A Much Cleaner Stove and an Amuse Bouche

Imagine showing up to your new apartment and finding a kitchen stove that looked like this:

You can just imagine my reaction.

Luckily (perhaps), I had a week without cooking gas to determine the best way to clean thoroughly caked-on grime off a stove. It was Pinterest to the rescue! Weeks back, when I was less than optimistic about what my new apartment would look like, I had noticed a "clean stove/dirty stove" pin and saved it to my apartment board.

It was a simple fix, really. I combined baking soda and peroxide to make a paste, put the paste on an abrasive cooking sponge, and scrubbed. Most of the grime came off quickly. Some required a little more elbow grease.

I've never really considered myself a clean person, but I'm desperate to make myself one. I could submit as evidence the list of "must-have supplies" my friend Megan compiled for me, my multiple Target bills for cleaning supplies that I didn't know existed a few weeks ago and the fact that I googled "what cleaning product do you use to mop floors?" while I was at the store today.

I also think I've swept my new floors more times than I swept my old apartment last year, and I've only been here a bit more than week. 

Here's a little amuse bouche that tastes as clean and refreshing as my apartment feels to me: a one-bite summer salad.

It amused our palates at the start of the dinner party I threw a few weeks back with the help of McCormick Gourmet. It's a light summer salad with cubed, skinless cucumber, halved cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced sugar snap peas, a tiny lemon basil leaf, olive oil, salt and just a sprinkling of McCormick Gourmet Collection Tuscan Seasoning Blend.

I served the salad in Chinese soup spoons, of which I now have ten.

It's not fancy, but sometimes it doesn't need to be.

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