Monday, March 1, 2010

TIME TO CLEAN THE OVEN

Okay, if the smoke alarm keeps going off, it's a good sign it's time to clean the oven. It's one of my 'I hate doing this' jobs.

It would not be so bad but the cheese slid off of a home made pizza awhile back and puddled up on the bottom of the oven. I forgot to wipe it out before the next time I turned the oven on. When I did remember it, the kitchen was filling up with smoke and the alarm was blaring. It was too late, the puddled cheese was ash, stuck to the bottom of the oven.

Here is how I do it:

1 - take out the wire racks, put them in the bathtub, cover with very hot water, squirt in Dawn dish washing liquid, or Tide, whatever you have, let them soak overnight.

2 - spray the entire oven with Easy Off oven cleaner, being careful with the heating elements, cover your mouth with a towel or mask to keep from breathing in the fumes.

3 - close the door, soak overnight.

4 - next day, wipe the goop off with wet paper towels, wear gloves, please.

5 - wipe the wracks and put back into the clean oven.

6 - done.

It is a messy job for sure! But, letting it soak overnight eliminates the need of working with a warm oven, loosens the burnt on food because it turns to goop, it is so much easier than scrapping with a knife or other tool which could damage the oven surface.

To protect the floor, lay down newspapers. There will be drippings out of the oven because the cleaner is melting the grime.

My camera had to be returned to the manufacturer so there are no pictures, which is a good thing. It's messy to look at and do.

The best thing is, #6.
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UPDATE....It was just about an all day job, working left handed, you know. I would like to change one thing. Instead of paper towels, which kept falling apart, I used two old towels, wet them, wipe off the oven goo. It worked much better than the paper towels. My next house is going to have a self cleaning cook top!
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1 comment:

Tami Minor said...

Thanks for sharing this... oven cleaning is one of those things I always want to "think about tomorrow."