Wednesday, January 29, 2014

A Clean Oven

A few weeks ago I was preparing a Quiche Lorraine, which is one of my all time favorites.  I had all of the ingredients measured and ready to go.  We had just thoroughly cleaned the microwave and glass range-top the day before, so I decided I would cook the bacon for this quiche in the oven.  For reasons I still do not understand, I placed the bacon in the oven on a sheet of foil under the broiler. It promptly caught on fire!!! So badly, in fact, I needed the use of a fire extinguisher which, thankfully, I had in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.  A lesson learned for us all.  Make sure you keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.


So here it was on the sheet of foil before being placed in the oven.


Here it was halfway through the cooking.  It actually looked delicious at this point and should have been removed to a paper towel.  But oh no.  I wanted to cook the other side.


And this is how it ended up.

Needless to say, the oven was a mess, what with the bacon grease, the after-effects of the fire and the powder from the fire extinguisher.  After two thorough scrubbings with Easy-Off and then a regular self cleaning cycle, this is what we had.


A lovely clean oven once again.  Believe me, this was no easy feat.  I thought I never would get it clean.


But, after a lot of elbow grease and the wonderful self-clean cycle, we were back in business.  The silver liner you see in the bottom is wonderful.  They catch anything that might boil over during the cooking process.  They do not, however, help much if the oven catches on fire!!  The red things on the front of each rack are silicone "bumpers" which are there to keep you from burning yourself when placing dishes it or removing dishes from a hot oven.

So the bottom line is this - Do not cook bacon in the oven right underneath the broiler.  Place it on a foil lined baking sheet on the center rack at 325 degrees and watch is closely.  See.  Even I make blunders from time to time.

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