speaking of cast iron

[tesa]

ok, i'm 40, watched my mom and grandmothers use only cast iron for all my life

husband bought me a set of two skillets, and gridle, and a dutch oven

the box claims they are pre-seasoned

but

I'M SCARED

daniel (husband) wants to know why i haven't used them yet

he thinks i don't like them

i'm afraid to use them

i do have a flat type gridle i warm tortillas on, its from my mom, well seasoned, and i never use soap in it
so i'm not afraid of that one

but what should i start out with

i guess pork chops? maby breakfast sausage??

and you all can stop laughing now

tesa

[StinkerBell]

If you think they are not seasoned enough add some more cooking fat (crisco should work) rub it all over and let it bake in the oven for an hour.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

ok, i'm 40, watched my mom and grandmothers use only cast iron for all my life

husband bought me a set of two skillets, and gridle, and a dutch oven

the box claims they are pre-seasoned

but

I'M SCARED

daniel (husband) wants to know why i haven't used them yet

he thinks i don't like them

i'm afraid to use them

i do have a flat type gridle i warm tortillas on, its from my mom, well seasoned, and i never use soap in it
so i'm not afraid of that one

but what should i start out with

i guess pork chops? maby breakfast sausage??

and you all can stop laughing now

tesa

Tesa, if they are new and say they are "pre-seasoned" don't trust them!!!  My mom bought us a set of cast iron stuff for camping a few years ago with the same "pre-seasoned" stamp on front, but it doesn't say WHAT they were preseasoned with.  First time I took them out to cook on them, there was the overwhelming, unmistakeable smell of hydraulic fluid.  They smoked up the house and set the smoke alarms off.  I had to wash them not once, but over and over and then re-season them, and then started cooking consumables in them.  I seasoned them with bacon drippings, and haven't had any problem with them.  If they don't feel smooth on the cooking surface, you may also want to use some sand or fine grain sandpaper and rub the cooking surface a little smoother before washing and seasoning.  Unfortunately a lot of this stuff comes from China these days and who knows but maybe the Chinese don't know that people actually cook in these, but whatever they'd used to "season" the skillets/dutch oven/etc. we got was made for machinery, NOT cooking.  (And she got them at Bass Pro or Academy Sports and Outdoors, so they weren't some cheapy thing in the first place.)  I'm not laughing at you... I can understand completely.  I used my old cast iron skillets daily but that box sat untouched for a long time before I finally got it out to start using it, and then it required some serious scrubbing, and I also boiled water in each pan and then dumped it several times to get all of the smoky machine oil out of it.  When we heated the dutch oven, it literally had a cup or more of the oil seep out into the bottom of the pan!  Yuck!!  They've been used in a few campfires since then and are nice and shiny and black now, with a nearly non-stick surface.

[John_C]

It's not rocket science.

I cook 75% of my food in cast iron.  Some was my grandmothers and must be nearing 100 years old.  Given even casual care the stuff is indestructible.  I'm famous for putting pans on the stove to dry and forgetting about them.  I melted the porcelain on one stew pot.  Worst thing that happens to cast iron is you burn off the seasoning.  So you re-season it. 

In the winter I rub them with oil and set them on top of the wood burning stove for a while. It works as well as seasoning them in the oven.

My other favorite cookware is glass and ceramic.  Again I've got glass & ceramic cookware that is 50+ years or older.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Every once in a while, I'll bury one of my skillets or griddles in the coals of a camp fire until it is red hot, and it sort of burns off any crud that has somehow gotten attached over time.  Then I just reseason it and go back to using it as always.  I have a set of stainless steel skillets that I have never used!  I bought them when we got married as a part of a cookware set because I needed some larger sauce pans, but I don't think I have ever, even once, used those skillets.  I've kept them in case we ever end up in a place with the glass top electric stove, because they recommend that you don't use cast iron on them.  However, there are three cast iron skillets and a griddle that hardly ever leave my stove top.  In fact, if they aren't there, you can almost bet they're in the oven.

[tesa]

well, i'm gonna do it!!

LOL

tomorrow, i'm gonna cook bacon for BLT"S, and see how it goes

i've done some reading on the net about cast iron, and i'd love to keep them in such good shape my
grandchildren will be fighting over them when i die  HAHA

i guess i just don't want to ruin them, but how will i ever know unless i give it a go

i usually buy expensive bacon, i think the cheap stuff is just all fat anyway, but yesterday i picked up a
pack of the cheapest bacon i could find, just incase i get any weird smells/tasts

thanks for the encouraging words

tesa

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

go for it.     Keep a fire extinguisher handy. 

[glenn kangiser]

Hard to hurt cast iron.  It's not teflon. 

[John_C]

Drum roll.     Well?  Inquiring minds nosy forum participants want to know how it went.

A. Just fine.  Bacon, pan and house all ok.

B. Ruined the bacon.

C. Terrible, burned down the house.

D. Destroyed the pan.

Actually even if you burned the house down around it, the cast iron pan would probably still be usable.

[cordwood]

 This thread is pretty funny,.........Many years ago my Grandmother gave me a crusted up WELL USED 8" skillet. I did the usual thank you and took it home and immediately went to the shop and fired up the wire wheel mounted on the grinder  and buffed and scraped and chiseled and buffed some more until It was like new and I could read the writing on the bottom, ERIE... 8. Filled with pride of my restoration of a fine utensil the next time she came over I showed her my handy work,...........We thought she was a goner at first but when she regained composure she explained to me that I had ruined a life time of flavored seasoning and that I would be an old man before that pan was that good again. After over 30 years and many one pan meals and failed baking attempts I still use the pan daily and it cooks better every year but I will never know how good it was because of my cast iron ignorance.
The moral of the story would be to never hand down an heirloom without some instructions first.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Well, so did you burn your house down or what???  Been a few days since she's posted.... let's make up stories about what we think happened!

[StinkerBell]

Ohhh... I know!

In an effort to season her cast iron, tesa decided to deep fry a turkey, thus seasoning her pan and making a crispy bird! But alas, PITA came and took her cast iron away from her and gave the turkey a burial.

[Squirl]

She asked her husband to do it.  So when he heard that he had to season them.  He poured a good helping of Old Bay in the pans and put them in the oven for an hour.  Now there is a good crust of burned spices and the bacon tastes a little off.

Or, when he heard that he had to oil them, he figured why waste good oil.  So he put the used 10w-40 on them.  Now they have at least 3000 miles or 3 months before he has to do it again.

[John_C]

Y'all are just jumping to conclusions. It may well be she just likes crispy bacon.

[tesa]

sorry folks, i've been busy as all get out

thanks for the laughs!

actually, all went well

humans, and possessions are all in tact

the bacon turned out fine!

i have yet to try eggs, i'm still a bit leary of something that might stick, since its so new, but
burgers, and bacon all came out perfect

tesa

[tesa]

oh, and tonight, i got a wild hair, and cooked my cornbread in it too!!

let me tell ya, it turned out golden and delicious, and not hardly a crumb was stuck to the bottom!

i rinsed it out, no soap, and dried it out on the stovetop 'till all the moisture was gone, and then
rubbed a wee bit of oil on it, and put away

i feel sort of proud

tesa

[considerations]

Cast Iron is my weapon of choice in the kitchen. 

I have a dutch oven big enough to stack two pies, a skillet big enough to keep a bunk house crew from standing in line for breakfast, and then a series of smaller pots, kettles and skillets for smaller projects.

The wood box under the franklin stove is going to have a separate section just for the cast iron as it tends to be a little rough on any "lesser" pots it has to share a kitchen cabinet with.

I've had a lot of fun with it over the years, most of which was cooking on an open fire.  I'm really looking forward to using it in the as yet unfinished cabin.

[John_C]

It's good to hear you didn't burn the house down.  A tragedy like that would almost certainly have required re-seasoning the pan.

I just made a cheese omelet in a cast iron fajita pan.  When it was done I just tilted the pan and slid the omelet onto a plate. I don't know if a Teflon pan would do as well, it certainly wouldn't do any better.

Putting them on the stove to dry is the most abusive thing I or my daughter do to them.  Often we forget them and are reminded by the smoke detector that we are drying a pan.  My daughter once left one "drying" for about six hours.  We get lots of practice seasoning them.

With health concerns about Teflon, aluminum and stainless steel, I'm not sure what the alternative would be.  In parts of Mexico where the diet includes few foods with dietary iron it's been found that the locals get some iron from cooking in cast iron cookware.  Acidic foods, mostly tomato based, dissolve a bit of iron that has proven to be a beneficial supplement in those areas.

Happy Cooking.