In my house I use the pizza stone all the time. Sunday nights are pizza nights, so every Sunday the pizza stones finds its way into and out of the oven multiple times with pizzas of various toppings. But throughout the week I love the even cooking it does with cookie dough and even fish.

So, between uses, what’s the secret to keeping it clean? It’s a little tough because the ceramic is porous, you don’t want to use any chemicals or soap on it. In fact, most manufacturers caution against even water. Basically, ceramic stone cookware is for food, and only food. Let’s start with some typical questions about stonecare.

1. Why no soap ? Because stone is so porous, any cleaning solutions will seep into the stone and remained trapped there. You won’t taste them because the heat of the oven burns them off, but that doesn’t mean they won’t contaminate your food.
2. Why no water? The presence of water in stone could cause cracking over time. Baking stones don’t like water, so if you want it to last, treat it well.

There are two good ways to clean your stone that don’t involve water or soap. Don’t worry about discoloration – it’s going to happen, and it just ’seasons’ your stone, so to speak.

• A plastic scraper. You can find them in kitchen gadget stores and they’re one of my favorite cleaning tools ever. They don’t scratch surfaces (as long as they aren’t scratched, themselves). Hold it at a 45º angle and scrape away.
• The self-cleaning function on the oven. Just as it burns off gunk in your oven, it’ll burn off any impurities in your baking stone. Make sure you preheat slowly – heat the oven to 450º or so, then turn on the self-clean. Your stone will love you for it.

I like to keep my stone in the oven – it helps distribute heat evenly and maintain heat for longer times. It does take a little longer to preheat an oven with a stone in it, but the oven doesn’t have to work so hard once it’s hot.

How about you? What are your tips?

The good news is, your refrigerator coils are easy to clean. Unplug the fridge and then find the coils. In most fridges they’re behind the kickplate under the appliance, but on some you’ll see them easily exposed around the back. Once you’ve found them use the flat hose attachment to your vacuum and attack the dust. If you’re really industrious you can buy a long, conical brush at your local hardware store and brush off any stubborn left-over dust.

You’ll make your refrigerator happy, and that’ll make your electric bill happy.

Bread dough, cookie dough, pastry mess… When you have a sticky icky kitchen mess on your hands, what’s the quickest way to clean it up? Most of the stickies we’re talking about need an acidic cleaner to wipe them up. Flour, water, oil, shortening, or butter… It’s an alkaline mess and what better to clean an alkaline with than an acid? That means you need something like vinegar or lemon juice.

The easiest thing to do is to let it dry a bit, then use a plastic scraper to scrape up the dried mess. You’ll have some residue left on your counters (or your hands or floors), and that’s where you’ll spray your vinegar or lemon juice. They’ll cut the grease and help ease the gunk from your surfaces. Easy as pie!

Thanks, Anna. I applaud you in not wanting to use Easy Off. It has acute health risks (acute meaning immediate, upon exposure). In fact, according to the MSDS the health risk is a 3 on a scale of 4 – ingestion, touch, and inhalation are all risks. But it also contains glycol ethers, a volatile organic compound (VOC) and developmental and reproductive toxicant.

As for what you can use… my all-time favorite product is Shaklee’s Scour Off. It’s made from cherry pits and it’s amazing. It has a light, natural cherry smell that just makes you want to clean something. Better yet, it’s a very mild abrasive and it cleans everything from the inside of your oven to stainless steel, laminate countertops, and tub and tile too. Baking soda, similarly, is a mild abrasive, only you’ll need to scrub a lot more with baking soda than you will with Scour Off.

I like the idea of pulling out your racks and soaking them in the bath. If you do, you’ll need something that cuts grease in the water. Dishwashing detergent would probably do the trick, but adding some Borax detergent booster would probably help too. I’d suggest scrubbing with a mild abrasive before you soak – something like Scour Off or baking soda, then soak, scrub again, and soak again. The scrubbing will help loosen what’s baked on and help the detergent penetrate through it.

If you’re worried about the actual oven (which you can’t soak in the tub), I’ve found that the greenest cleaner that makes it easy to clean an oven is Simple Green. As far as green cleaners go, it isn’t perfect, but it’s way better than any ‘oven cleaner’ on the market.  If you don’t want to buy a big bottle of it look for it in the ‘travel size’ department of your supermarket. I keep a small bottle on hand just for my oven.

I hope this helps!

So, for today let’s talk about what you already have at home that you can use to clean with. A bottle of Windex will cost you $3.99 or so, and if you want to go with the greener option of Seventh Generation or Ecover, that’ll run you about $4.99 a bottle. And then you’d need some all-purpose cleaner, degreaser for tough grease, toilet bowl cleaner, oven cleaner, carpet cleaner, tub & tile spray, hard surface cleaner and something special for your granite or marble, not to mention hardwood floor cleaner, tile floor cleaner… Or that’s what the efforts of the marketing gurus want you to believe.

In fact you can clean most surfaces in your home without any of those. Here’s a rundown of how to clean your home for cheap with what you’ve already got – and what doesn’t have harsh chemicals.

Dusting wood furniture: Mix together 1/2 c. lemon juice, 1 tsp olive oil (you don’t need the high quality EVOO for this). Dampen a cloth with it and refrigerate what’s leftover since lemon juice will go rancid at room temp.

Window, glass, & light duty cleaner:  1/4 cup vinegar with 2 cups water will do the trick. If you’ve been using commercial window cleaner for some time you’ll want to add 2-3 drops of detergent to the mix. Commercial window cleaners leave a fine, waxy residue and the vinegar alone won’t fully hack it.

Scouring cleanser:  Make a paste with baking soda and water, add a couple drops of lemon juice. Scrub away!

Whitening agent: Hydrogen peroxide.  You can use it on your white laminate countertops, tile grout, laundry.

Disinfectant: Arm yourself with 2 spray bottles. One with undiluted vinegar and the other with hydrogen peroxide. Spray one and then the other on any surface you consider contaminated, and that will take care of most germs and microbes.

Toilet bowl cleaner: You need something acidic, so vinegar, lemon juice or lime juice will do the trick. You do not need one of those funky-shaped bottles to get under the rim. A spray bottle and your toilet brush will work fine.

Fabric softener: Add some vinegar to your rinse and you don’t need fabric softener. And replace dryer sheets with a reusable cloth. Dab some fabric softener or vinegar on it and throw it in the dryer.

That’ll take care of most of your product needs around the house.  Our next installment will tell you how to navigate the world of consumer cleaners.

There’s nothing better than creating a home cooked meal from scratch, using the season’s finest and freshest to bring the most flavor to the table. But unless you’re a vegetarian you probably also have raw meat you’ll be chopping now and then, and potentially leaving dangerous germs on your chopping block.   Here’s what we suggest:

1. Use different cutting boards for different purposes. One for non-meats and cooked items only, one for fish, and one for raw red and white meat. This will keep you from cross contaminating, and even if a germ or two is spread from one meat to the next, you’re going to thoroughly cook the meat and sterilize that stray germ.
2. As the CDC recommends, soap and water is sufficient for most purposes, including hand washing and cleaning dishes and cutting boards. Hot, soapy water will do the trick for most kitchens. Just make sure you’re actually scrubbing and not just giving a cursory swipe. Alternatively, use your dishwasher and eco-friendly dishwashing detergent. The level of sustained heat in the dishwasher will kill most everything.
3. A two-step process involving a spray of hydrogen peroxide followed by a spray of vinegar, with each left to sit for 10 minutes will properly disinfect. The key though is leaving it to sit. Even the best product is useless if not used correctly.
4. Essential oil of lavender – about 20 drops to 1 cup of water in a spray bottle will disinfect quite well and leave your home smelling like spring year round! This is safe enough to spray directly on your kids’ toys and other food-prep surfaces, which makes it one of our favorites. In fact, studies show that essential oils may disinfect more effectively than phenol, which is what most disinfectants use today. Additionally, they don’t seem to contribute to the development of drug resistant strains of bugs like regular antibacterials do.
5. Microwave it! I’m serious. If you’re concerned that your cutting board may be compromised and if it’s wood, put it in the microwave a zap it for 10 minutes. Your cutting board will be clean, but use caution getting it out – depending on the type of wood and level of moisture present it could be hot. This doesn’t work on plastic cutting boards though, so don’t waste your time.

Thanks to Mollie over at One/Change for a few of those tips.  If you’re in the market for a new cutting board, opt for wood. New studies show that wood cutting boards don’t harbor bacteria the way plastic boards do. Due to the capillary of dry wood, microbes disappear below the surface where they die within a few hours. Plastic on the other hand allow microbes to sit on the surface where they can contaminate the next item. And please, avoid those “antibacterial” cutting boards like the plague – they’re treated with a pesticide and do you really want to introduce pesticides into your kitchen? Add in the fact that FDA is attacking the claims of the effectiveness of those pesticides, and it’s really not worth it.

Okay, foodies, I have plenty of other cooking uses for rice too, but this post isn’t about cooking. This is about cleaning with rice. It’s great for problematic items like small necked vases and bottles. Simply pour in a teaspoon or two of rice, fill 3/4 of the way with warm soapy water, secure the top, and shake it like you mean it. (“Do the shimmie shimmie shake…”) Rinse when finished – and I wouldn’t recommend eating the rice, but you’re smart enough to know that.

Another great cleaning use for rice? Coffee grinders. Mill a handfull of rice – the same way you would coffee beans. It’ll absorb stale orders and clean out residual grounds and oils.  Your coffee will taste better afterwards.

And if you drop your cell phone in a puddle (or toilet, as one blogger did), give it a rest over night in a bowl of uncooked rice. If you’re lucky, the rice will absorb the water and you’ll have your phone back the next day.  (I wouldn’t suggest dropping your electronics into water just to test the theory though…)

 A study came out this week that said the bathroom sink is cleaner than the kitchen sink. It also says that bachelor kitchens are cleaner (i.e., less bacteria) than non-bachelor kitchens. The reason? Bachelors tend to throw their dishes directly into the sink and not spend time wiping up the countertops. And apparently, it’s the sponges that are to blame for the lion’s share of bacteria.

Now add to this study the one done a while back that said bathroom sinks harbor more bacteria than toilets, and if those sinks are cleaner than kitchen sinks (meaning by default that your toilet is also cleaner than your kitchen sink), it’s no wonder dogs drink out of the toilet.

To keep your kitchen cleaner than your toilet (ew! gross!), disinfect your sponge regularly by tossing it in the dishwasher with a load of dishes or popping a wet sponge in the microwave for 30 seconds. And when in doubt, invest in a new sponge. ‘Cause really. That’s just gross.

But I don’t. If I did though, let me tell you how I’d clean and polish it. Use appropriate methods for the inside. (All copper cookware is lined with another surface type for cooking, since copper can cause toxic reactions with things like tomatoes and eggplants.) Bon Ami is one of my favorites in the kitchen for cleaning all types of cookware. It’s abrasive enough to clean well, but not abrasive enough to scratch.

Now for the lush copper outside. Cut a lemon in half and sprinkle the pulp with salt. Rub and scrub the salted lemon on the copper until you have a beautiful shine. Rinse and towel dry. Mmm… If only I could clean some copper… (If you have copper cookware, call me. I’d love to come clean it for you. Is that weird?)

There are a few things to try. On the job, we use Shaklee Scour Off on a microfiber cloth. It goes on like butter (but you have to pronounce it “Butt-a”) and takes away all the grimy fingerprints and even cooked on grease and petrified food. It does an awesome job on the inside of ovens and the removable ‘cages’ of gas ranges. It’s also great for kitchen sinks and tons of other things (hard water deposits on shower doors, rust on the side of the car, tile backsplashes – you get the idea). That’s what we use.  And as Atlanta’s premier all-natural maid service, we tend to think we have a good understanding of things like that.

If you want to give your stainless steel an extra shine, put some olive oil on a microfiber cloth and rub it in. Ooohhh, your dinner guests will drool over your gorgeous appliances (as will the buyers at your Open House!).

But if you’re looking for a simple miracle solution, pick up some orange essential oil from a natural foods store. I’m not talking about the orange-based (or, more precisely, orange-named) cleaners you see at supermarkets – they’ll be the topic of another post. But pure essential orange oil is a good friend to stainless steel. It removes water marks and fingerprints (though you’ll need something tougher for grimy spots) and it shines it too. Even better, it has a sweet, fresh scent with anti-depressant properties. It’s also anti-depressive, anti-fungal, antiseptic, and anti-bacterial. What’s not to like?

Keep in mind when cleaning your stainless that chlorine and stainless steel don’t get along well. We’d avoid chlorine in pretty much all situations regardless, but if you’re one of those die-hard (literally) caustic cleaner fans who stocks their home with all sorts of hazardous chemicals, make sure to keep your chlorine and anything made with chlorine away from your stainless steel. They’re not friends.