The kitchen is easily one of the messiest rooms and it can quickly become a breeding ground for germs and bacteria if you aren’t careful.
While it’s crucial for your own health to keep your kitchen sanitised, keeping on top of all those errant crumbs, dirty dishes and accidental spills is often easier said than done, and it’s not unusual to spend more time than you’d like getting things done in this room.
If this sounds familiar, what you really need is a few nifty cleaning hacks. These genius ideas will help you streamline your chores and reduce the amount of money you spend on household cleaning products…
1. Clean your chopping board with lemons
Lemon, rock salt and a bit of elbow grease are fantastic for exfoliating the grime out of wooden chopping boards, leaving them fresh for the week ahead. The natural scouring method can also help lift stains and remove lingering odours from plastic boards too.
The great thing about this cleaning tip is that you don’t need to waste a fresh lemon either, you can simply repurpose a mostly squeezed lemon to achieve the same results.
2. Steam the microwave with water and vinegar
Spending your Sunday morning scrubbing at splattered food stains that have stubbornly dried onto the inside of your microwave, is no fun.
To make the job easier, place a bowl of water with a capful of white vinegar inside and heat it on a high power until the liquid comes to a boil. Keep the door closed for a few minutes, so the steam inside has time to loosen up all the caked-on food. It should then be a simple job of wiping it away with a damp cloth.
3. Let the blender clean itself
If you’re a fan of morning smoothies, you’ll know that cleaning the blender jug is never a fun task.
Instead of risking your fingers by trying to wipe around the blades with a sponge, squirt a little washing up liquid in the jug, fill a third of it with warm tap water and blend for 30 seconds as usual. You should then be able to simply rinse away the debris and leave it to air dry.
4. Clean your oven with baking soda
Conventional oven and grill cleaning products available in the supermarket often contain ingredients that can irritate your eyes and skin, and leave a lingering smell in your oven too.
Baking soda is remarkably effective at cleaning oven grease. What’s more, it’s non-toxic. Simply stir together baking powder and water to make a paste, apply it to the oven and leave overnight to work its magic, then wipe away. You could also add a few drops of lemon oil to the mixture to give your oven a fresh scent.
5. Remove baked-on grease with cola
You can also use regular cola to get your pots, pans and baking sheets sparkling. Fill your grease-stained item with a few inches of coke and leave it to soak for a few hours, before using a scourer to wipe away the grime. A wire wool scourer can work well on tougher stains.
6. Put two or more bags in the rubbish bin
Double or triple lining your bin stops any spills from leaking into the bottom of the bin and stubbornly drying on, requiring you to painstakingly wash it out with a garden hose.
The really great thing about this hack though? When you take out the bin, the next bin bag will be ready to use. Easy, simple and effective.
