After 2+ years of living in this house, I have finally, finally cleaned the oven. As with all past oven cleaning efforts, I feel it was way too late and way too soon. Anyone with me on this?
No?
Well, the way too late part is easy. Two Thanksgivings, two birthday cakes, four baked macaroni mishaps, pan roasted vegetables up the wazoo and countless spills putting food in the oven left the bottom of my oven looking like, well, like this:
If you ever get to the point where you question yourself as to the whereabouts of the fire extinguisher while preheating your oven, well, there's your sign. I thought about conducting an informal poll on this blog to find out just how many applications of Easy Off (a misnomer if I've ever heard one, but I'll get to that in a minute) Oven Cleaner you think I needed to use to actually see the bottom of my oven. But I'll put the three of you out of your misery. It took 4 liberal doses of the napalm known as Easy Off to find out what color my oven is. And that's just starting the cleaning effort way too late.The way too soon part? Well, that's a little trickier to explain. But it goes a long way toward understanding why I wait too long to clean my oven. I think I have PTSD when it comes to Easy Off. I have flashbacks about donning body armor (complete with a gas mask) and holding my breath longer than Houdini to apply the Easy Off. Even with the oven door only open the width of my wrist, I choke and gag during the application process, like someone has thrown a canister of tear gas into my kitchen. I'm in a panic for days after the cleaning, thinking the oven is permanently contaminated and my food will be too. And 4 applications? Come on! Easy Off my a$$.
Granted, no one responsible for developing Easy Off ever considered the notion that people might actually allow lava spills to develop in their ovens.
Whatever! I'm glad the chore-that-makes-me-wish-myself-dead is over. Mission accomplished. And if any of you have a better suggestion on how to clean lava spills out of an oven, let me know. I'm all ears. :)
Kristin