The kitchen is the urban homestead’s work horse. And boy do I ever give my old porcelain sink a workout. It gets pretty stained and dingy and needs a good deep cleaning every week. Like the bathroom, I basically use white vinegar and baking soda to get the job done.
I start by rinsing the sink, and then I sprinkle baking soda in (again, like many people use Comet). I drink coffee and my sink gets easily stained. I grab a sponge and start scrubbing. Baking soda is actually pretty abrasive and it cuts odors. Just a little water on your sponge makes this pretty effective.
After the scrub down, I rinse the sink again, plug it and pour in a little white vinegar to take care of any staining that I couldn’t get with the baking soda. I leave it to soak there while I take care of the back of the sink. I use a butter knife wrapped in a dishcloth with a little baking soda to get the edges and hard to reach places.
Or for areas that need more muscle, I use a knife/sponge combo. Like the crack between the sink and the wall, under the window sill. It’s impossible to get my hand back there – the butter knife does the trick.
By the time I’m done with all of that, the vinegar has done its job in the sink. So I drain it and move on to the rest of the kitchen.
I use baking soda to scrub my stove top, and dish soap that cuts grease to clean the back of the stove and the toaster oven. For the counters I have vinegar mixed with water in a spray bottle that I spray over all the counters, let sit for a bit and then wipe off.
But recently, I had a stain on my counter that white vinegar couldn’t take care of. Bleach didn’t cut it either. It was rust from our cast iron griddle. What got it finally was lemon juice.
Lemons are powerful. They can cook shrimp or fish in their juice, they kill germs and bacteria, and the are amazing bleaching agents. I have proof. First I squeezed a bit of juice on the stain and rubbed it around. Then I let it sit for a couple minutes.
I was afraid it wasn’t working. I sprinkled on some baking soda. Salt would have been better but I already had the soda out. It made it all fizzy, and probably neutralized the acid a bit, but I wanted its scrubbing power and figured it had set there, full strength long enough.
So I scrubbed it, and scrubbed it. And…. it worked.
Then I threw the old, dead, juice-less lemon into the garbage disposal and ran it with water to make it smell nice. Kitchen cleaned.
What do you use to clean your kitchen?
The Lazy Homesteader 
Keep the wholesome cleaners but YIKES – get rid of that sponge! The green scrubbie side is good; but sponges harbor all sorts of bacteria, etc. Buy the scrubbies without the sponge and use a fresh, washable dish rag daily(I buy cheap washclothes – great for baby butts too!). I won’t have a sponge in my kitchen…
Teri, putting the sponge in the microwave for one minute will kill all bacteria.