Of course when it came time to do my research I could not seem to find all those wonderful posts. So I turned to Google....hurray for Google! After reading a couple of threads and putting together what I have learned so far this year on my crusade to clean, I came up with a plan.
Gross baking dish
Hot water
Dawn {the blue stuff}
Baking soda
Bowl
Sponge
Now, pour some baking soda into a bowl so you can use it for dipping your sponge into. Get the sponge wet then ring it out, you just want it wet enough that the baking soda will stick to it when it is dipped in the bowl.
Go to town scrubbing!!!! Rinse off the dish every once in a while so you can see where to keep working on. I just used the soapy water that was already in the sink. No need to be wasteful. As I kept getting closer and closer looking at my dish in amazement as it came clean so easily, the thought came to me that I was happy this was working so well and I did not have to worry about breathing in any harsh chemicals.
A couple of tips:
The more paste like the baking soda is, the better it will scrub clean the dish. When you pull the dish out of the sink let as much water drip off as you can {no need to use a towel and dry it} and be sure to squeeze the water out of the sponge when you rinse it out.
Our sink is pretty small so only half of the baking dish could fit in and soak at a time. With the dish that was not as bad I went ahead and cleaned the whole thing. There was a bit of a difference in how much elbow grease was needed to clean the side that had not soaked. It still worked but took a bit of extra time. On my really bad dish, I gave up and will let it soak first.
We do not have a dish washer but I wonder if running the dish through the rinse cycle and taking it out before it dries would work. If you try this let me know how it goes.
Can you see the difference. I am so excited! I told my husband that now we can take dishes to Pot Lucks and not worry that people are judging our food by the look of our foggy-brown glass dishes any more.
I really was super surprised and pleased with how well and fast these dishes cleaned up. Watching as the baking soda paste turned brown grossed me out and made we want to jump for joy at the same time. My back is killing me from this pregnancy but I stayed at the sink on my feet for as long as I could before I had to give up. My back can rest up tonight and then I will finish the job tomorrow.