Maid Simple: Baking Soda, ed. 1

Baking soda is a many splendored thing. It's a got a million uses from making chocolate chip cookies rise perfectly to keeping my refrigerator from smelling like those chicken enchiladas. It also has lots of cleaning properties, such as polishing silver trays. But the singular baking soda act I'm talking about today was revealed to me by Friend Kate I have a great carafe that I love, but one time I made fresh orange juice in it and since then there has been a film on the inside that I'm not able to reach with a scrubbing tool. Kate suggested to put in some baking soda and hot water and let it sit. TA DA!

Since the 'miracle carafe' I've also used the baking soda and hot water trick on my muffin pans, which in spite of being non stick still have this ugly propensity to retain sticky brown residue from muffin batter, blueberry juice, etc.

I just sprinkled the soda on, filled the cups with hot water and let the pans sit on the counter while I washed the rest of my dishes. By the time I was ready to wash the muffin tins, most of the brown residue slid right down the drain when I dumped the baking soda water out. Pretty awesome. Minimal elbow grease required. Thanks Kate!