How to clean an oven naturally... after a much needed clean!

Pin It Now! Thats right, its time to clean the oven. Its getting cold out and no one wants to go outside in the rain. Why not clean your oven? BEFORE it starts on fire... Thats right, I said fire...

My girly friend came over the other night with pizza. It was this giant pizza, with tomatoes spinach and lots of cheese! (I know, not part of my healthy choices)... anyways... I heated up the oven and we started our much needed girly chat at the table in the kitchen.

I looked over at the oven and smoke was coming out of the elements. My thought, "this cannot be good." Seconds later smoke was billowing out of the sides of the door of the oven... "Ok, definitely NOT good!" I opened the oven to see how bad the damage was and flames flew out at me! (I am skipping the ridiculous conversation my friend and I had or the amount of time we let the fire continue) I quickly closed the oven door, grabbed my giant container of baking soda (and I mean GIANT) and emptied it into the oven covering the flames. Surprisingly, it wasn't enough to put the fire out so I grabbed my extra large container of flour, and started scooping handfuls of it throwing it in the oven... Blast! What a MESS!!! Yes, we do have a fire extinguisher... but I was told it makes a real mess... I don't think it can be messier then this...

Baking soda and flour was EVERYWHERE!

The worst part, We didn't even get to put our pizza in the oven to cook... and my goodness were we both sooooooo hungry!!!

 Until I realized I have a mini oven. We sliced up the pizza and put a couple slices in there at a time... The first round. Burnt. Black on the bottom...

 Anyways... back to my oven. I told you this whole using the oven and cooking was new to me and now I realize how dirty it gets when you use it so often. The oven fire was caused from my first homemade turkey! I left it for 3 days dreading the day I will clean it up. Not only because it was a HUGE mess but I was told and researched how bad using an oven cleaner was for your health... Did you know they suggest a mask and opening all windows and doors and the use of a fan while using oven cleaner? Yikes. Oven cleaner is NOT good stuff... Good to know. It is also soooo expensive. At my grocery store it cost $20... much too much for a part-time worker! Especially when I can do the same job using non-toxic chemicals for free! Yay to being Thrifty!

So I looked up what our people of the past used to clean the ovens. Good ol' arm and hammer baking soda, white vinegar and lemon! Best inventions ever! I obviously had to pick some more up as I used my other stuff in the fire...
I first took a rag and wiped up the stuff that created the fire. Turkey grease from Thanksgiving!
Then I dusted the baking soda all over the oven.
Next I grabbed an old spray bottle and poured vinegar in it. I sprayed the vinegar all over the baking soda and let it fuzz and sit for 2 hours. This loosened up the grime I couldn't remove with the rag. 2 hours later I grabbed my scrubby that has no metals and scrubbed the heck outta the oven. It really wasn't that much work! My trusty natural cleaners did most of the work!

 I took a pic of my oven door half cleaned. I just wanted to show you how it just came off with a little elbow grease. Look how dirty this oven is...

I tackled this next... 

Yay a  clean oven door! By the way, did you know your oven door comes off of most models? I didn't until I accidentally almost pulled it off... Good to know.

 This is my cleanish oven! I know there is still grime on it but it looks worse in the picture then in real life. Promise!

And from  now on I am using this tinfoil liner I bought from the dollar store (but I am sure you could lay tinfoil down...

I put the door back on, cut the lemon in half covered them in water and baked it in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 min. The leftover grease comes off with a rag after the oven cools enough for you to wipe.
And your home is left with that scrump citrus smell!