It’s been exactly a week since Thanksgiving. Honestly, it seems more like a month ago. That said, the remains of the holiday are still very present here in the house. I can promise you it is not an issue of leftovers; they were polished off days ago.
Yesterday, I fired up my oven to make a loaf of Irish soda bread. Five minutes later every smoke alarm had gone off. I entered the kitchen to find fumes rising thick from the burners. Making sure there had been no fire, I turned on the vent and started walking through the old farm house opening windows and doors.
It took two pounds of butter to make three pies, and most of those pounds dripped up and over their rims. The green bean casserole bubbled over because I didn’t have a dish large enough. The juices from the massive turkey splattered every time I basted it. The combined mass had created a slight layer of burnt offerings at the bottom of my oven.
I never liked the cancer-in-a-can spray fumes for cleaning ovens. So, I just didn’t clean my ovens. What little mess I had, would just burn off. If it became an issue, my lease would eventually be up and I moved into a new home with a sparkling clean oven.
My ovens over the last few years have had that lovely “self-clean” option. In the beginning I used it often. Per the manufacture’s advice, I wiped, or in my case, scraped the bits and pieces on the oven floor before I turned it on.
One day, while still living in Wyoming, I scraped the oven and fired up the self-clean. In a matter of minutes, the smoke alarm blared and quick like a bunny, I ran into the kitchen. The entire oven floor had been engulfed in flames. Pretending I had been calm, cool and collected, but terrified inside, I quickly shut everything off and unplugged the oven. That had been the last time I used self-clean.
I chose from there on to go old-school, just wipe what I could and let the rest burn off. Maybe this is not the best option, but my current oven is gas. Gas!
From now on, I am the “self-clean” option, and most days, I opt out.
Chris Writes 