A couple of days ago, I was showing a friend this nifty little trick I have for cleaning sticky gunk off of dishes. She stopped me mid-sentence and said, “You ARE going to write about this, right?” I hadn’t thought about it before then, but here I am, writing about it.
For years I’ve used my fingernails to chisel really sticky or crusty things off of dishes when it’s time for clean-up. There are some things that just won’t scrub off with a dishcloth or a scrubbie. More recently, I’ve spent a lot of time scrubbing very, very sticky sourdough batter off of bowls and measuring utensils. A few months ago, as I was struggling to clean out a really cheesy pan, I picked up my grocery store Most Valuable Customer Rewards card and used IT to scrape off some baked-on crusties that were clinging to my lasagne pan. I just slid the edge of the card up to and under the edge of the gunk and started chiseling. Wow! Like magic.
I seem to have a dozen of those little cards from grocery stores, pharmacies, and even the local bookstore. Each rewards card comes with a little keychain tab that I put on my keychain right away. But the cards…what to do with them? So I stick them in a kitchen drawer and never think about them again. At least that’s what I DID do until I figured out that those little plastic cards are actually extremely efficient cleaning devices!
Some good things: the cards are free and I seem to have a lot of them. So far, I haven’t even worn out the first one. I’m saving my fingernails. I’m saving my Pyrex baking dishes by not scraping them with a knife or metal spatula. Same thing with my non-stick pans. That plastic card doesn’t scratch either glass or non-stick coating, but it DOES neatly lift off any food that I’m trying to clean.
I’m always delighted when I can solve a problem and I’m always doubly delighted when I can do it for free!
Barb
Awesome idea. I have bazillions of plastic cards, too — used gift cards, expired credit cards, expired membership cards. Up until now they’ve been kids’ toys (must have credit cards in one’s toy purse, mustn’t one?) but I’ll be borrowing a few back from them.
I’m going to try this. My fingernails thank you.
This idea is brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks so much for sharing.