I try to wear rubber gloves when I clean the house and do dishes, especially in the winter. If I don’t, I find that the skin on my hands pretty much just falls off. However, after an hour of steamy dishes I often find that the gloves don’t really want to come off.
The solution? Switch the water to cold and run your hands underneath for a few seconds. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, the gloves come off!
Despite my best efforts, things sometimes go awry in my kitchen. In this case, I burned the sauce for some caramel corn and was very grumpy (deprive yourself of caramel corn and you’ll understand where I’m coming from). And now I had this blackened mess in the bottom of my pot that wouldn’t come off at first scrub.
No matter. Sprinkle on some baking soda.
Add a couple inches of water and bring it to a rolling boil on the stove. Let that go for 5-10 minutes, depending on the severity of the burn. Keep an eye on your water level so it doesn’t boil away.
You can see that some of the black stuff has already loosened.
Drain the pot. As it dries and contracts more of the black stuff will flake off.
Once the pot is cool enough to handle, pop it back in the dishwater and give it a good scrub. You’ll still need elbow grease to get all the black off but it’s a darned sight easier than it would have been ten minutes ago!
