The Great Kitchen Clean-Up! (Week 5)
Excerpted from Just Clean Enough ON Jan 3, 2011 at 12:34PM
The Kitchen Calls
Week 5: Monday
Liner Note
20 minutes
Drawers and cabinets looking a little drab? Give them a pick me- up by inserting some drawer and shelf liners. These are easy-to-clean plastic liners with adhesive backing that come in lots of pretty patterns. Before you scoff, consider how these liners can change your life. Not only do they serve to protect your drawers and cabinetry (a big concern, to be sure), they also kick the aesthetic appeal up a notch. You can even get liners in scented varieties, adding another sensory dimension to the experience of looking for a measuring cup. And goodness< knows, the hunt for a measuring cup should be a stimulating one.
Week 5: Tuesday
It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s a Grapefruit!
15 minutes
By now, you should be storing most of your fruit in the fridge (see “Relocate Fruit to the Fridge”), but there may be some stragglers (bananas, ripening apricots, plums, and so on) that you don’t know what to do with. Pick up a handy-dandy hanging basket set, which gets fruits and veggies up off the counter and into the air. Most hanging baskets have two or three tiers; you can devote one to fruits, one to vegetables, and one to the special items that don’t play well with others. For example, bananas emit ethylene, a gas that causes other fruit to ripen at an increased rate. And garlic can transfer its strong smell to other fruits and vegetables it’s hanging out with. Keep these separate from the group, and everyone will be happier.
Week 5: Wednesday
You Stink, Microwave
5 minutes
Got a smelly microwave with splatters and smears of food as decoration? Time to do something about it. Fill a microwaveable bowl three-quarters of the way with water and add ¼ cup lemon juice to the bowl. Put the bowl with the water-lemon juice mixture into the microwave and run it on high for one minute. When it beeps, remove the bowl and wipe out the microwave using a damp rag or sponge and the condensation that has formed from the lemon water. And there you have it: a nice, clean microwave that smells lemony fresh!
Week 5: Thursday
Buy a Breadbox
10 minutes
If you’re like most families, you don’t really know what to do with all the bread you buy. Maybe it’s tossed on the top of your fridge or piled up on your counter. Solve this problem by heading to your local Ikea (or Target, or anywhere you can buy kitchen items) and pick up a breadbox. Gather all your loaves, rolls, and muffins together and put them in their new, crumbfree home. As a bonus, you now have a visual for all those times when someone asks you if an item is “bigger than a breadbox.”
Week 5: Friday
Control Coffeemaker Chaos
10 minutes
Coffee is delicious, and the caffeine sure does come in handy, but is all this really necessary? You have a French press on the counter, a drip coffeemaker on the table, and a moka pot on the stovetop. There’s also a bag of coffee beans, a grinder, a package of filters, a strainer . . . the list goes on forever. To simplify, choose your favorite style of coffee and get rid of the rest. Give the extraneous machinery and coffee to a good cause, such as your coworker who oversleeps and arrives late to work every day. Both your kitchen—and your coworker—will thank you.
Week 5: Saturday
Got Stovetop Splatters?
30 minutes
There are two ways to clean a stovetop: the hard way and the easy way. The hard way involves rubber gloves and scrubber sponges and elbow grease. Sounds fun, right? Not so much. To that end, we’re going to keep it simple and just talk about the easy way to get rid of that caked-on stovetop gunk. Simply spray the surface with an all-purpose kitchen cleaner, such as Formula 409, and let it sit for about twenty minutes. Then take a damp sponge and wipe up the splatters, which should have softened for easy cleanup. Also make sure you clean the area around the burners. If it’s a gas stove, remove the burner plates and soak them in hot, soapy water while you let the allpurpose cleaner do its work on the stovetop. When you come back, just rinse the burner plates, wipe off the stovetop, and you’re ready to go do something a lot more fun.
Week 5: Sunday
Create a Cooking Station
10 minutes
If you cook at home a lot, you probably have a few spices, oils, or other staples that you use in most of your recipes. A great way to prevent unnecessary trips to the cabinet and to make cooking easier is to set up a little station right next to your stove. A great tool to use is a desktop organizer, which has lots of slots and sections for a variety of different-sized items. For example, you might keep a set of salt and pepper shakers in the notepad holder, a small bottle of olive oil where the Wite-Out would go, and a couple of mixing utensils in the pen cup. Many of these desktop organizers are on turntables for easy access to all the products therein.
MY THOUGHTS
i'm lucky i don't have a stove. but the microwave needs some cleaning. i wonder where i could get those scented cabinet liners. i really like that idea.
Excerpted from Just Clean Enough ON Jan 3, 2011 at 12:34PM
The Kitchen Calls
Week 5: Monday
Liner Note
20 minutes
Drawers and cabinets looking a little drab? Give them a pick me- up by inserting some drawer and shelf liners. These are easy-to-clean plastic liners with adhesive backing that come in lots of pretty patterns. Before you scoff, consider how these liners can change your life. Not only do they serve to protect your drawers and cabinetry (a big concern, to be sure), they also kick the aesthetic appeal up a notch. You can even get liners in scented varieties, adding another sensory dimension to the experience of looking for a measuring cup. And goodness< knows, the hunt for a measuring cup should be a stimulating one.
Week 5: Tuesday
It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s a Grapefruit!
15 minutes
By now, you should be storing most of your fruit in the fridge (see “Relocate Fruit to the Fridge”), but there may be some stragglers (bananas, ripening apricots, plums, and so on) that you don’t know what to do with. Pick up a handy-dandy hanging basket set, which gets fruits and veggies up off the counter and into the air. Most hanging baskets have two or three tiers; you can devote one to fruits, one to vegetables, and one to the special items that don’t play well with others. For example, bananas emit ethylene, a gas that causes other fruit to ripen at an increased rate. And garlic can transfer its strong smell to other fruits and vegetables it’s hanging out with. Keep these separate from the group, and everyone will be happier.
Week 5: Wednesday
You Stink, Microwave
5 minutes
Got a smelly microwave with splatters and smears of food as decoration? Time to do something about it. Fill a microwaveable bowl three-quarters of the way with water and add ¼ cup lemon juice to the bowl. Put the bowl with the water-lemon juice mixture into the microwave and run it on high for one minute. When it beeps, remove the bowl and wipe out the microwave using a damp rag or sponge and the condensation that has formed from the lemon water. And there you have it: a nice, clean microwave that smells lemony fresh!
Week 5: Thursday
Buy a Breadbox
10 minutes
If you’re like most families, you don’t really know what to do with all the bread you buy. Maybe it’s tossed on the top of your fridge or piled up on your counter. Solve this problem by heading to your local Ikea (or Target, or anywhere you can buy kitchen items) and pick up a breadbox. Gather all your loaves, rolls, and muffins together and put them in their new, crumbfree home. As a bonus, you now have a visual for all those times when someone asks you if an item is “bigger than a breadbox.”
Week 5: Friday
Control Coffeemaker Chaos
10 minutes
Coffee is delicious, and the caffeine sure does come in handy, but is all this really necessary? You have a French press on the counter, a drip coffeemaker on the table, and a moka pot on the stovetop. There’s also a bag of coffee beans, a grinder, a package of filters, a strainer . . . the list goes on forever. To simplify, choose your favorite style of coffee and get rid of the rest. Give the extraneous machinery and coffee to a good cause, such as your coworker who oversleeps and arrives late to work every day. Both your kitchen—and your coworker—will thank you.
Week 5: Saturday
Got Stovetop Splatters?
30 minutes
There are two ways to clean a stovetop: the hard way and the easy way. The hard way involves rubber gloves and scrubber sponges and elbow grease. Sounds fun, right? Not so much. To that end, we’re going to keep it simple and just talk about the easy way to get rid of that caked-on stovetop gunk. Simply spray the surface with an all-purpose kitchen cleaner, such as Formula 409, and let it sit for about twenty minutes. Then take a damp sponge and wipe up the splatters, which should have softened for easy cleanup. Also make sure you clean the area around the burners. If it’s a gas stove, remove the burner plates and soak them in hot, soapy water while you let the allpurpose cleaner do its work on the stovetop. When you come back, just rinse the burner plates, wipe off the stovetop, and you’re ready to go do something a lot more fun.
Week 5: Sunday
Create a Cooking Station
10 minutes
If you cook at home a lot, you probably have a few spices, oils, or other staples that you use in most of your recipes. A great way to prevent unnecessary trips to the cabinet and to make cooking easier is to set up a little station right next to your stove. A great tool to use is a desktop organizer, which has lots of slots and sections for a variety of different-sized items. For example, you might keep a set of salt and pepper shakers in the notepad holder, a small bottle of olive oil where the Wite-Out would go, and a couple of mixing utensils in the pen cup. Many of these desktop organizers are on turntables for easy access to all the products therein.
MY THOUGHTS
i'm lucky i don't have a stove. but the microwave needs some cleaning. i wonder where i could get those scented cabinet liners. i really like that idea.
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