How to get melted plastic out of your oven

Kitchen Tip Tuesday

AKA: How to plastic coat your food...

On Easter Sunday, my Father-in-law had decided to stay home and work on some stuff for work. I asked him to put the ham and cheesy potatoes in the oven. (The oven was still hot from breakfast) I set the time bake told him to put the stuff in in about an hour or so. We arrived home from church and could hear the smoke detector going off. We walked into the house to the smell of burning plastic and white smoke and a fire in the oven (put out with baking soda).

Somehow the plastic lid that goes on top of my 13x9 in. pan ended up being put in the oven on the bottom of the pan. It was a little unnerving. Easter dinner was now coated in a thin film of plastic due to the fumes. (We ended up grilling out.)

How to get the plastic out:
1. Allow the oven to cool, use a metal spatula to scrape out as much plastic as possible. The larger/thicker pieces, try to get a corner and gently pull the plastic so that it comes off in large pieces. This sounds easier than it is. It took my mother-in-law and I about an hour. We would scrape and then vacuum what we had gotten loose out so we could see better.
2. When you have most of the plastic out, you can turn the oven on low to scrape more out as it loosens a bit. BE CAREFUL not to touch the element!
3. My father-in-law ordered new oven racks for my stove, which was very sweet. The one wouldn't have been salvageable due to a good portion of the lid still being attached to it.
4. Plan to be gone for a long time, take your pets with you, open all the windows and use the self clean. I turned on the self clean for the first half hour while we were home, just in case it caught on fire again. Hopefully we didn't loose too many brain cells! We then left, taking the dog with us. When we came home, I wiped out the ash that was left (not much) and no more plastic smell. Yeah!!!
5. If you don't have self clean, I would turn the oven to the highest it would go for several hours and plan to be outside and check on it frequently. Some plastics, though can't be removed according to an internet site. Thankfully, my story turned out just fine. :o)

For more great kitchen tips go to: http://www.tammysrecipes.com/node/3328