Hot tips for stove cleaning

The stove is the centre of the kitchen and it can get pretty dirty if you cook often, but cleaning it doesn't have to be that hard. Here are some quick tips for keeping the appliance and the space around it clean:

• If you have crumbs, spills and stains sticking to the sides of your stove, pick up inexpensive T-shaped plastic gaskets from a home-improvement store.
• Slipping them between your freestanding stove and the adjacent countertops will keep goo and gunk from sticking to the stove's sides.
• When gaskets get soiled (and boy, will they get soiled), simply remove them, wash them and reinstall them.

• If your stovetop grates are cast iron, and something has baked onto them, wipe them with non-toxic oven cleaner and place them in your oven the next time you self-clean it. Remove and wipe clean.

• If grease spills over in your oven while you're roasting meat, sprinkle salt over the grease before it has a chance to bake on. Close the oven door and let the cooking continue.
• By cleanup time, the spill will have transformed itself into an easily removed pile of ash.

• Broiler pans with burned-on food are a major pain in the neck to clean.
• To make the job less of a chore, heat the pan and sprinkle laundry detergent over the affected area.
• Now cover the detergent with wet paper towels, wait 15 minutes, remove the towels, and you'll see how much easier it is to scrape and scrub the gunk off.

• A typical way to wash a dirty oven rack is to submerge it in soapy water in the bathtub to loosen the grime — but who wants to clean a greasy tub afterward?
• Instead, put the rack in a large, heavy-duty plastic trash bag and add 75 millilitres (1/3 cup) of dishwashing liquid, 250 millilitres (one cup) of white vinegar, and enough hot water to almost fill the bag.
• Seal the bag and place it in a bathtub full of warm water for an hour. Then remove the rack from the bag and scrub, rinse and air-dry.

• If you can't budge baked-on food on your stove, turn off all the burners and pilot lights, spray the area with a multi-purpose lubricant or an oven cleaner, and let it sink in.
• After a few minutes, scrape the mess off the stove using a scraper that won't harm your cooktop. Then wash the burner in hot soapy water and wipe it dry with a dish towel.

• When you clean your oven racks, don't forget to clean the oven wall ridges they slide in and out on.
• Scrub with soap-filled steel wool pads, rinse off the soap and dry the ridges, then wipe them lightly with vegetable oil to keep the racks gliding smoothly.

No one really likes to clean the oven and stovetop, but it has to be done. These great tips will have that appliance spic and span no time — giving you more time to do the things you love.