friend Donna, who makes soap every December for holiday gifts, I learned that handmade soap is easy and attainable for everyone. Placing homemade soap by your kitchen sink is a constant reminder of care and warmth in an otherwise cold string of winter months.
May 2, 2019
How To Squirt Dish Soap Into the SinkKitchen
If there’s one cleaning tutorial request we get more than any other, it’s this. Those dang dish soap bottles can be so confusing! Are you supposed to hold the bottle completely upside down, or at an angle for optimal soap dispensing? Should you squeeze near the top, or in the middle? And what about the bubbles? How do you know when you’ve got too many bubbles, or just enough bubbles? So. many. questions.
May 2, 2019
How To Clean a Food Processor Lid, Blade, and HandleKitchen
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.
May 2, 2019
How To Clean a Glass Electric StovetopKitchen
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!
May 2, 2019
How To Clean a Nonstick PanKitchen
I’ve had this one little Calphalon nonstick pan since college. In those early days, it was the perfect size for toasting garlic in olive oil to eat over spaghetti, my favorite budget meal. Now, I’m more likely to use it in the morning to fry an egg for one of my kids. And after more than a decade of use, it’s still mostly nonstick, although I can see some signs of wear — a few scratches from the occasional metal-edged utensil (whoops!
Aug 8, 2018
How To Clean a KitchenAid Pasta AttachmentKitchen
Making your own pasta might be one of the most rewarding things you can DIY instead of buy. My sister and her husband do it, and man — there is a difference between what they make and what I bring home in a box from the store! But if you have a KitchenAid pasta attachment, you know how important it is to keep it clean. And that you’re definitely not supposed to soak the attachment in water or run it through the dishwasher!
May 11, 2018
How To Clean One of Those Anti-Fatigue Kitchen MatsKitchen
Whether you’re a professional chef in a restaurant or a home cook who spends hours prepping, cooking, and cleaning, a kitchen mat can be a godsend to keep your body from feeling the aches and pains associated with standing for hours. But as you can imagine, kitchen mats get filthy! Spills from food, dishwater, and heavy traffic can quickly mar the surface.
Mar 23, 2018
How To Get Scorch Marks Off the Outside of Your Dutch OvenKitchen
The outside of our Dutch ovens can take a beating. That’s where food goes when it bubbles over or splatters — and then it bakes on hard. And let’s say you accidentally left your Le Creuset on the stove a little too long (who, you?) and now there are brown scorch marks on the bottom and/or side. Ugh, don’t worry — you haven’t ruined a $300 piece of cookware. You just need to be gentle (no steel wool!) and grab the baking soda.
Mar 2, 2018
How To Rescue Your Favorite Cookbook from Spills and StainsKitchen
Some cooks like to keep their cookbooks pristine. Others consider those blotched, wrinkled pages an homage to all the wonderful meals they’ve enjoyed. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, there are a few practical reasons you’d want to minimize food spills on your cookbooks.
Feb 16, 2018
Everything You Need to Know About Hanging (and Organizing) a Kitchen PegboardKitchen
Back in March, we went a little pegboard crazy. And we still find it totally justifiable. The kitchen pegboard is one of the most underrated, highly versatile ways to organize. Think about it: You don’t need a ton of space, or any real carpentry skills, or a ton of money. You just have to hang the board wherever you have a blank wall and then you can store whatever needs a home. You can even rearrange and repurpose the board as your needs change. Hooked? We thought so.
Dec 19, 2017
How To Get Rid of Burnt Cookie SmellsSkills
Every year, my husband and I throw a cookie party over the holidays. It’s actually a long-standing family tradition — my sister and I used to do it together, when we lived at home, and now do it separately in our own homes. Typically, I take off the day before the big event and spend hours baking (my sister prefers to do her baking in batches and freeze the cookies).
Nov 30, 2017
How To Clean Food Spills from Car UpholsteryKitchen
Whether you’ve got a leaky container or something spilled while you were making a sharp turn, spills are often part of the deal when you’re transporting your Thanksgiving contribution. If you’re lucky the item that spilled is something dry (like a basket of biscuits), but more likely we’re talking about cranberry sauce or gravy, tricky spills that are hard to pull up and can permanently stain your upholstery if you don’t act fast!
Nov 20, 2017
How To Clean a French PressKitchen
When my husband and I were first married, we used a coffee maker I’d bought shortly after college for about $9. The thing constantly clogged and overflowed and made generally mediocre coffee. As we’ve gotten older and more sophisticated, and especially since becoming parents, really good coffee is more and more important — like, extremely important at 6:15 a.m. on a Saturday. So we splurged on a lovely French press.
Sep 16, 2017
How To Clean Your Kitchen SinkRecipes
I consider myself a pretty clean person, but I have to say that every time I start researching an article, I discover another totally filthy place that I haven’t been cleaning. In this case, it’s the kitchen sink. It actually harbors even more bacteria than your toilet bowl. And if you, like me, thought that it got clean as you wash the dishes every day? Well, you are sadly mistaken.
Aug 17, 2017
How To Clean a Charcoal GrillKitchen
Whether it’s your own grill or one that’s up for shared use in a park, charcoal grills do require some cleaning and maintenance to make sure they function well and cook your food properly. Here’s what to do. If you own a charcoal grill, you should give it a deep clean at least once during the grilling season, or even twice if you grill often. Why? You don’t want carbon or ash buildup in your grill, or rust buildup on the grill grates.
Jul 2, 2015
How To Polish a Stainless Steel Sink with Flour (Yes, Flour!)Recipes
A few years ago, I learned a trick that changed my life. No, seriously, it was a complete game-changer in the care of my kitchen sink. This is a tip you’ll shrug off and then eventually grudgingly try. And then you’ll say, “Oh man, that was so easy and awesome! Why didn’t I do that sooner?” The key, my friends, to the most shiny and luxuriously polished stainless steel sink, is very cheap, very simple, and very weird: flour. Why would you want to polish your sink?
Sep 18, 2014
How To Remove Grease StainsRecipes
Perfectly wonderful and pricey clothes can meet their match with one quick spill or unexpected splatter. Often small and inconspicuous, grease stains have put quite a few of my husband’s dress shirts in the “do not wear” pile. The real problem arose, however, when my own brand new, on-sale, perfectly fitting pants suddenly sported a nasty grease spot. Unacceptable.
Jul 9, 2014
How To Restore a Rusty Cast Iron SkilletKitchen
So you made a mistake? Fear not! It's possible to get rusted cast iron cookware back to cook-ready condition!
May 6, 2014
How To Clean an Oven with Baking Soda and VinegarKitchen
Forget about that stinky self-cleaning function!
Mar 18, 2014
The Easiest Way to Clean Your Microwave Naturally with Just a LemonKitchen
Plus, it smells amazing.
Jun 4, 2024
10 Things You Can Clean In A Dishwasher
Video
10 Things You Can Clean In A Dishwasher
Apr 4, 2017
How To Restore A Rusty Cast Iron Skillet
Video
How To Restore A Rusty Cast Iron Skillet
Apr 4, 2017
How To Clean Tarnished Silverware
Video
How To Clean Tarnished Silverware
Apr 4, 2017
How To Clean A Cast Iron Skillet
Video
How To Clean A Cast Iron Skillet
Apr 4, 2017
How To Clean An Oven with Baking Soda and Vinegar
Video
How To Clean An Oven with Baking Soda and Vinegar
Nov 21, 2017
Eco-Friendly Straws
Video
Eco-Friendly Straws
Aug 22, 2018
3 Surprising Uses For Your Dishwasher
Video
3 Surprising Uses For Your Dishwasher
Apr 30, 2018
How To Clean A Microwave With A Lemon
Video
How To Clean A Microwave With A Lemon
Oct 19, 2017
How To Clean Burnt Enamel Cookware
Video
How To Clean Burnt Enamel Cookware
Apr 4, 2017
DIY Mama: Dried Herb Incense
Video
DIY Mama: Dried Herb Incense
Apr 14, 2016