Oven cleaning need not be toxic
A simple but powerful non-toxic cleaner
The answer to cleaning an oven with safe ingredients is, in my opinion, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. I also used a fruit bag, the brightly coloured plastic string bags that oranges can come in, as it makes an excellent cheap scourer and is the ultimate in reduce, re-use, recycle!
I started
with bicarbonate of soda, some white vinegar and an old
toothbrush. I made a paste (usually fairly exciting when
mixing these too ingredients, so care is needed!) and smeared it on
the filthy oven interior.
Cooking real food means that the oven gets used and the delicious fat off a free-range chicken makes the oven dirty. I know that I'd rather clean an oven occasionally than live on microwave creations in plastic containers, even though microwaving might be easier at times!
The joy of the bicarbonate of soda and vinegar mix is that it works at eating away at the grime and grease. I left my paste on the oven for about ten minutes and then took to scrubbing vigorously with the home-made fruit bag scourer and toothbrush!
As you can see the
'high-tech oven cleaner' is not actually complicated! Nor
does this cleaner come in an aerosol that is environmentally
dubious, and neither does it contain toxic ingredients. One
can eat both bicarbonate of soda (used as a raising agent in
baking) and vinegar the English are partial too on chips!
The best ways are often simple!
After a good workout, and using an eco-cloth to wipe and rinse the baking soda off the oven, I ended up with a beautifully clean oven, maybe a few smears of bicarb but no one is perfect, least of all me!
The whole cleaning process took me about forty minutes.
The results speak for
themselves!
I now have a lovely clean oven, which I used, only an hour later, to roast a chicken but it was worth it as the chicken was fabulously yummy!
Tags: non-toxic cleaners, bicarbonate of soda, real food