| cooking up cleaners |

If you cook, you probably also have to clean. I've been making my own cleaning recipes for about a decade now and I thought it might be nice to share my three absolute favorites. These are the ones I use on a weekly basis. If I were better at cleaning, I'd probably use them on a daily basis, but, whatever.

All you need to make the recipes below is:

- water

- tea tree oil

- baking soda

- liquid dish soap

- olive oil

- lemon juice

Chances are good you already have most of these sitting around in your house!

ALL PURPOSE SPRITZER

For cleaning up countertops after cooking, light dusting on non-wood surfaces, and anything I'd usually use 409 on I use a spray bottle filled with water and about 10-20 drops of tea tree oil. Tea tree is a natural disinfectant and has a nice smell (at least I think so - if you end up hating it, use lavender instead. It also has antibacterial properties.). You can keep this on hand indefinitely.

If I get sick of the tea tree smell, I sometimes go back to a vinegar/water mix. I do about half and half. Same uses.

NATURAL SOFT SCRUB

For my kitchen sink, stovetop and all my bathroom surfaces I make up a batch of soft scrub. This one you have to make each time you use it, but it takes all of 15 second to whip up. If I'm cleaning a bunch of stuff, I'll put about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of baking soda in a cup and then add about 1-2 tablespoons of liquid detergent. I stir it up well and then lather it on a sponge for cleaning. If I'm just cleaning the sink or the stovetop, I just sprinkle the baking soda directly on the wet surface, then squirt on soap and rub it all together with the sponge.

WOOD CLEANER

For everyday cleaning of our wood table, I usually just spray it down with the tea tree water (warning: don't use the vinegar spray on wood). Once a week or so, I do a more thorough cleaning with olive oil and lemon juice. I take an old prefold diaper (any soft cloth will work but diapers are awesome because they are so soft and absorbent in the middle) and pour on about a tablespoon of oil. Then I take my fancy schmancy bottle of "real lemon" lemon juice out of the fridge and pour on an equal amount of lemon juice. I rub it all over the table and then use a tea towel or other clean cloth to buff off any oily residue. The table looks and smells amazing. And that's saying a lot considering our table is a 12 year old JC Penney special that we bought for about $200. 

If you use real lemons you could also take the juiced peels and rub them all over your kitchen sink to help it smell yummy. Another good use for lemon peels is cleaning wood cutting boards. Put a healthy amount of coarse kosher salt on the cutting board, then scrub it all around with the lemon peel. Let it rest for a minute or two, then rise off.

So there they are. My favorite cleaning recipes. If you just used these three recipes above, you could, quite literally clean most of your house. And you could stop wasting your money on $7 bottles of stuff that pretend to be organic and natural. Speaking of which, if you can handle coarse language, you need to check this out because it's hilarious.