We’ve heard of people cleaning potatoes in the dishwasher or even cooking salmon in aluminum foil but is there a way to cook your heart out dishwasher style, without being super inefficient and wasting all that water and/or avoiding fish stink? Yes! Says the Internet. Yes indeed, there is.

NPR’s The Salt blog was just as intrigued and yet skeptical of such a scheme — because who wants to run an entire dish cycle without soap just to poach some salmon, delicious though it’s said to be? And all those dirty dishes waiting for their turn aren’t going to wash themselves, after all.

Here’s where a pretty ingenious idea comes to the rescue, by way of an Italian food writer named Lisa Casali. She says you can have it all — dishes washed and food cooked at the same time: Instead of wrapping food in foil and skipping the soap, you can cook food in airtight canning jars or food vacuum bags. No hot, soapy water touches the food as it steams away happily, and your plates and glasses come out sparkling clean just in time for dinner.

Casali has an entire cookbook dedicated to dishwasher dining, but its recipes for couscous, veal and even dessert are only in Italian.

Instead you can check out her videos on Vimeo (with English subtitles, whew) for your own inspiration. If anyone out there tries it this way, send an email to tips@consumerist.com and let us know how it goes.

Now if only I actually had a dishwasher.

Dishwasher Cooking: Make Your Dinner While Cleaning The Plates [The Salt]

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