That is what we did for years. Additionally the cast iron skillet simply sat on the stove. If it needed cleaning it would get scrubbed with the hottest water and a clean scrubbing sponge or boiling water and a quick wipe (one of my biggest uses of paper towels).
For the past four years we haven’t had a dishwasher. Before that we had kids. Now we are empty nesters. Will we use the dishwasher when we move back in a month?
+1, and immediately after use.
I think CraigM’s tease is just that it’s the go to method when you don’t have 43 people worth of dishes to contend with, hence and indicator of a child free abode!
I have two kids though, we still just find it easier and quicker to wash on demand rather than let stuff stack up.
I have accidentally turned my dishwasher into another puzzle game. Can I possibly fit every dish that’s dirty in there, even though it looks to be totally out of room? Challenge accepted! Oh, some come out dirty? Well, I will leave it in there up to infinity til it gets clean… I will not clean that spoon off!
Monthly
Light rinse on very dirty stuff, then dishwasher. Unless the washer isn’t full enough to run (which, with two teenage daughters, is practically never): then a thorough rinse. Frying pans (no soap), cooking knives and certain glasses are done by hand.
As for the dishwasher: packing strategies most certainly apply (and my wife just doesn’t get that). Then again: I fail to get her strategies for laundry, so we just call it even and leave it to the ‘expert’ :-)
It’s not true; what kind of monsters do you think we are?! Some folk do use washing up bowls though, but I feel like that’s an old hat thing. Never understood it myself.
As for our dishwashing routine: we use hot water, washing up liquid and a brush and rough biodegradable sponge for cleaning things that are too big/cumbersome/delicate for the dishwasher. Soaking is often involved because we rarely clean as we go. We rinse and when there’s space drip dry. For everything else we chuck it into the dishwasher (debris scraped off, no rinse) on an eco cycle with an all-in-one tablet. Often we cram it full too.
I’ve fantasised about two dishwashers because we often empty the dishwasher as we use stuff so with two we could treat one as the cupboard until it’s empty, by which point it’ll be ready for a full load of washing.
From what I’ve read, dishwasher detergents have advanced more than the machines themselves. That’s borne out by my experience moving from a brand-new dishwasher in a brand-new high-rise to an old dishwasher in my condo. Same detergent tablets with anti-crud “Powerball,” and exactly the same performance.
I don’t use the pre wash detergent basin, dishwasher works fine - but I’ll keep it in mind if I put in something especially nasty.
I like to guess who starts a thread and I would have sworn this was a jpinard OP.
Fool me once @RichVR
Dishwasher all the way. No rinsing no nothing. Just stack it in and go. Everything goes, what doesn’t survive wasn’t fit to exist in our household.
I’ve been using the gel dishwasher soap in the pre-wash area, along with the normal dishwasher soap pod and noticed zero food particles remain, no matter how dirty the dishes.
Everything goes in the dishwasher, life is too short to waste time washing dishes, ironing stuff and other crap many people seem to spend time doing. Heck I’m 51 already, not got time to waste on stuff
Dishwasher for everything safe in it. No pre rinse, only scraping off any large debris.
Liquid dishwasher soap only. No pods. Jet dri as well.
Nonstick pans hand washed and towel dried.
I use white vinegar instead of Jet Dry. It works well, is cheaper and actually keeps the drain cleaner.
Double sink. Fill up both with dirty dishes until nothing else fits or we run out of forks. Wash. Play Drying Rack Jenga.
I am the Cassandra in my extended family about this one: Whenever I go to a family event, I will scrape off the dishes and load the dishwasher, and then some family member will pull them out and wash them by hand before putting them back in. I’ve watched my dad rinse a knife under running water and then put it into the dishwasher, and I say “That’s what the dishwasher is for!” But no one listens to me.
Below is the article that sold it for me: Old dishwashing detergents used to use bleach, but they don’t anymore because it’s bad for the environment. So now they use enzymes that clean off food particles…but they need something to react to. If you don’t have food particles on your dishes, the detergent just runs off and into the drain. Paradoxically, a load of dirty dishes should be cleaner than a load of pre-rinsed dishes.
I learned the school of hard knocks way, which is to double wash - basically hand wash the dishes spotless, then wash them in the dishwasher to sterilize them. This is hugely inefficient (both in water and time), but does get the dishes reliably clean, every time, and I can’t quite ween myself off the habit.
Read the article above and let me know what you think. It’s actually possible that your dishes are less clean as a result, since the dishwashing detergent isn’t working correctly if you pre-rinse.
Dishwasher mostly, though I occasionally just rinse something quickly if all it had in it was water or broccoli or something. We have been ruthlessly limiting the amount off water sent down the drain, as our septic is getting replaced (as we speak, they are digging out the new leach field). The Bosch dishwasher we have is much more efficient than I would be hand washing stuff. Unfortunately, I cook a lot, like twice a day, and in addition to generating lots off compostable material, that creates a ton off mise en place dishes…