Crazy easy way to clean your gas stove grates

Anyone else have incredibly dirty well used grates on top of their gas stoves? I've tried to clean them. I honestly wipe them down each time I clean the stove. I've tried soaking them in soapy water, even letting them soak all night. But no matter what I do or use, that grease coating refused to budge.

That is until I learned this little trick - ammonia. Yes, ammonia. The kind you probably have under your kitchen sink. In the way back. Take a look. I think my bottle may be 15 years old, and seemed almost full still.

First let me say, I'd recommend trying this with one grate to begin with, just to be sure it does not strip any paint or coating off and leave you needing to purchase 4 (or more) new grates. This happened to my mother-in-law, who happened to have specially coated grates. Mine were just the plain dark gray type, and had no problems with the ammonia.

before / after cleaning with ammonia

Directions:

1. Dump 1/4 cup of the ammonia in a large resealable bag.
2. Place your grates in the bag and seal tightly. This step is important. The fumes are toxic, so you don't want any leaking out. Trust me.
3. Store the bag in a sink or bucket somewhere out of harms way for 12-24 hours. I placed my bag in a wash bin in the laundry room sink, and let it sit overnight.
4. Rinse the grates in soap and water, and then you'll just need to wipe the grease off with a sponge or dish cloth. The grease really does just fall off at this point. No need to put a lot of muscle into it, or pull out the heavy duty scrubbers. The grease came right off when I wiped it. 

That's it! It's truly that easy. I didn't realize how dirty ours were until I saw how beautiful they became once all the grease was removed.

Granola Bars

One of our favorite snacks is a good granola bar. And nothing tops homemade. The kids love to take these to school for snack time or grab as we are running out the door for soccer. We've been experimenting with different recipes found on Pinterest, and have tweaked them to our liking. The recipe below was adapted from The Spiffy Cookie's No-Bake Peanut Butter Granola Bars. Her granola bars are delicious as written, but I wanted to add a few things to change things up a bit. We also usually double the recipe below, and put in a 9x13 pan, plus a smaller 4x4 pyrex dish.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups quick oats
• 1/2 cup crispy rice cereal
• 3/4 cup chopped pretzels
• 1/4 cup flax seed
• 2 Tbsp shredded sweetened coconut
• 1 Tbsp chia seeds
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup miniature chocolate chips (if desired)

Directions:

1. Lightly coat the bottom of a 9 inch x 13 inch baking dish with a nonstick spray. Cut a piece of wax paper large enough to cover the dish.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir the quick oats, crispy rice cereal, chopped pretzels (I give mine a quick swirl in the food processor), flax seed, shredded coconut and chia seeds.
3. In a small sauce pan, whisk the butter, brown sugar and honey together over medium-low heat until it begins to bubble. Once it bubbles, turn the stove down to low and continue to whisk for two additional minutes.
4. Remove from the heat and whisk in the peanut butter and vanilla extract.
5. Pour the liquid mix over the dry mix in the bowl, and stir to make sure everything is coated.
6. Pour it all in to the 9x13 baking dish. 
7. If you feel the need to add in mini chocolate chips, now's the time to sprinkle them on the top.
8. Use the wax paper to press firmly on the top of mixture, pressing it down so there's no air in between the bits and pieces. Be sure to press evenly so the bars will stay together.
9. Place in the refrigerator for an hour to harden, then slice into bars. 

We like to store these in the refrigerator until ready to eat. Then we pull them out and let sit for a few minutes to come to room temperature.

If you make these, I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

Introducing O'Doodles Of Fun

Welcome to my little world of the blogosphere here at O'Doodles Of Fun. I've been a mommy blogger for almost 8 years, writing personal letters to my children, journaling our lives,  and posting videos and pictures for our family throughout the country.

I've been wanting to start my own "public" blog for a while now, but just couldn't quite figure out what I'd write about. There are so many talented bloggers, with the most amazing blogs on cooking, baking, decorating, style, great deals, etc. I'm not an expert in anything really, so I wasn't sure what I would blog about. And then it dawned on me - I'll just write about what I love - my family, good food, thrifty finds and DIY projects. So, here we are - O'Doodles of Fun - where the O'Donnell family has oodles and oodles of fun together!