If you don’t know about self-cleaning ovens, let me educate you. First off, the oven does not really clean anything. YourSELF and mySELF do all the preparation: washing oven door, removing the bottom drawer (with pots and pans in it) away from the oven, and removing the oven racks.) The racks must be scrubbed by yourSELF. All the parts that sit on top of the oven (stove pieces) must also be cleaned by yourSELF. Well, you ask, what does the oven do? The oven heats up to 550 degress Farenheight. Stays on for 4 hours at that temp, then the cycle is over. A more accurate description – the oven burns up the grime in itself and turns it to ash.

So, now, when the oven is fully cooled off, you need to get your damp rags and wipe out all of the ashes now inside your oven. Uh Oh! Remember the racks lying in the driveway “soaking” in 409? You must go scrub them, and wash them up. OMG, you never pulled out that pan drawer out, so your cookie sheets, griddle, pizza pan and the like have been terrorized by fire.

In case you are wondering – they all survived. My hands and arms are angry with me after spending the last 3 days scrubbing. I am also angry because the burnt on grease underneath the burner covers is so caked on that I can’t get it all off. How did I not notice this? I keep the stove top sparkly clean. But spills and splatters drip underneath the cover and build up and bake on.