Did the power scrubber clean the baked-on grease on my oven window?

And the answer is . . .just about.

Yesterday afternoon I had an hour to spare. I thought this would be a great time to "quickly" clean the oven door window, using Mrs. Meyers spray and the power scrubber.

before

I first tried the scouring sponge (yellow sponge with green scrubbing side). It didn't work as quickly as I wanted. I next tried the flat brush attachment. I could tell it was getting grime off as it turned the cleaning solution into a gray foam. But even so, it wasn't working as quickly as I had wanted. So I went for the stainless steel mesh brush. (It's under the microfiber flat polishing attachment in the photo below.)

The instructions say that this attachment is for the toughest jobs, like BBQ grills, oven racks, and range hoods. I was a little worried it might be too harsh on the glass surface. My worries were quickly allayed. It did just fine on the glass and the enameled steel parts of the door.

I worked for about 35 to 40 minutes on the inside of the window. It wasn't hard work, but it was slow going. Near the end, it seemed like I needed a less coarse tool to use on the glass to get those last tiny splatters of grease. I set the power scrubber down, donned some gloves, and grabbed a piece of steel wool. I spent 4-5 minutes with steel wool, putting some muscle into getting the splatters off, and voila a clean oven door. 

It was hard to get a photo of the how clean it is. That's the power scrubber on the floor beneath the open oven door in the photo below. The glass is so clean you can see through it again.

after

With the power scrubber and a little muscle to use a bit of steel wool at the end, I can get stubborn oven grease off of glass and enameled surfaces with somewhat ease. Could I have scrubbed with steel wool alone? Yes, but I think I would have needed several breaks. The 4 to 5 minutes of scrubbing I did at the end did tire my arm a little. 

The power scrubber is not a magic tool that will make every chore super fast and easy. But it does cut the work time by as much as half and effort by a whole lot compared to manual scrubbing. I'll be trying this tool on the stove top surface next. There's some stubborn carbon around the gas rings that I'd like to get rid of.

Sara, I also scrubbed the bottom of a stainless steel skillet. I did this in the sink. The scrubber did throw off dirty, carbon stained water in spatters onto the insides of the sink. However, no spatters ended up on the backsplash above the sink or on me. 

A few of my favorite things: kitchen edition

More gifts that I received for Christmas.

What can I say, I like the practical, especially when it comes to gifts. Here a few of those very wanted practical kitchen-related gifts.

My two daughters listen closely when I say I would like something or want something. They bought me a box of new freezer bags. Yes, I said freezer bags. And yes, I did say to them that I wish someone would buy me a box of freezer bags. I am thrilled to be the owner of a bunch of brand new, untorn, no-leak, uncloudy freezer bags! 

My daughters also bought me dates and unsweetened chocolate. I've mentioned before that I make unsweetened chocolate-covered dates as a sweet treat for myself. Those are the only two ingredients needed, unsweetened chocolate and pitted dates. 2 squares of chocolate will cover 8 dates. I melt the chocolate in the microwave and dip the dates into it one by one, then scraping the bowl with a rubber scraper to coat that final date. I wrote about this vintage confection a couple of years ago, here. One of my intentions or priorities in this coming year is to eat less refined sugar. As I still want to have sweet treats, these dates fit the bill, and to me are like candy. My daughters bought me the ingredients to make more of these for myself. And as I'm the only big fan of these in the house, they're all mine!

My last kitchen-edition practical gift came from my son and daughter-in-law. The price of real vanilla extract is insane at grocery stores. Costco has their own brand, however, that has been highly rated for price by many consumers. So, I suggested my son and daughter-in-law could use their membership to buy a bottle for me. For the past several years I've used imitation vanilla flavoring, and I just wanted to return to the natural version. I costed out the difference in price between homemade vanilla (using alcohol and beans) and commercial pure vanilla at Costco, and Costco's was the winner. As far as I can tell so far, this vanilla is very good.

I have to say, I am so grateful to have family that understands me and listens. I don't need expensive gifts or luxury items. I'm really very happy with small items that I can really use. (And you may have noticed in the top photo, I'd already opened the box of freezer bags. I think those were the first gift that I used this year.)