Paleo And Stuff: Clean Oven and Stove Drip Pans With Ammonia

My oven shames . There is never a point when I would ask a guest to remove anything from my oven. Yuck. They probably would not be willing to eat anything they knew came out of it.

Ok, truth: not really. It’s not that bad, but it is kind of gross. I have been putting off really cleaning it. The last time I did clean it I tried something new to me then. I had sprayed the whole inside of the oven with a squirt bottle of plain water. Then I sprinkled baking soda all over. Then it sat overnight and I wiped it up in the morning. Did it work? Yeah, I guess. Was it a breeze? No. Maybe it was too dirty for that, I don’t know. What I do know is it took a lot of elbow grease and I still never got all the spots off. Beyond that, it took me 3 days of adding more water and baking soda after scrubbing it down over and over.

So this time I am trying something different. Ammonia. Yes, it reeks, but boy that stuff has some cleaning power. I have already cleaned my burner drip pans with ammonia. I thought I lost my mind when they got so clean and beautiful with very little work.

To clean stove drip pans, just put each drip pain in a large ziplock baggie with a splash of ammonia, seal it and let it sit overnight. In the morning remove the drip pans and wipe clean. Yep, easy as that, even the worst cooked on spots, the ones you thought would be the bane of your kitchen forever, come right off!

After hearing the angel’s sing around my sparkly drip pans, I knew I needed to clean my oven with ammonia. So I will bear the smell of a thousand rancid litter boxes if it makes my oven sparkle.

To clean oven you will need: 2 heat-proof bowls, ammonia, boiling water, Dawn dish soap, rubber gloves, a scouring pad, and a nasty oven.

Preheat your oven to 200°.

Put some ammonia in one bowl and boiling water in the other bowl.

Turn oven off, put bowl of water on the bottom rack and bowl of ammonia on the top rack.

Close the oven and let it sit overnight.

In the morning open oven and remove bowls, don’t dump the ammonia, though.

Mix ammonia with 4 cups of water and about 2 tsp Dawn.

Use the ammonia mixture with the scouring pad to scrub the oven. Don’t forget your rubber gloves here. This will require a bit of elbow grease sometimes.

Wipe down the inside of your oven to remove cleaning mix. Spray with water and wipe again to be sure you got all the ammonia and Dawn out of your oven

Listen for the angels singing “Hallelujah” at the sight of your freshly clean oven.

*Disclaimer, I did not thoroughly clean my oven. You might wonder why, since I went through all the bother. Because my tiny kitchen was doing quite the assault on my body while I tried to reach all the crevices in my oven. There is only 4.5 inches on one side between the oven door and the fridge and only 8 inches to the cabinet. I stretched and reached and hung upside-down just trying to wipe out that darn oven. All things considered I am pleased with the results This is worth doing about twice a year I think. Next time I will do it in nicer weather so I can really open all my windows to ventilate that horrible smell.