Helpful Household Tips for Ovens and Burnt Food Oder/Smoke.

Last night while trying to make pecan tarts, I dropped pan of a dozen pecan tarts on the bottom of the oven. What a mess! At the time I did not know what to do. I turned off the oven and got the pan and the shells out of the oven. The sticky pecan filling was still on the bottom. I decided I would clean it in the morning and off to bed.

This morning I decided to use the self-clean feature of my oven, BIG MISTAKE. I ended up filling the house full of smoke, setting of the smoke detectors and it is cold outside here today. I bundled the kiddos up and strapped them all into the mini van with the heat going on high. I went back in to the house to "air" it out. Once I got all the smoke out, I remembered two books I have with household helpful tips. "Talking Dirty with the Queen of Clean" by Linda Cobb and "Haley's Hints" by Graham Haley. I wished I would have looked at these books last night!

Tip #1 from Linda Cobb's book.
For spills or run overs in the oven that starts to smoke, poor a heavy layer of table salt over it and continue to cooking. The odor of smoke should stop right away. When your all done turn it off and wait overnight, next day you should be able to lift out the spill with a spatula/pancake turner.

Tip #2
To clean the oven, preheat to 200F and leave on for 15 minutes. Shut off and leave the door closed, fill a shallow glass dish with ammonia and put on the top shelf. On the lower shelf place a pan with 2 cups boiling water. Close door leaving both pans in side for at least 2 hours to overnight. Remove pans, make a paste of ammonia, 1/2 cups baking soda, and 1 cup white vinegar. Spread this mixture over the surface and leave it for 15 minutes. Come back scrub with a sponge and steel wool if needed. This should work on heavily soiled ovens.

Tip #3 from Graham Haley's book.
To quickly disperse smoke from burnt food, swirl a wet bath towel around the room for a few minutes. I wished I knew this one this morning.

Tip #4
To get baked on spills out, apply a paste of baking soda, water, and elbow grease. This method takes a lot of elbow grease.