Cook'n is the best selling recipe organizer

Volume III
July 27, 2012


Weekly Home / Cook'n & Eat'n

One of the Slickest Clean-Up Tricks Ever!

By Alice Osborne

We did a LOT of cooking today for the Cook'n Magazine - Ham and Vegetable Chowder, Red Velvet Cheesecake, Deep Chocolate Cherry Muffins, Turkey and Mashed Potato Croquettes, Prime Rib Deluxe, and Celebration Baked Ham, to name a few things.

I bring this up because I want to tell you a quick quick way to clean a roaster pan with baked (almost glued) on aluminum foil.

I lined a large roaster pan with heavy duty aluminum foil for baking my ham. I was just sure that this clever step would mean the after-baking clean up would be quick and easy. In theory it's a great idea. In practice, it just didn't go well. I'm not sure why, but the brown sugar glaze that I rubbed into the scored ham somehow seeped under the foil and not only baked onto the pan but sealed the aluminum foil to the pan. What a mess!

I soaked the pan in hot sudsy water for about an hour. When I went back to it, thinking I could simply lift off the baked-on foil and scrub the pan clean, I found a stubborn mess. That foil wasn't going anywhere.

So here's what I did, that you will be glad to know about: I drained the existing sudsy water (no foil went anywhere, remember). I squirted a heavy layer of Palmolive dish detergent all over the pan bottom, with extra emphasis on the stuck-on foil.

I added hot water to the pan - maybe 2 inches worth. Then I set the entire thing on my biggest stove burner and turned it on to HIGH. I let it sit there until the water came to a boil; I let the water boil for about 3 minutes - until the detergent came to a thick, almost overflowing mass of suds.

I turned off the heat and went after that ornery foil with a fork, firmly pushing the tines under the foil. After about 30 seconds the foil just peeled away and I could easily lift it out.

I carried the pan to the sink, dumped the soapy water, and voila! All the baked on everything was gone. I rinsed the pan well and wiped it dry. I looked like new!

This little trick probably saved me over an hour of scrubby-scrubbing. Next time you have baked-on foil plaguing a pan, give this solution a try. You can thank me later.



blog comments powered by Disqus


Contribute to the Cook'n Club!

DVO would love to publish your article, prose, photography and art as well as your cooking, kitchen and nutrition tips, tricks and secrets. Visit the Newsletter Submission / Win Win for All section in our Forum for more information and details.