Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Mess in the Oven?

Last night I put some sweet potatoes in the oven and they dripped their gunk on the bottom, causing a not-so-lovely burnt smell and odor to start competing with the perfect aroma of my home-cooked meal. I still needed to finish cooking and didn't want to try and clean a hot oven.

Does this ever happen to you?

Try this tip my mom taught me:

Pour salt to cover the burnt gunk (yes, this is the technical term) at the bottom of your oven. It will stop it from burning and you can continue cooking.

This is supposed to be a temporary solution, I suppose, but I can say from experience as long as the gunk is covered with salt, you can keep cooking and cooking and cooking for weeks, um, actually months this way.

SPC

8 comments:

JerseyBaby said...

I love the honesty, as I am NOT an oven cleaner, and if I found a solution like pouring salt, would surely abuse it.

Anonymous said...

This actually happens to me EVERY time I cook sweet potatoes. I started placing a cookie sheet under them in the oven cause I got tired of cleaning it up. I have a self cleaning oven, and after the mess, I turn on the self cleaning oven and almost always the goopy mess catches on fire!

Steel Magnolia said...

very good tip. I am horrible about cleaning our oven (it's my Dirty Little Secret)

The Mrs. said...

Love that tip! Never heard of it!!!

Slacker Mama said...

That sounds much more effective than just letting smell linger every time I turn on the oven.

Or stopping use of the oven.

Maybe I'll give it a shot!

emstitt said...

Wait a second...we're supposed to be cleaning our ovens?

Shoot.

Sweet Pea Chef said...

E--I know, I mean, who are we, Super mom?

Anonymous said...

I use a cookie sheet, too, and line it with foil and place it on the lower shelf. It helps a lot!!