Ahh, a cleaning project completed feels so good!

Today, I would like to pass on a little tidbit I found that actually worked better than expected. I have lived in the same house for almost 10 years. I have never cleaned the vent hood cover effectively. I am a clean freak, and this is completely out of character for me. However, it was not for lack of trying. I simply had not found anything that worked. It was so dirty, it was dripping grease down onto the stove. ICK! Over the years, I have tried soaking it in dish soap, running it in the dishwasher and other methods that have resulted in dirtying the appliances, rags and tools - sometimes beyond saving, but not making much difference in the caked-on grease on the filter. I came across a blog post on Pinterest from One Good Thing by Jillee in which she cleans her vent hood filter with boiling water and baking soda. She had amazing results, so I thought it was worth a try. I really had nothing to lose at this point.

I heated my 22 quart stock pot-overkill, I know but it was seriously DIRTY- to a boil. I only filled it about half full, but it seemed to take forever to heat that lake's worth of water! Then I added about 3/4 cup of baking soda. It does fizz, as the blogger mentioned, so be sure to leave enough room at the top of your pot to accommodate this. I put the filter in and boiled it for about 15 minutes, and the filter turned out like-new-clean. I retrieved the filter from the pot with a pair of tongs and rinsed it in tap water so I could touch it more quickly. Then I let it dry on a paper towel overnight. I should mention, it didn't fizz after that first burst when I added the baking soda, but after about 15 minutes of boiling, it started to fizz on its own like pasta beginning to boil over, so be sure to watch your pot, just in case.

Honestly, I didn't expect this method to work, so I didn't take "before" pictures. Turns out, I really should have since it worked beautifully. Here's the "after" picture. Nice and shiny!

Below is the pot after I boiled the filter. YUCK!

Even my husband was impressed! It feels so good to complete a cleaning project successfully, especially with so many unsuccessful attempts under my belt. 

Happy Cleaning!