washing dishes....

Washing dishes can be quite a task!...When you have friends/family over for meals and you cook at home often there will always be dishes to wash...especially when you haven't got a dishwasher! I don't have a dishwasher anymore, mine stopped working very long ago...So I have been washing my dishes by hand for years...

I like to always keep the sink cleaned up and I purchase cleaning supplies to make sure it stays clean and doesn't have odors...I keep the drains clean of food at all times...it's so icky!

to make sure my sink and the drains are kept clean and smelling nice I use a few items and scrubs around in the sink with a sponge for cleaning..I use either Ajax, Bleach, or Comet to scrub in the sinks, then I rinse that all down the drain...it helps with odors and stains that may happen in the sink.

always keep liquid that may still be in the cooking pans after cooking, poured into another container then throw in the trash when it is cooled..greases/fats/oils..they can clog your sink drains terribly!..

sometimes you may get clogs in the drain underneath your sink so I use something called Drano you pour down into the sink drain or any other drain in the house that may have clogs from food being trapped or grease from cooking,or whatever may get clogged..it's so gross!...Drano needs to set in the sink drains for however long the instructions on the bottle say, and it will get rid of the nasty junk making the clog...it's terrible when you get sink drain clogs....I try to keep the drain cover cleaned and on the drain to catch foods and that gross junk out of there!!!

when washing dishes I like to use a pair of dishwashing gloves often times, you can purchase them most places they are usually yellow or decorated....that way my hands won't be dry and itchy from all that washing...I choose a favorite dish washing liquid and add a small cap full of bleach to my dishwater to keep germs away and clean better on my dishes/glasses/pots & pans, silverware...

Sink pans---sometimes sinks won't hold water so I use sink pans to wash dishes in.

Dish soaps that I like are: Dawn, Palmolive, Cascade, Finish, Joy.....they also have some of these for dish washing machines and I have tried them all....I like them! they also have some of these soaps in antibacterial as well...I like those too.

Soap dispensing dish wands----I like to use these often to wash dishes with, you just fill the wand with dish liquid soap from the bottle and it will dispense it through the dish washing sponge..

Chore Boy---a metallic scrubber that will really scrape off dried on foods on dishes.

S.O.S. Pads----sort of metallic or wire that is filled with soap, then you just scrub on pan bottoms or all over pans...works great!

to clean copper pan bottoms you can usually just pour vinegar over them and then pour some salt and scrub that...it will make copper pan bottoms brighter and prettier, you can use lemon juice and salt also to make that tarnish go away as well when you make a sort of paste from those 2 items OR you can purchase a copper cleaning solution..i like Wright's Copper Cleaner....it works good.

packs of sponges are always needed for washing dishes I like all the colorful or sometimes printed ones I can find..makes washing dishes not so boring to see bright colors....haha!

ALWAYS, make sure that your dish water is very HOT and wear your rubber dish gloves to protect your hands from getting burned or dry and itchy....very hot water helps to clean better and kill germs/bacteria.

I also have purchased a drying dish rack and they are in many colors to match the dish pans....some are metal some are plastic..they both work well..

I like to have dish towels to dry my dishes on in many colors or prints, and I like a good dish rag to wash dishes with too...I have several of each..they are fairly inexpensive...

julie