Do you live alone or have a perfect memory? If you answered no to either of these then you may have done the same thing I just did. I was making cupcakes the other day and as usual, I turned on the oven. I didn’t check to see if there was anything in the oven before I turned it on.
What Happened
I’m sure you can guess what happened. When I opened the oven door to put in the cupcakes, I found my Tupperware container melting…all over my oven. It seems that my husband had placed the left over brownies in the oven to be out of the way. Well, so much for that container. Due to my gasping, my husband came into the kitchen to see what was going on. I turned off the oven and grabbed a couple of pot holders to remove the rack, Tupperware and all. I took it outside and set it on the recycle bin to cool while I dealt with the mess in the bottom of the oven. Fortunately I had an oven liner in the bottom of the oven and all of the melted Tupperware landed on it. I took a pair of tongs and pulled it out, folded it up and my husband threw it away.
Cleaning the rack
Now comes the hard part. Most of the Tupperware broke off of the rack, but some had melted all around the rungs. That was a little harder to clean. I have one of those razor blade gizmos that you use to clean glass stove tops. I used it to scrape the rungs of the rack. My husband has a knife that is really hard so he used it to cut thru the melted rubber. Surprisingly, it only took us about 10-15 minutes to clean up the mess.
The Lesson Learned
I know to check the oven before I turn it on, I just didn’t think this time. Something that would have taken all of 2 seconds cost me a good 20 minutes and a favorite Tupperware container. I got real lucky that I had the oven liner or I would still be trying to clean the bottom of the oven or worse, replacing my oven. I think I will always remember to check the oven from now on. You never know what you’ll find… or save.
Have you ever forgotten to check something and paid for it later?
I’ve pulled this trick before, too, and I still haven’t learned not to use the oven as a storage locker. Guess I’m a slow learner.
I’ve forgotten to check a bunch of things and kicked myself later for it. Our biggest problem is that hubby forgets to put a pan on the rack under pies, so we end up spending 30 minutes getting apple pie goo out of the bottom of the oven every dang time, lol.