Cleaning My Filthy Oven

My husband is wonderful, and I couldn't be luckier to have him.  He's a great cook, and to be honest, he does most of the cooking on weekends.  One Sunday afternoon, he grilled up some ribs and finished them up in the oven.  The sauce boiled over, as bar-b-q sauce tends to do.  He didn't notice it, didn't clean it up, and the next time I turned on the oven, I managed to create a burned charcoal mess.  Therefore the need to clean my oven.

I didn't want to use a heavy chemical cleanser or the self-cleaning option.  I've moved towards more natural cleansers in my home and frankly, the self-cleaning option really stinks up the house.  I found some instructions on Craptastical.com for cleaning an oven using clean ingredients.  The comments after the post were a bit different from what I've noticed in the past; some said this process worked great, others said it was a definite Pinterest fail.  I thought, why not.

The ingredients:
a few drops of Dawn dish detergent
4 Tbs of baking soda
5 Tbs of white vinegar
lime or lemon juice

The instructions:
mix together to form a paste
slather oven
let stand for a few hours
scrub off
wipe down

Now, I'm not one for using precise measurements. I admit, I eyeballed it.  My first mixture seemed a bit watery, so I added more baking soda to create more paste. I also didn't use lemon juice simply because I didn't have any.

I smeared the concoction all over my oven and the glass door.  I highly suggest that you coat the oven's interior first.  I didn't, and I ended up getting the paste all over my shirt.

(Look at all the grime that came loose! Yuck!)

I let it sit for about two hours, and then the scrubbing commenced.  The result?  Well, I have a clean oven, but it took a bit more elbow grease than I expected.  Smoky residue came off easily, and some baked on splatters came off with just a bit of scrubbing.  The base of my oven was a completely different story.

I ended up taking off the oven door and sliding the oven pan out, which really freaked out my son.  He thought I broke the oven.  With his help and some steel wool, we managed to remove most of the burnt-on honey bbq sauce.  At least it looks better.  I will use this oven cleaning technique again, but I won't have to worry about spilled, baked-on, burnt goop.  I'm buying a foil oven liner tomorrow.

What This Is All About and Pretzel Bagels

I am a Pinterest junkie.  It's my homepage, my go-to site when I'm searching for anything (Who needs Google?), and the cause of self-induced anxiety.  The craft projects are so perfectly completed, the recipes look simply delicious, the gardens grow so well, and the pictured homes are so neat and organized.  I have encountered many of my personal Pinterest fails, yet at the same time, have had great success with some of the ideas I have found. 

One thing I try to do is read the comments on the blogs where pins I like are found.  For the most part, people rave about the recipe or craft, write that they can't wait to try it, or ask questions about substitutions.  Rarely are reviews found.  I realize that bloggers moderate the comments on their pages, but reviews would be helpful for pseudo, wanna-be crafters  and chefs like me.

So, that is the point of this blog.  I'm going to track my Pinterest attempts and provide honest reviews about the results.

Homemade Pretzel Bagels

Today I attempted something that has intimidated me for a while.  I make my own bread from a recipe I found on...can you guess?  I'm trying move my family to cleaner eating, and this recipe from mummydeals.org is the best I've found for my bread machine.  I also make sandwich thins/buns from this recipe from myretrokitchen.blogspot.com. My youngest son, however, seems to live off of bagels, and I haven't tried making those, until today.

I found this recipe through Pinterest and have included its link here.  I know that most blogger mommies would make the bagels, taste them, tweak the recipe, make them again, then take beautiful pictures.  I'm not typical by any means, and most of the time, I do everything by the seat of my pants without planning.  That is why I'm taking pictures while I make these bagels the first time.

I almost immediately deviated from the recipe.  The dough seemed a bit dry during the kneading process, so I added a splash of water.  That made the dough really gooey, so I added some flour. The next step called for the dough to rise in a warm place.  I never know what recipes mean when they say put the dough in a warm place to rise.  Is my countertop warm enough?  I'm not an accomplished bread maker, and I've only mastered a few recipes. So, I set the oven to 200°F and turned it off when it reached 150°.  I put my covered bowl in the oven and left the door open for about 10 minutes. Hopefully this works.

(Ugh...my oven is disgusting.  I'll have to search Pinterest for deep cleaning ideas and post the results.)

I ended up allowing the dough to rise for about 45 minutes longer than I intended.  My kids and my dog were bouncing off the walls, so we all bundled up and headed outside.  No harm done though. The dough doubled in size, and I was easily able to make sixteen bagels.

(I need to work on my bagel shaping skills.)

I used parchment paper, and I did not add extra oil as suggested in the recipe.  I didn't have any problems with the bagels sticking.  I did however, let the bagels drain for a few seconds on a cooling rack before I put them back on the parchment covered cookie sheets.  

(I boiled the bagels for 15 seconds on each side.)

Final verdict? Not terrible.  My oldest son said they tasted weird, and my daughter didn't finish hers. There is a strange taste when you first bite into the bagel, and I think that comes from the baking soda in the boiling water.  This is the only bagel recipe I found that called for that particular step.  I didn't top the bagels with salt prior to baking; that may have also impacted the taste a bit.  I'm not one for throwing food away, so I'll slice and freeze them. I'm sure they will be fine once topped with gobs of cream cheese.

(Regardless of how they taste, they look pretty.)

**UPDATE**  My husband and youngest son loved these bagels.  I guess their opinion weighs heavier in this case since they eat more bagels than my other two children and me combined.  My son said they were "...mind blowingly good, and a little sweet like water"  I have no idea what that means, but he said it's a good thing.  

One thing I learned is don't make a judgement, or post a blog, until all votes are in.  

Final verdict...success.