Keep it clean!
7 tips to keeping a clean kitchen
In the kitchen, keeping it clean is of utmost importance. Clean kitchens reduce the risk of illness, keep vermin and bugs away, and makes for a pleasant home.
Getting closer to my 50th year, I realize I have been cleaning my own kitchen for about 30 years. I understand now why they gave us all those toy kitchens to play with as children. They were trying to let us know that you will be cleaning a kitchen pretty much everyday, perhaps multiple times a day, unless you don’t eat at home, forever. Funny.
It’s sad for me to realize that I will never be done cleaning a kitchen, but I no longer wonder who is cleaning up the kitchen. I am.
Here are 7 tips for keeping your kitchen clean faster so you can go play with better toys.
Put your cleaning items up to dry after every use.
Sponges, brushes, dishrags, and towels need to be hung up or put in a storage container or rack after you are done with it. Having to pull those items out from a pile of dirty dishes does not inspire one to do dishes. They are usually covered in old food or sink goo and need to be either thoroughly cleaned and sanitized or if bad enough, thrown out. Use care with the items you have. Rinse them and rack them so they are fresh for the next use.
2. Wash or rinse your dishes right away.
The easiest time to wash a dish is when it has just been used and before the food starts to dry on it. If you don’t have time to wash, do a quick rinse instead and get most of what's on that plate off of it. Rinse cups to prevent a build-up of old liquid. These will be much easier to clean when it’s time to wash them or put them in the dishwasher.
3. Wash pots and pans in a timely manner.
Cookware now comes with dishwasher safe options, but I have found over the years that my pots and pans last longer if I stick to just hand washing them and doing so fairly soon after they have been cooked in. The quicker you wash that pan once it’s cooled, the easiest it is. Once I learned that lesson, I very rarely have to scrub a pan to get it clean. For those crusty bits, I have a plastic scraper and it’s one of my favorite kitchen cleaning tools of all time.
4. Reduce counter clutter. Keep only essential everyday items.
Everything else lives somewhere else. Reducing items speeds up the time it takes to wipe down counters and clean up food and grease splatter. Stuff breeds more stuff and pretty soon the whole counter is full. Use baskets for designated drop zone items. Bread boxes to store baked goods. Store low-use appliances elsewhere.
5. Keep your drains clean
Nothing is worse than having your kitchen sink back up, well there is one thing worse, but we are in the kitchen for this article. First, prevent food, garbage, or whatever to get down into the piping by using a sink strainer. They are fairly inexpensive, come in a variety of styles. You can get one that also stops the sink up so you can have water and bubbles or one that is just a strainer. Make sure to measure your sink hole before purchasing because they aren’t all the same. I have one size on one side of my sink and a different size on the garbage disposal side. Don’t forget to wash those strainers off regularly.
6. Speaking of garbage disposals.
Keep it working well by not putting peelings, food chunks, or non-food items in your disposal. It was only made to grind up small amounts of food. Use your strainer to keep most of it out in the first place. If you are smelling odors from your garbage disposal, it can be easily cleaned by dumping a cup or so of ice down it, then running the water and disposal until the ice is gone. Use with a garbage disposal cleaner and freshener to instantly make that area smell better.
7. Create good garbage habits
Kitchen garbage creates smells that make your kitchen feel dirtier than it is. The fuller it is, the less anyone wants to pull the bag or take it out. Create a good garbage routine. Remove and take out garbage as soon as it is full. Don’t wait until you absolutely can’t stuff it down anymore. Things leak. The bag tears. It gets stuck in the can and takes way more effort than it needs to be to pull out. Just take it out. No one else is going to do it. Even if you can’t or won’t take it all the way where it needs to be right away, use a drop zone to get it up and out of the can and ready to go. At my house, I put it in the garage or set it outside my door to walk to the can later. At my children’s apartments, they set it by the door to carry when they leave to go out. Use pull out racks to put garbage cans behind doors or get a can with a lid to reduce smells and . Mount garbage bags near the can or use an adjacent shelf to store bags near the can.
Those are my 7 tips for keeping a kitchen clean. Most of which I need to get up and do right now. Happy Cleaning.
