•  De-bitter your coffee grinder with rice

When you grind your own coffee beans, it’s almost impossible to brush all of the residue out of the grinder when you have finished — and accumulated residue can make coffee taste bitter. To get rid of the residue, run a cup of raw white rice through the grinder once a month. The rice will clean the grinder and sharpen the blades at the same time.

  •  Hold the spices

If you sometimes use your coffee grinder to grind spices, which isn’t a great idea, by the way, make sure you clean all of the remnants out of the grinder before switching back to coffee beans or you’ll affect the taste of the coffee. Clean it by grinding two or three slices of cut-up, plain white bread in the machine.

  •  Grind bread, clean meat grinder

Before cleaning a meat grinder, run a piece of bread through it to clean fatty meat particles out of the feed screw. Even regularly washing the parts won’t get the feed screw truly clean.

  •  Purge coffee stains from a glass jug

Over time, caffeine will discolour the glass jug in an automatic coffeemaker, but you can easily make it look like new. Here’s how:

  1. Fill the carafe a quarter full of water.
  2. Cut a lemon into four wedges, squeeze the juice of two of them into the water and drop all four wedges into the carafe.
  3. Add 2 tablespoons salt and swirl the carafe around for 2-3 minutes.
  4. Empty the carafe and scrub the inside with soapy water. Rinse and dry and return the crystal-clear carafe to its base.
  •  Clean your toaster with a toothbrush

If your toaster is clogged with hard-to-reach crumbs, unplug it and loosen the crumbs with a small paintbrush or soft toothbrush. Avoid damaging the machine’s heating elements by brushing very lightly. Once you’ve broken the stubborn crumbs apart, turn the toaster upside down, hold it over the kitchen sink and gently shake out the debris.

  •  Clean your oven window

If the window of your oven gets caked with grime, try one of the following easy fixes:

  1.  Open the oven door and the spray the glass with a solution of 2 parts hydrogen peroxide, 2 parts white vinegar and 1 part dishwashing liquid. Let stand for half an hour.
  2.  Wipe the window with household ammonia and let stand for 20-30 minutes.

Wipe off either substance with paper towels. If any residue remains, scrape it off with a plastic (not metal) ice scraper or an old credit card. Finally, clean the oven window with a spray of vinegar or commercial glass cleaner.

  •  Melted plastic on your toaster?

If you accidentally leave a plastic bag or plastic wrapping so close to a toaster that it touches the metal surface, the plastic will melt onto it when you toast bread — and won’t come off with normal washing. To get rid of it, let the toaster cool down thoroughly and try one of the following methods:

  1.  Rub the melted plastic vigorously with a damp sponge coated with bicarbonate of soda.
  2.  Coat the plastic with petroleum jelly and then toast a slice of bread. The heated jelly will soften the plastic and make it easier to wipe off with a soft cloth. When the toaster cools, scrub the residue with bicarbonate of soda and a damp sponge.
  3.  Spray the plastic with WD-40 and let it soak in for a few minutes. Then wipe off with a damp cloth.
  •  Easy blender cleaning

Although you probably flush out your blender jug under the kitchen tap and sometimes even give it a proper wash, that isn’t enough to keep it really clean and hygienic. Pour 1 cup (250ml) water and 1/4 cup (60ml) vinegar into the jug and add a squirt of washing-up liquid. Put the lid on and blend the mixture for 1 minute. Now rinse the jug and wipe it dry and your blender will be ready to whir and free of germs.

  •  Hose out stuck food

If a bit of food has become lodged in a food processor or blender and trying to remove it is driving you mad, take the machine’s bowl or jug outside to direct a strong stream of water from the garden hose onto the clogged-up works. Take a newspaper with you and place the machine on it so that it doesn’t get soiled.

  •  Keep appliances dust-free

Sometimes it seems that dust gathers more quickly on benchtop appliances than anywhere else. If this happens to you, cover the appliances with tea towels or — if you’re always looking for still one more way to use an old pair of pantihose — a stocking leg cut to size.

  •  Brush away espresso

If you’re a fan of espresso, you’ll also be familiar with how finely ground Italy’s favourite coffee is. To keep it from clogging up the filter screen on an espresso machine, scrub the screen gently after each use with a soft toothbrush. If any bits remain, remove them with a pin.

  •  Prevent sandwich toaster fires

One of the leading causes of fire in sandwich toasters comes from the greasy, grimy racks in older-style toasters (like mini ovens) — from burned cheese or baked-on sugar, with both leading to the possibility of a spark on the heating element. The next time you clean your regular oven — if it is a self-cleaning one – remove the rack from the sandwich toaster and wipe it down with non-toxic oven cleaner. Then simply place it inside the larger oven to be cleaned at the same time.

  •  De-pulp a juicer

It’s easy to forget that electric juicers are traps for all manner of fruit (and therefore, food) particles. Keep juicers spotlessly clean to prevent bacteria buildup by cleaning thoroughly: dismantle it, wipe out the pulp and discard and fill the kitchen sink with hot, soapy water. Soak everything except the motor casing for 10 minutes, remove the pieces from the sink and scrub with a soft toothbrush. Dry well and then reassemble the juicer.

Credit : Reader’s Digest

Picture Credit: Google