A natural (and cheap) solution to a big mess

Yesterday while we were having fun at Sea World, dinner was a-cookin' in the Crock Pot. I was cooking up one of the free pork tenderloins that we got at Totally Tejas for BBQ sandwiches. In the middle of the morning, I'd put some water and BBQ sauce in the crock pot with the pork, set it on high and forgot about it. After all, isn't that what you're SUPPOSED to do with a crockpot "Fix it and Forget It" . On our way to Sea World, Michael asked (while we were on our way-after it was too late to do anything about it!) if I turned the crock pot down to low since we would probably be gone for 5-6 hours. Nope, I left it on high. He casually asked me if I thought there was enough water in the crock pot so the pork wouldn't burn. I confidently responded, "I don't know; I guess". Well, guess what (you can see this one coming can't you!), there wasn't enough water. When we got home, we smelled a very strong smell of roasted meat. Thankfully, the meat was salvagable, and the boys were hungry! However, after dinner I was left with this....
In fact, this picture was taken AFTER the crock pot had been cleaned as much as I could with an SOS pad and with my Pampered Chef plastic scraper and then soaked overnight with soap. I was one step away from checking sales ads for a new crockpot, but these kind of challenges spur me on. Kinda like untangling a slinky or six different necklace chains that are all twisted. I was ready to face this challenge undaunted.

I went to get my oven cleaner (figuring it would be the only way this baked on catastrophe would be solved) and then remembered we didn't have any. We couldn't take it with us when we moved. So, I googled natural oven cleaners and here's what I came up with. The recipe was enough to cover an entire oven, but I didn't half it. I figured the more the merrier.

Mix 1/4 cup borax, 1/2 cup salt and 1 box (16 oz) of baking soda. Ok, I had all of those. So far so good. You preheat the oven to 250. I put the crock pot in and preheated the oven. While that was happening, I mixed the ingredients and added enough water to make a paste. The website said 1 cup, but I think that was a little too much. Any way, after the crockpot was preheated, I rubbed the paste all over.

The I put it back in the oven (turned off) for 30 minutes. Then I added about 1/2 of vinegar. The website said to add essential oils of thyme and lemon. THAT would have been great; my hands wouldn't be smelling like vinegar now. However, I don't think it made a difference at all in the cleaning ability. A few minutes of scrubbing and voila....

I honestly can't believe it worked this well. Good as new. And next time, I'm greasing the crock pot and adding more water! Now, I'm feeling empowered and I'm off to untangle some necklaces!