Wednesday - Kitchen Tidy

Well Sue as promised I will finish my week at a glance….

My kitchen before the clean

So Wednesdays are, what I call (echoes of Miranda there!) kitchen tidy days. No it’s not the rubbish, that’s Fridays; it’s when I spend an hour in the kitchen giving it a good spruce up. If it’s not already done, I remove all the dishes from the bench and sink and put them in the dishwasher. Filling the sink with hot soapy water I scoop out some of this in a cup and put it in the microwave. I heat it on high for about two minutes (sometimes it explodes in there!) and then let it ‘steam’ for a bit. Then I take it out and give the sides, roof, turntable and lastly the outside a good wipe.

Next is the fridge. Starting at the top, I wipe every shelf, one at a time, moving items from each shelf and biffing any ‘science projects’ – you know those things that are growing and you have no idea what they were originally. Actually now that I do this once a week there aren’t really any but there used to be before I got into this routine. The vege-bins get taken out and have a wash in the sink. Then the door shelves get cleaned last. Its surprising the dirt that sits in there where the milk containers go

Because of the plan of my kitchen the next thing I do is the stove. I take out the element supports and trays that go under them and soak them in the sink for a few minutes. They get a good scrub and get put in the dishwasher. I also put my dish scrubber in as well and by this stage I’m ready to set it off. I use homemade cleaning products so I spray and wipe down the stove top with my surface cleaner

By now the sink water is past its best so I empty it giving the sink a good wipe around as it empties and then re fill the sink again with hot soapy water. With a clean cloth I wipe down the whole bench moving items out from their spot as I work from one side to the other but not taking everything off at once. As I go I will wipe down the jug, toaster and other appliances and dispose or put away items that just shouldn’t be there. I take this opportunity to give the wooden shopping boards a scrub with the scourer and then rub a little cooking oil into them.

I keep an old tooth brush under the sink and use this to give the taps (the joins in the piping and where they come out of the bench) and all around them a scrub then shine them with a cloth. When I have emptied the sink the second time I scrub the plug hole with the toothbrush as well.

We keep our food scraps in a bucket in the cupboard under the sink (the go into our compost rather than the rubbish) so that part of our cupboards gets a good clean before I empty the sink again giving it a scrub.

When the dish washer is finished, I unpack it and then remove the filter system at the bottom and wash all of that. It can be quite gunky with food scraps and sort of wet fluff, so not a pleasant task, but great to know its clean when it’s finished. The door and seals get a scrub with a cloth. I don't use a commercial dishwasher cleaner but every now and again I run a wash with the machine empty but have  a sprinkle of baking soda all around and I always use white vinegar in the rinse aide part. As the sink empties again I give it another good wipe around and then actually dry it so it’s clean and shiny.
All the cloths, towels, my oven cloth and apron get put out to be washed even if they have been replaced recently and I set out clean ones.

Kitchen after clean

So now the kitchen is clean and tidy.













Today, being a few months later (than when I first started this week for you Sue) we are into the feijoa season, so I spent time gathering the fallen feijoas and bagging some up to leave out at the gate. We have done this for the past couple of years and people just help themselves to the bags. I am pleased that people take them rather than have them rot on the ground as there are always far too much for our family to get through.

I also prefer to gather my own so I get to keep the ones I like and also not have people walk all over them.