For some reason this weekend I was struck by the urge to get my pans SHINY again.  Not the inside of the pans - those are perfectly clean - but the outsides.  My pans hang in the kitchen, so the dreary griminess is very visible to myself and any visitors!  I spent a lot of time researching solutions, and I had some successes and some failures.  

Problem: Hard water stains on EVERYTHING.  My house has a well system, and our ground water is pretty darned hard, even after it's been run through the water softener.  I get white mineral deposits anywhere that water is allowed to dry.

The best (greenest) solution to water spots is vinegar.  Just straight white vinegar, which I keep in a spray bottle.  I spray it on the spotted area, let it soak, then scrub it dry with a cloth.  And I try to not be lazy and dry my dishes with a towel, instead of just stacking them in the rack!

I will confess that the vinegar works well on everything BUT my stainless steel pans.  I have no idea why.  I sprayed and scrubbed, and even took one site's advice and draped a vinegar dampened cloth over the stainless steel.  No dice.

Problem: Tarnished copper bottom on my grandmother's Revereware sauce pan.  I love this sauce pan, which is just the right size to cook most things I'm inclined to cook.  It was my grandmother's favorite, too, which adds to the sentimental value.  Too bad the copper bottom gets so grungy!

The classic way to clean copper is to slice a lemon in half, dip the cut end in salt, and scrub.  I did this for a little while over the weekend, but frankly, it took a little more elbow grease than I felt like dishing out.  I may have to go looking for a less environmentally friendly cleaning option.  I could see that it was working, but my arms gave out before the grunge did!

Problem: Tarnished stainless steel pans.  Aside from the water spots, the outsides and bottoms of my stainless steel pans are super grungy.  I think some of the grunge is baked on grease, because it felt slightly tacky when I picked at it with a fingernail.  But there's also plenty of plain old heat tarnish on there, particularly on the bottom of my big stock pot.  (I put it on a high burner to get it going - it can take a lot of heat to set three gallons of water to a boil!)

In this case, the "miracle cure" proved to be one of my favorite household cleansers: Comet With Bleach.  Please note that Comet With Bleach is NOT safe for aluminum or copper!  (I don't know what happens, but it specifically says it's safe for stainless steel, but doesn't mention any other metals.)

The secret to using Comet With Bleach is to make a thin paste or gruel, and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes before you start to scrub.  Comet With Bleach + green scrubbing pad = brilliantly sparkling stainless steel!  It also removed the stubborn hard water spots I mentioned earlier.