I know I've talked about my cast iron skillets in the past and I know I told you once about how rusty my very first dutch oven was. Well, here's a look of that dutch oven before I cleaned it up. Yap, that's a lot of rust. When I got this dutch oven I had no idea how to clean it or how to get the rust off of it. By the way it was giving to me by my sister that has Bargain Basement Antiques and that's where my last two skillets have come from. So anyway, I hit the internet and I discovered a few things along the way. Did you know that vinegar will remove rust? No, well I didn't either until doing a lot of searching on the net. I even bought a book called Cast-Iron Cooking for Dummies. Yap, that is me! You have to remember that I grew up in the age of Teflon. Cooking with cast iron was something my grandmother did long before I was even born as far as I knew, but after reading several posts from some of the people with our gluten free recipe group that it isn't such an old idea after all. Several of them when asked by us newbies to gluten free cooking about what type of pans they used would always say cast iron and the more I read the more I was sure I wanted to go to cast iron myself. One thing I was really concerned about was the gluten in the pores of the dutch oven. Yes I said that right. As you cook in cast iron the pores open up and it will absorb what you're cooking in those pores. So, how do you remove the gluten or casein for that matter. A lot of people use butter in their skillets. Well, some sites have you using Easy Off Oven cleaner and letting it sit in the plastic bag for a day or so outside. I did this myself only because there was so much build up on this dutch oven and I was just starting out. Let me tell you that is one messy method. Not one I'll do again myself. After I did this it still wasn't showing a whole lot of improvement. Some, but not enough to finish the dutch oven off with seasoning. There's another method if you have a self cleaning oven and in the end this is the one I use for all of my cast iron. I put it in the oven on the rack and start my self cleaning with the oven. So far this has been the best method for my household. Cleaning the skillets after I cook in them is fairly easy with a little elbow grease and that's all. No soap. Soap will break down your seasoning. If you want to use soap just use a very very small drop. The best thing about using my skillet or dutch ovens is they have to be cleaned right after dinner. I can be one of the laziest ones about doing my dishes after dinner. Load the dish washer and let the pans soak over night. LOL I can't do that with the cast iron. The cast iron gets cleaned right after dinner and sometimes while I'm cooking dinner. You need to try your hamburgers in a cast iron skillet. When it's raining and I can't use my grill outside that is the only way I make my hamburgers, now. They turn out just like the ones my Dad would make when I was little. My Dad was great at making hamburgers and to this day I always try to make my patties the same way he did it.
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Greasy but good
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So how did the dutch oven turn out? It's the one in the back and yes that's the lid on it's side. I will be honest if I knew how much work was in involved I might have been temped to give up on it, but I can get a little bull head at times, too.
Ok, so I mentioned a new adventure coming up for myself in the near future in my Gluten-Free with Kevin blog. I will be leaving one of my part time jobs at the end of the month and moving on to something else. I'm excited about the new project coming up and nope I'm not going to tell you what it is yet. I want to wait and hopefully I'll be able to show you the finished project next month.
