Hand-washing dishes

In My Humble Opinion
21

My method is a little different. Perhaps it speaks to my tendency to get distracted. (I refer to this as “multitasking.”)

  1. Keep sink plugged. As I cook, fill sink with silverware, plates/bowls, cups, in that order. (We use only dessert-sized plates, and mugs instead of glasses, so it fits nicely.) Rearrange as necessary.
  2. When sink starts getting a little full, fill with hot soapy water. Keep adding dishes. If necessary, wash a few to make room for more.
  3. Put pots/skillets in other sink and fill them with hot soapy water as well.
  4. (This is the distraction part.) Go vacuum. Put dogs in and out. Remember to fold laundry. Sit down and rest for a few minutes. Forgot coffee! Made some, and NOW sit down and rest for a few minutes. Call Mom for a chat. Feed everyone now that dinner is finished.
  5. Notice sink now full of cold soapy water, dishes, and pots/pans.
  6. Drain water, pour out pots/pans, soak scrubby sponge with hot water and a squirt of dish soap, and commence washing.
  7. Fill dish drainer with rinsed dishes. Lay out small towel on counter and put extra stuff on that.
  8. Put stuff away.
    These steps do not necessarily take place on the same day, mind you. Although most days I do dishes more than once, there always seems to be a sinkful left over when I’m done. It’s very mysterious.
22

A couple of replies from people who do dishes while cooking. Interesting. I’ll occasionally do dishes while water comes to the boil or when I cook bacon, but generally I like to have all of the dishes done before cooking. Often (to the amusement of my roommate) I’ll wash dishes right after eating.

One time there were dishes sitting in luke-warm water in the sink. I thought I’d finish them for her, and also try out this ‘soak a while and then rinse’ idea. It turned out that I took the dishes from the water, and then washed them under hot running water in the other half of the sink as usual. For such a slovenly person as myself, I’m surprisingly picky about how I do dishes.

23

On cooking days, I tend to cook for large chunks of time–a few hours, generally. And since I “multitask”, I have lots going on…soup and quick breads and what the hell, maybe some party mix while I’m in the kitchen. Lot of chopping, measuring, using various bowls and cutting boards–so things tend to build up. I have a small kitchen so if I don’t keep up with what I’m getting dirty, I get overwhelmed or run out of items I need.
Usually I do start with an empty sink, but I never seem to have an empty one when I’m finished. There’s always plenty of food, though. :slight_smile:

24

When I was younger, I used to do the “bath” method but, since getting married, she does the “shower” method and I’ve gotten used to it as well. Personally, I think the bath does better with some stuff but, as long as my dishes look and feel clean, I don’t sweat the details.

We just buy cheap plastic and treat it as ultimately disposable (about once a year I hit the point where it takes me longer than a two minutes to find a matching lid and I say “screw it” and drop $15 on new plastic containers) so I don’t worry about it too much. Should it get stained or oily, it just gets pitched once I decide it’s too stained or oily for me to use.

25

I always hand wash; don’t have a dishwasher. I fill one side of sink with very hot water and allow dishes to soak until I can stand to put my hands in the water. I moved scrubbed dishes to the other side of sink and rinse under very hot running water. I put rinsed dishes into drainer rack and wait until they are dry and then put them away.

26

Roomie says for the amount of energy (physical, water, and electricity) I use washing the Glad and Zip-Loc containers, I could replace them each time. :stuck_out_tongue:

I just did some dishes. Fifteen seconds to wash a fork, 13 to wash each of the spoons.

27

It’s not just about the money, though - I live in a semi-arid area, and water is a valuable resource that I try not to waste.

I try to use the stained stuff for tomato-based stuff (since that is usually how it got stained in the first place).

28

When I lived in a house with 3 roommates, the rule was that no dishes were allowed to be in the sink ever. That meant washing dishes (using running water, obviously) everytime they were used, and the system worked quite well.

29

This is not a bad idea. I’ve used two versions over the years of raising kids:

  1. When I had a husband and two tweens: I put away all the dishes except one place setting for each person. YOUR plate, cup, etc, had your name on the bottom of it, and it was up to YOU to keep it clean. This worked pretty well–if dishes piled up, at least there weren’t many of them.
  2. When there were 3 late-teens, 2 adults, and 2 smalls in the house–and we had a dishwasher which no one ever bothered putting their dishes in: I strapped duct tape over both sinks and added a sign informing everyone that dishes were to go in the dishwasher. That worked pretty well too.
    Now there’s just 3 of us, and we have a hit-or-miss kind of method. Everyone pitches in and I haven’t had to do anything too radical.

Hmm. I spend a lot of time thinking about cooking and dishes recently.

30

Re: the sharp instruments in the water: I wash in one sink and rinse in the other, under running water. So I toss the sharp stuff into the rinsiing sink so they’ll get the benefit of the hot running water; then I just dip them into the soapy stuff and scrub, rinse again…no cut fingers this way, whoohoo!

31

Didn’t read posts beyond the OP, but combining the listed methods is the best and least wasteful option. Quick pre-rinse with hot water to get most grease/food off, fill sink once with soap to soak and scrub, drain and fill sink again with clean, very hot water for a soak rinse. Once for regular dishes, again for pots etc with residue.

This is a lot easier if you have a double sink. I don’t. I do have a plastic dish tub that can hold dishes in between cleaning steps.

32

This weekend, it was with cold water. The water heating machine isn’t heating water, so it also meant cold showers. :frowning:

My wife washes with running water. I typically fill the sink. Neither of us uses the dishwasher, unless we’ve been entertaining and have a lot of dishes.

Edit: when I fill the sink, grease isn’t a problem. I don’t let things soak; there’s usually no need. In cases where I need something to soak (invariably a pan of some sort), I fill it with enough soapy water and let it soak. Otherwise it just gets in the way if I leave it in the basin.

33

When I finally decide to wash dishes, I fill the dish tub with hot water, a shot of dishwashing liquid, and a small amount of washing soda or baking soda (which dislodges more grease). I wait about five minutes, angle the faucet out of the dish tub, and rinse each piece as I finish scrubbing, then I stack items in the dish drainer. I hate washing dishes.

34

After cooking dinner (catfish and collard greens) and eating dinner (same), roomie started the dishes. Since the water was nice and hot, I went in after she retired to the living room and finished them. I scrubbed in her water and rinsed in hot water in the small side of the sink. Less water used, dishes have no residue.

Not that I’m going to change.

35

I always rinse my dishes when I put them in the sink. No gunky build-up.

Then they go into the dishwasher. It’s my son’s chore, actually. He puts them in every night and it is run every few days.

After that, I put them away.

zing

36

I use the “shower” method and air dry.
I cook and clean up 3 meals a day for anywhere from 3 to 7 people and the dishwasher takes too long and is annoyingly LOUD.
I don’t worry about wasting water since we have well water and the gray water around here gets used for lawn irrigation.

My mom and I were just talking about this a few days ago. She lives in West Texas and told me she has drastically changed her dishwashing to use as little water as possible and is even putting buckets in the shower to have water to keep her shrubs/trees alive through the drought.

37

I would kill for a dishwasher, but unfortunately, there’s no room in our kitchen, so we do it the old-fashioned way. So it’s either me or my mom washing dishes.

I just use hot water, and wear rubber gloves so I don’t burn my hands (it also has the added benefit of not drying out my skin!). I only soak pots or casserole dishes that have a lot of caked on stuff. I’ll put a lot of soap and hot water in them and set them aside, and then scrub them the next day – the pots with those steel wool soap pads. (I love those things!)

I rinse the soap off before I put them in the drainer, and stack 'em up. Sometimes I dry them right away, sometimes I don’t.
I’m extremely anal about washing dishes. Not too long ago I was at my grandmother’s and I was drying dishes while my aunt was washing. She got royally pissed at me because I kept passing them back to her. (Hello, they still had food on them, Auntie!)

38

That’s not it. The dishwasher does a much better job than we do. We just … don’t use it.
Roddy

39

I demand a dishwasher at every place of residence. I practically pre-wash the dishes before placing them in the DW, because I haven’t yet found a DW or dishwasher detergent that will clean up the cruddy dishes like they show on TV. For those greasy plastic dishes, I rub a bit of “Dawn” or comparable dishwashing liquid on the greasy surfaces, and they end up nice.

Here’s why I’m so demanding:

Hubster and I got married 37 years ago. Our first home was in a tiny apartment in Wildflecken, Germany, where he was stationed with the Army. The German apartment had a separate hot water heater for every faucet. The bathroom sink had an electric heater that ran constantly. The bathtub had a heater that used oil, and you had to light the heater about a half hour before you took your bath.

The kitchen sink was a Barbie doll-sized deal. It had a large faucet that produced only cold water, and above that, there was a 5-liter reservoir heated by an electric element. Before washing dishes, you filled up the reservoir and pushed a button. Fifteen, twenty minutes later, you had hot water.

I discovered that the reservoir really wasn’t big enough to do both washing and rinsing duties.

My method was to fill up an extra dutch oven with water from the big tap, and heat it on the stove. I’d also fill the reservoir and get that heating. Once the water on the stove was boiling, I was in business. Playtex gloves were mandatory.

I’d wash dishes in the dutch oven, and then rinse them with the hot water from the reservoir.

Thanksgiving dinner aftermath was a nightmare.

Once we left Wildflecken, I informed Hubster, “I WILL have a dishwasher wherever we live, from now on.”
~VOW

40

This. Life is too short to spend time washing dishes.