Tiny fire in my oven tonight....

I sure won't do that again!! 

Yesterday I was in a rush for dinner so I stuck a frozen pizza in the oven. I put it right on the rack like the instructions say to.  Big mistake!  It was a square shaped one and the corners drooped between the slats; which made it hard to get off.  I dropped a small piece of cheese putting it in and more fell off toward the back while it was cooking.  

I forgot about it after the oven cooled last night so I never cleaned the cheese out.  So when I went to preheat the oven tonight; yep...small fire.  It was right next to the heating element too!  I think the flame got to be about 3" high and was probably the size of a half dollar around.  It shut the oven off and it burned itself out; no need for the fire extinguisher.  But whew....that did scare me!!  I'm not even a fan of cooking bacon in a frying pan because I had a tiny bit of grease hit the burner at our old house and make a small flame.  I don't even light matches myself. 

Lesson learned; I will not forget to clean the oven messes promptly from here on out!!!  I have the fire extinguisher right nearby and the baking soda is within arms reach too.  I have several firefighters in the family and a few friends.  I'm sure they'd scold me if I posted it on facebook! 

Scary! I usually put a cookie sheet under the rack when there's anything that could drip, even though that cuts down on the heat and crispiness.

jcat said:

Scary! I usually put a cookie sheet under the rack when there's anything that could drip, even though that cuts down on the heat and crispiness.

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Yep, I put it on a pizza pan.

I put pizza on parchment paper on a pizza pan (simply because I hate cleaning pizza pans). 

That was scary for you. I had that happen many years ago and it scared me, too. Our son had made something in the oven, made a heckuva mess, never cleaned it up and never told me. A couple days later, I preheated the oven (500 degrees) to make pizza. Looked over a few minutes later and the oven was on fire. I turned the oven off and let it go for a while; it was burning itself out. I finally opened the oven door and threw flour into the oven and that got it out. It took me a while to get that oven cleaned up....I cleaned it as best I could, then hit the self-cleaning for 3 hours. I was scared....and ready to smack my son silly (not really, but you know what I mean). He was lucky he didn't come home while all that was going on!

Glad it's all OK.

I usually do them on pizza pans; but DH has complained the middle isn't as crispy.  And if it's the tiniest bit doughy he thinks it's unfit for consumption. Doughy= anything that does not crunch.    I do cookie trays under pies an things.  It didn't help we've been talking fire safety with DD so now she's always talking about smoke. 

I may take your idea of parchment paper Pam; I'm not a fan of cleaning them either! 

I have a perforated metal pizza pan that I use for store-bought pizza. I preheat the pan in the oven and I just throw a layer of parchment with the pizza on the heated pan that way. The pan is already hot when you put the pizza on and that might help your situation with the middle of your crust not being as crispy.

I swear by parchment; it has made my cooking life a lot easier.....I use it to line cookie sheets, too because I hate greasing them and then washing them.  (I'm actually pretty lazy, I guess!)

Winchester said:

 
I have a perforated metal pizza pan that I use for store-bought pizza. I preheat the pan in the oven and I just throw a layer of parchment with the pizza on the heated pan that way. The pan is already hot when you put the pizza on and that might help your situation with the middle of your crust not being as crispy.

I swear by parchment; it has made my cooking life a lot easier.....I use it to line cookie sheets, too because I hate greasing them and then washing them.  (I'm actually pretty lazy, I guess!)

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I'll have to try the parchment paper for pizza, Pam. Great idea.

I won't do cookies without parchment paper anymore.  It really is that much easier!

The pizza pan I have is designed to be one; but it's not perforated.  That probably doesn't help either.

I am glad everything was okay.  Someone set their house on fire yesterday trying to kill a bug.  I missed the news story, but I'm going to have to look it up online.

nurseangel said:

 
I am glad everything was okay.  Someone set their house on fire yesterday trying to kill a bug.  I missed the news story, but I'm going to have to look it up online.

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Mustve been one heckuva bug! 

Nurseangel, is that the guy who was trying to kill a spider with a blowtorch or something? And set his house on fire? I saw that on FB, I think it was. I hate spiders, too, but a blowtorch???   What was he thinkin'?

I tried to google it last night; I got search results from Seattle, Philly, Florida and a few other places!  Apparently there is some kind of heat method to kill bed bugs.  I suppose theirs worked a little too well? 

Kitchen fires scare me, even little ones!

I have a pizza stone for when I want to make  or reheat a pizza.  One of the best things I've bought.  I've even baked bread on it,   If you like a crispy crust, I highly recommend one.

I do use a pizza stone when I make my own dough. It takes about 30-45 minutes for the stone to get really hot (at least for my stone; it's pretty heavy). We don't use the stone for store-bought pizza, simply because it takes so long to heat. I will say that a stone works beautifully to make a crisp crust on any pizza....if you don't mind waiting for it to get hot. 

I had made a pizza the night before last and it leaked a bit on the bottom of the oven. Yesterday morning around 5:30 I decided to make blueberry muffins. I turn the oven on and the house starts to get smoke in it, the smoke detectors went off, etc.

I'm glad you were able to get it out easily. :nod:

AbbysMom said:

I had made a pizza the night before last and it leaked a bit on the bottom of the oven. Yesterday morning around 5:30 I decided to make blueberry muffins. I turn the oven on and the house starts to get smoke in it, the smoke detectors went off, etc.

I'm glad you were able to get it out easily.

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This just goes to prove 2 things:

1. You can learn some very important things on TCS; beyond cats. 
   
2. No one should have to be out of bed at 5:30 in the morning.