Post-holiday Oven Clean Up
The out-of-town guests and Thanksgiving feast leftovers are long gone, but there is one thing from last weekend that hasn’t disappeared yet—the
greasy, splattered mess inside my oven! My poor oven paid a price for giving us one very crispy, brown-skinned bird and two juicy apple pies—among other things! Time to clean it out before the next round of heavy baking.
If your oven worked overtime on Turkey day and has similar baked on spills and splatters, don’t be tempted to use a conventional oven cleaner you pick up at the grocery store. Conventional oven cleaners that come with warning labels like “poison,” “danger,” and “corrosive” create toxic fumes and can burn eyes, skin and internal organs. You not only compromise your health and safety when using such dangerous products: they are released to the environment through evaporation of volatile components and when rinsed down the drain, contributing to air and water
pollution.
Whip up a safe, effective and inexpensive oven cleaning solution by combining three ingredients you probably have on hand right now.
1. Combine 6 T (tablespoons) baking soda, 1 T liquid dish soap and 1 T white vinegar to make a paste. (Note: when adding the vinegar to the baking soda it will foam a bit.)
2. Using a rubber spatula, spread the paste over the baked-on grease and burnt-on food.
3. Close the oven door and walk away. After 20 minutes, spritz with hot water and let sit another 10 minutes before wiping clean. For stubborn spots, use a coarse rag or sponge and apply a bit of elbow grease!
Learn more about natural, green cleaning at http://www.greenmatters.com/green-tips/housekeeping/
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How do self-cleaning ovens work – is it just as bad for the environment?
Comment by Liz — December 2, 2011 @ 9:54 pm
Self-cleaning ovens work by super-heating the interior, usually to between 800 and 900 degrees F, to incinerate baked-on food and grease. The term self-cleaning is a bit of a misnomer because a certain amount of ash will remain in the oven after the “self-cleaning” cycle has ended, and this has to be wiped out with a damp sponge or cloth. The self-cleaning feature uses extra energy, but this feature is usually used rarely: in most case about once or twice a year. If you have an oven with this feature, it is far better to utilize it than a conventional spray-on oven cleaner.
Comment by admin — December 2, 2011 @ 10:21 pm