Cast Iron Skillets

[shannone]

My grandmother passed away a few years ago and I now have all of her cast iron skillets. I use them all the time and I like the fact that they are already broke in.

[littlefranciscan]

I am glad to read all the tips about iron skillets..since I was not familiar with how to cook with them..

[marymoomoo]

I have some iron cookware that has been passed down through the generations, as well. I'll tell ya, they sure don't make the iron pots like they used to! But, then again, I don't think that many stoves can handle the super heavy weight cookware. Not electric stoves, anyway.

[mtmomj]

My grandmother has several really old cast iron skillets. She will only cook in those, most of the time.

For some reason, things always come out tasting better. She uses them for breakfasts--fried potatoes, eggs, bacon, pancakes. Grilled sandwiches are the best too!

[barbiedoll1973_tn]

My grandmother has several really old cast iron skillets. She will only cook in those, most of the time.

For some reason, things always come out tasting better. She uses them for breakfasts--fried potatoes, eggs, bacon, pancakes. Grilled sandwiches are the best too!

My grandmother has alot of these also and also does my mom and day the cast iron is all they use.

[loubear]

I love my cast iron pans, I have a dutch oven, large skillet and a grill pan, also a small saucepan. They are great for camp cooking. The only drawback is you need good arm strength to lift them and my biceps are a little weak. I was told by my grandmother to never use soap on them, but for scrubbing to use coarse salt.

[R3dD0g]

I have a 12" skillet & Dutch Oven I bought over 25 years ago. My wife is always throwing 'em in the dishwasher (I've told her, but ...) and I have to reaseason.

Sometimes, food still sticks and I have to scrub the burnt crud. Somewhere I heard about skipping the steel wool in favor of Kosher salt and hot oil with a big wad of paper towels. It works great!!! Just dump a Tbs of your seasoning oil, reheat it somewhat and put a Tbs salt in there and give it a good dose of elbow grease and it's clean as a whistle.

[lcsamano]

I have never heard the Kosher salt idea. I will have to tell my mom that. She has a really nice cast iron skillet but she has a hard time getting it clean without scrubbing it to death.

[oldbay]

Sometimes, food still sticks and I have to scrub the burnt crud. Somewhere I heard about skipping the steel wool in favor of Kosher salt and hot oil with a big wad of paper towels. It works great!!! Just dump a Tbs of your seasoning oil, reheat it somewhat and put a Tbs salt in there and give it a good dose of elbow grease and it's clean as a whistle.

I have a 30 year old cast iron skillet with flavorizing bars and it's always a pain to clean. Do you think the salt and oil method would make it easy to clean. The bars are about 3/4" apart, and it makes it really a lot of work to clean because of all of the corners -- in fact it's like the skillet is nothing but corners (and they're the hardest part of the cast iron pans to clean).

[Mama Mangia]

Old Bay - I have one of those as well - and I have resorted to using a brush to clean my pan. It makes it much easier - then I can season the pan when it's clean. The brush I use is just one with a plastic handle - in the housewares section in just about any store - just a cheapy - but it works.