Before you start making your meal, fill the sink with hot soapy water. And as you are cooking you can use it to quickly wash stuff as you go, wash your hands in between handling things and dip your kitchen sponge in, before wiping surfaces. Cleaning up as you go will be a breeze. And you are not left with a messy kitchen after dinner.
Boom!
(Don’t you hate it when articles try to get your attention with clever headlines and then you have to read a whole novel until you find out what this one amazing thing is? Hehe. I thought I’ll let you in on the secret early!)
It makes the cooking and cleaning flow nicely
Back to the point though: Hands down, this makes such a difference in how much clean up is waiting for you after dinner. I’m not saying do a full load of dishes while you’re cooking :). In fact I think we should do less multitasking in our lives. Just having it there will give everything more flow. It will feel great to dip your hands in or wipe your favourite knife before continuing with your task.
You could argue it’s better to concentrate on one thing only, cooking or cleaning. And yes, of course dishwashers are a staple in almost every kitchen these days. But what if this approach actually makes cooking dinner more fun! Because afterwards you feel even more awesome about yourself.
There is something about cleaning up that makes you feel accomplished. You know, imagine a messy room and then the satisfying feeling when you look at it after having tidied it up. Of course there will still be stuff to do after dinner. But a lot less!
from clean up to dinner
I felt utterly crap today, the kitchen was a disaster zone and I did not want to cook at all. The thought of having to clean up the kitchen first and then making it messy again through cooking did not appeal. But I filled the sink up with soapy water anyway and thought I’ll just see where it leads. And in fact it led to an unexpected yummy dinner of panfried broccoli and mushrooms with potatoes and a quick refreshing sauce of Vegenaise thinned with lemon juice. The kitchen is by no means spotless now, but a lot less messy than before I started cooking.
So no matter if you start with a clean kitchen (ideal) or a messy one (still totally doable), keeping the sink full of hot soapy water makes all the difference.
Try it and let me know!
Much love,
Katrine x