Do NOT try this at home

Seriously....I am NOT encouraging anyone else to try this, but I think I need to share what I did yesterday.

I cleaned a pan - stop rolling your eyes! This is scarier than it sounds....I cleaned a nonstick griddle with an SOS pad and a big hunk of steel wool scouring pouf thingy (sorry, I really don't know what it's called but it's made of soft-ish metal and you use it to scrub things that won't scratch easily)

I forgot to take a picture before I started, but I think you can imagine what the pan looked like.....See the black in the middle of the pan, the whole thing looked like that before I started. The pan was "clean" but the black build up from years of using cooking spray and too high of heat was really bugging me.

So I started scrubbing

I moved the pan to the counter beside the sink so I'd have a more solid surface...then I hit my head

If this cabinet didn't hold all my cups and glasses it would have been ripped off the wall after I hit my head on it...the 3rd time!! You would think I'd learn not to lift my head there, but NOOOO I just kept doing it...Ouch!!

I ended up using some BarKeeper's Friend - if you don't know what this is, you really need to check it out it's non-abrasive and helps keep my pans (the non-gunky ones) and sink shining!

I also grabbed an SOS pad for a little extra fine scrubbing.

Then, after about an hour of scrubbing this is what I got it down to

I HAD to stop scrubbing, not because of any harm to the pan....the non-stick coating actually still looks perfect, but my arms were on FIRE!!! That was a lot of scrubbing! I figure I'll have one more good session with the srubber and it should be back to nearly new.

I really would not recommend this method, but I was at the point I was going to throw the pan away if I couldn't get the black stuff off. If I had ruined it, it wouldn't have been a loss.....instead I saved one of my favorite pans. YAY!!! We can still have pancakes and quesadillas!