Making Dishes Easier to Wash

Dishes. Other than laundry, they are the biggest mountain maker in our home. Throughout the years, we have discovered several small tips and techniques to make an often despised chore go smoothly. We wish it to be known that we in no wise consider ourselves experts on this subject. This article is meant to be a casual, little visit between friends, not a detailed how-to instruction. With that said, here is how we attempt to tame our ever-filling kitchen sink. Before coming to the sink area, ALL dirty dishes are scraped into the garbage if needed. Many a pan/sink of dish water has been too quickly dirtied by uneaten scraps and tidbits left behind. Once scraped, dishes are rinsed and/or set to soak as needed. Starchy foods such as potatoes, rice, and pasta often leave behind a film. Pre-wash rinsing and/or soaking aids in eliminating this annoyance. Condiments and dips frequently harden rapidly as well. Rinsing and soaking ahead of the washing allows excess scrubbing while washing to be a plague of the past. The order of washing saves much in terms of time and cleanliness as well. Glassware and stemware always go through the line first at our house. We don't want crystal stemware and nice dishes to be washed after that oily skillet. Most likely every homemaker has his/her own order to follow. As with most chores, dishes work best done in the manner and method that works most efficiently for each individual household. At our house, following glassware and special dishes are the plates, utensils, bowls. Other items used to serve the meal come next followed by cookware. The cast iron cookware brings up the rear followed only by the cookstove. What about those persistent, baked-on problems? Using the same method that chefs use to deglaze a skillet, while the pan is still hot from cooking, we pour a small amount of water into the pan and immediately begin scraping with a spatula. Very few cooked-on messes remain in our skillets when we do this. Following the same basic steps in the sink using hot tap water, we are able to clear out pots and pans before cooked on messes harden beyond removal. Those pans and dishes which miss out on pretreatment are set to soak while other dishes are being washed. By the time their turn comes around, they have usually softened and slide easily off into the trash. If a pot/pan is hopelessly stuck up with cooked on crud, after scraping loose debris off, we will frequently use the pot as the dishpan filling it with hot soapy water. This allows the item to soak for a longer period of time. Rarely will the item used in this way require scrubbing. Plates and other dishes that have been left to sit too long are also placed in neat stacks in the bottom of the sink under the pot/bowl being used as a dishpan. The dishes receive a pre-soaking as the rinse water falls onto them yet because they aren't in the actual dish water, they don't cruddy it up as they soak. When it's their turn, even dried on egg yolk washes off with minimal effort. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is true even when washing dishes. Just as laundry stains come out beautifully when treated immediately, so too hideous messes in the dish pile can be a thing of the past. Scraping, rinsing, soaking, order - tips to shorten and simplify dish time and a simplified, shorter dish time is definitely Living Large on Less. Enjoying the simple pleasures of summer, Blessed Mama PS - Those readers with automatic dishwashers will just have to Live Large for Less by taking a moment to be thankful for their dishwasher :) Truth be told, at our house, we actually have two automatic dishwashers. Both are currently "under the weather" so we are back to the ten-fingered variety:) There really isn't a better way that I have found to remove stubborn stains on the hands than washing dishes, nor have I found a better time to pray, though the shower is a close second. Cia', for now! Blessed Mama