Cast Iron

I love cast iron cooking. 

We have a friend that writes cookbooks for cast iron cooking.  She and her mom wrote

 

 "The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook: Recipes for the Best Pan in Your Kitchen" ,

 "The Dutch Oven Cookbook: Recipes for the Best Pot in Your Kitchen"

 and

 "Cast Iron Skillet Big Flavors". 

 

She often donates a cookbook and cooking pot/pan to the elementary school auction.  I bought the Big Flavors book and 12" skillet this year.  I have since acquired a dutch oven,

 

 

 small fry pan

 

 and a mini pan with lid that is perfect for making eggs to go on an English muffin. 

 

 

 I love them. 

And I have discovered a love for anything cooked in the skillet with bacon grease. 

So Good! 

Spinach... yes, Green beans... yes,  Potatoes... yes. 

 

 One of my go to meals lately is onions, red pepper and spinach sautéed in a little bacon grease (it doesn't take more than a few grams to give it the flavor), then scramble an egg and add a little feta cheese and salt and pepper.  Yum! 

 

I have also discovered baking in the cast iron skillet, thanks to Julie's book.  Coffee cake, birthday cake, baked waffles, it can do it all. 

 

Before re-seasoning my own cast iron, I didn't really know how to take care of it.  Since acquiring  more, I have learned how and it is really easy.  After using the pan, I wash it with water and a brush or scraper, then heat to dry and rub with oil.  Or if something is baked on or really stuck, I don't try to clean it with water, I put oil in the pan and heat it then the gunk loosens and I can wipe it off.  If I need to, I use a little salt with the oil and scrub it around then wipe the pan out.  It is so easy and

I am convinced that food tastes better cooked in Cast Iron. 

 

Dutch Oven

A few years ago we got a cast iron dutch oven from my parents.  It mostly has sat in our garage, but it comes in handy when when the scouts go camping.  They are going winter camping next week and will be taking it.  In preparation, a couple of weeks ago they used it to practice their dutch oven cooking.  It came home looking like this.

It obviously has seen better days.  It is getting rusty on the outside and inside, the black around the edges in the bottom of the pan is some unknown charred on food, that will not come off.  It is about 1/2 inch thick.  And they are supposed to cook their meals in this.  It needs some love.

I started looking online for how to re-season cast iron and came across Sheryl Canter's blog.  She appears to be a little obsessed with cast iron cookware, which is a good thing for me.  She did all the research and figured out the best oil to use to season cast iron and could explain why.  She also had great steps to follow.  For her it has been a journey, so I had to read a couple of different posts and the comments to get all the information.

Here is how I did it.

First I cleaned the dutch oven with Easy Off oven cleaner.  Heating it first then spraying it and enclosing it in a big garbage bag to set for several hours and one time over Sunday. 

 It took several applications as well as Trip scrubbing it and chipping away at that charred on gunk.  We still had a few spots that wouldn't come completely off, but I thought it was good enough.   

Next we rinsed really well and towel dried it.  

In trying to get some "black rust" we baked it in a 450* oven for 1 hour.  It still just looked like red rust on it. So then I tried to boil it in water to get the "black rust", but my canner wasn't big enough to submerge the whole thing and it didn't work out.

Instead, I tried a tip that I found in the comment section and rubbed the whole thing with a cut onion.  That worked the best of all to give it some blackness.

Then I baked it again at 450* for an hour.

I let it cool and rubbed it with organic, unfiltered flax seed oil (it was cheapest at Amazon.com) then wiped it all off with a clean rag.  You might be tempted to leave a thin layer of oil on the pan, but that will cause it to be sticky when it comes out of the oven.  Wipe it all off (there really is the right amount left on the pan).  It works!

I put the dutch oven and lid in the cold oven, upside down, brought the temp up to 500*.  

After 1 hour at 500*, I  turned the oven off and it let cool for 2 hours.  Don't open the oven.

Then I repeated the oil steps 5 more times over the next 2 days.

We did 2 coats a day.  When the oil heats up, it made all of our eyes hurt, so I would time it to bake it, then leave the house or go to bed for the cool down period.  That is why it took so long.

It was totally worth it though.  

It looks beautiful!  

I keep thinking I want other cast iron pieces to make look so nice.

Here are the before and after pictures.

If you need some flax oil to do your own, I have some and it will expire before I use it again.

(I know I could eat the flax oil myself, in fact I used to take a table spoon a day, but then I got pregnant with Ocean and I couldn't stomach it anymore and I still can't.  Yuck!)