A Cleaning Tip?!

How many of you have had this happen?

You have just put a nicely prepared dish into the oven while you are at work. The radio goes off. You have an emergency call. Without a second thought you head to the ambulance and are out the door responding. Then on the way to the call you remember.... you're dinner is still in the oven! So you place a phone call to someone who is nearby to come to the station and pull out your dinner to avert an oven fire. Then when you return an hour later you find not only a cold dinner, but also a baked on mess because the dish had been left in the oven just a little too long.

No?

Ok... I guess its just me. But, I do imagine that you may have dealt with baked on foods before. (If not, well then I want to learn how to cook like you!).

At the end of my shift in the morning ALL the dishes must be done, even the baked on impossible dish that I ruined the previous evening. After scrubbing until my arm almost fell off I was at wits end as to how to remove the impossibly baked on food. Remembering something my mom had told me I scoured the fridge for some baking soda.  There was no baking soda, but I spotted something else... Lemon Juice! 

I squirted a good amount into the dish and added a little bit of water, just until the liquid covered all the stuck on food.

Then into the microwave the dish went.  I let it "cook" for about three minutes or so.  It was just a guess.  I really had no basis for choosing three minutes. 

At the end of my arbitrary three minutes I removed the dish (which was searing hot!) and proceeded to wash it. The baked on food came right off.  Really, it did. 

Ta-Da!

So did you learn something?!  This probably isn't a breakthrough tip, but trust me when I thought of this I felt like a regular Martha Stewart!