A Clean Kitchen in Just 15 Minutes!

SERIES "5"

Use a "garbage bowl." Many foods inevitably create garbage--chicken bones, crab shells, corn cobs, even olive pits. If you know that your meal will generate lots of garbage, put a bowl on the table and ask everyone to throw their waste into it. That means only one trip to the garbage can!

Avoid multiple plates. If lengthy cleanups are an issue in your house, have family members eat their bread or salad off their dinner plate--either with the other food or immediately after they clear the plate. This cuts down on all those extra oily and buttery dishes to clean up afterward.

Create a Clean Routine

You've cooked, you've eaten, you're ready to relax. If you follow our advice, cleanup will be easy. But that doesn't mean you couldn't use a little help. These tips--along with Our Family Kitchen Contract--will get the whole clan involved, and you out of the kitchen faster!

Divvy up the chores. If everyone in your family isn't already pitching in after a meal, lay down the law. The basic rules: Everyone is responsible for cleaning up his or her own plate, silverware, and drinking glass and throwing out his or her own napkin and garbage.