Kitchen Tip- Cleaning the Oven

I've showed you the best stuff for cleaning your stove top, but now, what about your oven? The dreaded oven cleaning! It's the one thing that people trying to sell their tidied up house can get away with not cleaning! How many of us think to look inside the oven when we are looking for a house to buy?

Sorry, I'm side tracking....first, self cleaning ovens. In fact, that's what this post is mostly about. I can't tell you how many people I know (okay, I admit I was one of them!) are afraid to use the self cleaning feature on their self cleaning ovens! I'll start with my story....it goes way back. We had bought our first house brand new and for the first 3, YES, I typed THREE on purpose believe it or not, I didn't use the self cleaning oven feature. Fear. Yep, fear was the only reason. I had never had a self cleaning oven. So, my sweet mother in law was over one time and some how the topic came up and guess what??? She has used her self cleaning oven feature many times! She assured me that my fears were silly and that all I had to do was turn it on and it would self lock and burn all the stuff to a crisp.

Did I mention that I hadn't cleaned it by hand either in THREE YEARS????

Oy. Well, let's just say that the oven was on lock down and smoke was billowing from it and filling the house. (No, this wasn't the time I caught the oven on fire with my friend, Michele, but the smoke was coming out just like that time I caught it on fire, minus the flames.) It was in the evening and thankfully it was summer time since we had to evacuate from the smoke and wait outside till it got under control. Ya, I smoked us out. I was totally embarrassed that I hadn't at least wiped up what I could with a rag before we started the cleaning cycle. So, we grabbed the kids and waited outside while my husband tried to air out the house from all the smoke. BUT, I have to say, it did an amazing job cleaning itself! Yep, it burnt all that stuff to a fine powder soot. I just took a wet paper towel (once the oven was cool of course) and wiped up the soot in one swoop. No scrubbing, no cleaners, nada!

So, now I run the cleaning cycle more like every 3 MONTHS instead of every 3 YEARS! And, it's a simple few hours of a toasty oven and it's all clean. I try to do most of the cleaning cycles during the cooler winter months instead of the summer.

Things to note:
-it takes a few hours....often about 3 hours
-remove anything that is sitting on the stove top
-turn on your exhaust fan if you have one
-wipe out any big spills before you begin =0)
-plan to stay home while it's cleaning

How to clean an oven that doesn't magically clean itself? I use to use Bar Keeper's Friend and sometimes oven cleaner. I know those are harsh chemicals but I didn't really experiment with other alternatives. I wore dish gloves and kept the kitchen well ventilated. The Bar Keeper's Friend works wonderfully.

Anyone have a suggestion for something that works great for a non-self cleaning oven??? Share in the comments!

Tomorrow I'll post my cleaning checklists and cleaning routines....