Kitchen Cleanup - Super Bowl Aftermath

The big game has come and gone, and you have survived hosting the family Super Bowl fiesta. Buffalo wing sauce is splattered all over the inside of the oven, and home-made tortilla chips have spread a tacky residue of oil within a three-foot radius of the tortilla frying pan. Let’s not forget that during the pre-game show, Uncle Emmet cried out “Great Scott!” as he tossed a football to little Marty, followed by a fumble, and a flag on the play as the hot pan of nacho cheese was dumped all over the front burner, creating a blackened crust around burner grate on your gas stove.

Your team may have won, but you know that you are the big looser as you survey the disaster you call your kitchen. Even your little toaster oven, used to heat up the frozen meatballs, has you thinking that you long-awaited kitchen remodel might be worth the cost, so you can avoid the disaster cleanup. However, if you would rather save your money, and go on that luxury cruise, you are in luck! There are a few simple and very effective ways to handle this kitchen crisis.

Oven and/or Toaster Oven

First of all… is your oven self-cleaning? If so, that is one nasty job that can be taken care of with the turn of a dial, about 4 hours of waiting, and 1.21 gigawatts of power. However, if you don’t have a self-cleaning oven (many apartments don’t) and/or you have a dirty little toaster oven, you must face this potentially unpleasant task.

Commercial Products:

Fortunately, cleaning experts like those as Johnson & Johnson have created a cold-oven spray foam that will break up the baked-on residue of the inside of your oven in about 30 minutes. CAUTION: Please read ALL of the instructions carefully, and recognize that if you have respiratory problems, you are better off using the Make-It-Yourself method in this article.

To use a cold-oven cleaner, you need to wear plastic gloves, cover your arms, and avoid the fumes, when you are applying the foam, and when you are removing the foaming cleaning bubbles. Additionally, on electric ovens (including toaster ovens), the instruction tell you to avoid getting the foam on the heating element.

Make-It-Yourself Products:

A good alternate method to the foam cleaners has been discovered by brave explorers who value their epidermis (skin) and respiratory system (lungs). The following items are needed for your Do-It-Yourself (DIY) oven-cleaning paste for the regular oven, or the toaster oven, which works wonderfully, and smells great at the same time. You will need:

1.       Baking soda (10 tablespoons)

2.       Vinegar (4 tablespoons)

3.       A squirt of quality dishwashing soap (not dishwasher soap, please)

4.       One lemon

5.       A sponge with one abrasive side

6.       A pair of gloves (wet baking soda can dry out your skin)

7.       Paper towels

8.       Your favorite all-purpose cleaner

Remove your oven racks (of course, your oven should be cold). Mix the first three items together in a bowl (you should have a runny paste). Put on your gloves, and use the soft-side of the sponge to spread the paste all around the inside of the oven, including the door. If the paste is too runny, add more baking soda, as needed (but don't go overboard). Allow the paste to sit in the oven overnight. 

The next day, cut the lemon in half, and use the lemon to scrub the inside surface of the oven, which will moisten the baking soda, and help the cleaning effect as well. Moisten the sponge, and scrub the inside of the oven with the abrasive side (assuming your oven manufacturer allows cleaning with an abrasive pad). Rinse off the sponge periodically. The blackened food will come off quite easily. Moisten some paper towels, wipe off the remaining baking soda residue. If needed, use your favorite all-purpose cleaner to shine up the inside of the oven, or use a clean sponge with straight vinegar. HINT: After doing all this cleanup (if you have an electric oven), you can place a couple of strips of aluminum foil UNDERNEATH the bottom heating element. This will catch future spills, and reduce the number of times you have to clean your oven.

Burner Grates

The part of the stovetop that covers a gas burner is called the burner grate. When these get covered in cooked-on food, they can be difficult to clean. You can put them in your dishwasher, but all you will find at the end of the washer cycle is dishwasher-sanitized baked-on food. However, there is an amazingly easy way to clean these grates. This is what you will need:

1.       Four 1-gallon, freezer, Ziplock bags (or some other brand of zipper-type baggie)

2.       About one cup of ammonia (Caution: If you have respiratory problems, and if short exposure to ammonia will cause you health problems, please do not used this cleaning method. You may just have to live with dirty grates, or bribe someone else to use this cleaning method).

3.       One sponge, with one abrasive side

Put each burner grate into its own zipper bag. Hold your breath (safely) and pour about ¼ cup of stinky ammonia into a bag, and quickly zip it closed, securely. Repeat for the other three burner grates. Let the grates sit in their ammonia spa overnight. The next day, quickly open a baggie, and pour the ammonia down the drain. Rinse the baggie and zip it close to reduce the odor. Use the abrasive side of the sponge to scrub off the grate, and “Hallelujah!” The baked on gunk has succumbed to the overnight ammonia spa treatment, and the grate will clean easily.

A Sticky Situation Handled Nicely

Now, for the tacky oil residue that has covered the surface of your range top, the burner dials, the range hood, and anything else that is within the reach of hot, splattering grease. If you are like most people, the grease cleanup has waited a little too long, and now the grease has turned into something that resembles clear tar. Even if you are an amazing person (or a little OCD) and clean up as soon as you are done cooking, you will likely find some spots later where the oil has collected, which resists most cleaning solutions. Here is your miracle cure: Mineral oil. Yep. You know, the stuff you rubbed on your baby to keep the baby’s skin soft? That’s the stuff. Interestingly enough, if you rub mineral oil on the stuck-tight oil on your stove, it seems to re-hydrate the old oil splatter, and you can gently rub the area to clean up the old splatters. Then, use your favorite all-purpose cleaner to remove the slippery oil from the surface of your range, and you are done.  It’s that easy.

So, whether your team won or lost at the Super Bowl, you can have an award-winning experience cleaning up.