The Full Monte...

...Del Monte that is...as in ketchup (please tell me you don't spell or pronounce it catsup)...

This is a household tip for ya. I have this grill pan that I love either when I am dieting and trying to eat healthy or even simply cooking hamburgers. I don't, however, love cleaning it since I can't put it in the dishwasher. More often than not when I am done cooking a meal with it, I set it on the back burner of the stove to clean after dinner. After dinner becomes tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes the next day. The next day becomes the next week. This pan has been known to sit on the back of my stove for weeks at a time. (Pick your jaw up off the floor - I have already professed how I am NOT a Susy Homemaker!) Every once in a while during this stretch, I will pour some Dawn in the pan, fill it with water and of course set it back on the stove to soak. There it will sit again for days at a time, the water dries up, the grease resettles, I use the oven which heats up the stove surface as well and it all bakes on. A very vicious cycle.

Yesterday I was cleaning up after supper and hand washed some cookie sheets that had also accumulated on the stove. I decided enough was enough, I was washing this poor pan --- that I love. (Good thing I show my love of my children better than that and bath them regularly.) I dove in with the Dawn (the grease releaser) and a sponge. It budged but wasn't coming clean. Then I remembered a trick I learned when I worked at Hardee's as a teenager that we used to get the grease off the oven racks. Granted we weren't supposed to do this and if we got caught doing it, we'd be in trouble (some crap about cost and loss prevention) but we'd pour either ketchup or dill pickle juice in the dish water and let the racks soak. Come back later and the grease would come right off. It's the acidity in the ketchup / pickle juice (pickle juice is also a VERY tasty drink that will work as a shot chaser in a pinch if need be).

So, back to last night...I got the ketchup out, squirted some in the pan, rubbed it into the grease real good. Let it sit a couple hours. Came back, turned the water on, grabbed my sponge and WHALLAH - the grease slid right off!! Amazing considering how many times this pan had had the grease rebaked back on and sat for weeks on end.

So, there is your helpful household hint for the day. And for the record, it does not have to be Del Monte brand...in fact, I never use Del Monte ever. We are Heinz or store brand all the way.