Pack your bags Mr Muscle, you're leaving...

PHOTO CREDIT:  Vintage Monday - Pink Stove by Bee in My Bonnet

How is your oven looking now that the large festive meals are over and done with?  This article is a slight deviation but I have to share this nugget with anyone reading.

I don't know about you but my poor oven doesn't get the attention my mum used to give hers with it's once a week thorough clean.  My glass door was so embarrassingly neglected that after several years, I could barely see through it.  On occasion, I would tape up the rubber seals, protect the floors with dish cloths and ventilate the kitchen in order to spray some super dooper extra strong, flammable and dangerously toxic cleaner which had to be left a good while before an attack of the wire wool was under way.

Some time last year, my mother in-law watched me scrubbing my roasting dish and suggested that I soak it in hot water with my washing powder.  I followed this advice and when I rinsed it off, it was as good as new.

This Christmas Eve morning, I got up early and decided that I wanted to be able to see our dinner turn from raw to edible and pulled out the rubber gloves and super dooper extra strong, flammable and dangerously toxic oven cleaner.  Before taping the seals, a light bulb lit up above my head and I took out my Ecover powder and small tub of bicarbonate of soda.  I'd recently read on an eco site about wonders of bicarbonate of soda so I mixed a desert spoon in with a tablespoon of washing powder before adding a few spoonfuls of water.

With a 'non-scratch brillo', I scrubbed my solution on to the glass and the surrounding inner oven door and left it for about a minute.  Then with the sponge side of the non-scratch brillo, I rubbed over the window and all the grease and grime slid off.  After removing all the grease and grime, I rinsed it a couple of times with cold water and it now looks very much as it did when I got it six years ago.
If you've any green alternatives of your own, share them with us and give this one a try.  I'm never using oven cleaner again.