Do cooks/bakers need 2 dishwashers?

[hedgehog]

When my son gets cooking, the dirty bowls and pans start piling up. I suppose the solution is for him to wash up as he goes, which he does do to some extent. But, when there is a big family meal, it seems there is a full load of dishes from the kitchen and another full load from the table.

[enough]

1. No. Clean as you go is a basic rule (unless you have staff). (nt)

[rdharma]

2. You should always "clean as you go! But for some reason I've never mastered that technique.

But I'm improving. Rome wasn't built in a day.

[winter is coming]

10. You sound like my husband.

He's a great cook, but the kitchen often looks like a disaster area when he's done.

[cbayer]

3. I've got two! Me and my husband, lol.

[onyourleft]

4. Yes. :)

My youngest sister and I both have the problem with cooking/baking of using practically every pan, bowl and utensil that we own. I clean as I go by loading the dishwasher, but often still end up with a sink full of dirty dishes.

Not to hijack this thread, but do newer dishwashers hold less than the old ones held?

[Warpy]

5. If I had more than 2 other people over for dinner,

everybody ate off paper plates. No one ever complained about that. Pots and pans that weren't washed as I went ended up in the bathtub, to be retrieved and washed later. That way, I could enjoy my guests while they were there.

I've only had a place with a dishwasher once and even then it got used for sterilizing beer bottles for homebrew instead of washing dishes.

I guess I've just never seen the point of having a dishwasher for people without kids around. Besides, the hot water feels good on arthritic hands.

Your son probably does need two dishwashers. However, consider that those big dinners happen very few times a year.

[Aerows]

6. If you clean as you cook and time everything correctly

this isn't an issue. Unless you are cooking for an Army, in which you just grab a few, drag them into the kitchen and put them to work.

But no, in a small household one is fine. Some do fine without one at all (not that I am inclined to fathom that!)

EDIT: That many people eating, somebody there is cleaning pans and drying them so that the regular dishes can go in the dishwasher.

[Major Nikon]

7. Having a strategy helps

If I'm cooking for a lot of people, I will do as much ahead of time as I can. This means getting as much as I can ready to go into the oven, prepping vegetables, measuring ingredients, and making dishes served cold or at room temperature. Ingredients measure out ahead of time can go into disposable containers like ziplocks, paper bowls, or paper cups if cleanup is going to be a big issue.

I usually save the dishwasher for table dishes and wash the pots and pans by hand as I go. When the meal is over all the dishes go in the dishwasher and everything gets wiped down with vinegar.

[Fix The Stupid]

17. Ahhh... vinegar... is there nothing it can't clean?

Discovered the joys of cleaning with Vinegar...I'm pretty militant now

I throw in about a cup or 1/2 cup with every load in the dishwasher... keeps everything sparkling and I have the HARDEST water on the planet...

I also take an empty spray bottle, add a generous dollop of IVORY or DAWN, 1 cup of vinegar and fill the rest with water- Shake it up and you have the best cleaner I have ever found...

Maybe just coincidence, but I used to have a serious ant situation in my kitchen every year. I have been using the vineger/Dawn/Water combo for a few years now - no more ants... I mean, not even one...I don't think they like the smell or something...

[Major Nikon]

18. Natural stone

That's not to say it can clean it, but not without causing harm. There are some things you shouldn't clean with substances that aren't PH neutral. I try not to have those things in my kitchen because it just limits cleanup options too much. I like vinegar not so much for it's cleaning properties, but more for it's properties as a disinfectant.

[Arkansas Granny]

8. I used to have 4 dishwashers, but, alas, they all grew up and left home.

Same story with the vacuum cleaner, the lawn mower . . .

[Galileo126]

9. Clean as you go, but if not

Having 2 or more folks washing and wiping really helps.

I'm a firm believer of wash as you go, but I SOOOO understand how that can fall apart very quickly. As others above have said, it's about timing. If you mis-step, you can get behind. At that point, call in the troops!!

[Le Taz Hot]

11. I wash my mixing bowls and pots and pans out by hand

as I find they take up too much room in the dishwasher. I'd rather have dishes, bowls, silverware, glasses and cups washed by the dishwasher. And as others have said, I clean as I go. As soon as I finish one dish, I wash up, clean the counters and start the next dish.

[spinbaby]

12. My dream kitchen has two dishwashers

Also two ovens. A girl can dream, can't she?

Seriously, when we have family over for dinner, it generates about three dishwasher loads of dishes and each load takes two hours to wash. We deal with it, by stacking the dirty stuff on a kitchen counter. Then we play pinochle until the load is done, play pinochle some more, and put the last load in before bedtime. It takes a while but is better than washing all that by hand.

[hedgehog]

15. I've been planning my dream kitchen for 25 years!

I'm leaning to 2 dishwashers mainly because I have never had enough counter space for dirty dishes or drying dishes.

Now - if I could figure out how to have enough counter space for several trays of cookies - the problem there being my husband uses any horizontal surface for "temporary" storage.

[spinbaby]

16. My husband does that, too

Not so much the kitchen counters, but the table, becomes a parking place for "stuff." I deal with it by making sure we eat our meals at the table, which forces him to move the junk before we eat.

[grasswire]

13. you also need an adequate supply of dish towels

When I regularly entertained a dozen people couple of times a week, I quickly learned that. A full drawer of cotton dish towels is the ticket.

I'm sort of a Martha Stewart when it comes to table setting. Can't abide paper plates, or bare tables without even place mats, let alone a cloth. I'll even cart real dishes and cloth napkins to a picnic.

[Lucinda]

14. It would depend on the number of people being cooked for :)

If large crowds were a frequent thing, it would be worth it...Saves time and water.