Cast iron and you

I have tried just about every kind of cook-ware available. Glass. Ceramic. Stainless. Teflon. Aluminum. Cast iron.

I have tossed out all of my cook-ware except for a few stainless sauce-pots and my cast-iron cook-ware for one simple reason - nothing cooks like cast.

I have in my collection 5" short-wall, 5" high-wall, 8" short-wall, 8" high-wall, 10" short-wall, 10" high-wall, 12" high-wall, cook-plates, dutch-oven, waffle-iron, roasting-pot, stew-pot, etc.

Heating the cast iron is simple. Place on stove, over fire or in BBQ and allow to warm up. Once the cook-ware is warm with a little bit of oil (if required) you can start cooking. It takes almost no time to warm-up and it holds the heat "forever".

I find that the use of salt-and-pepper is not required when cooking with cast iron. I found that my iron deficiency (anemia) is kept under control without the need for extra iron pills all the time. The food has a much better flavour! I have been cooking with cast-iron now as my primary cook-ware for 15 years and I have 10 years of professional cooking experience as well. I love to cook for crowds and love to cook for my loved-ones. I guess you could say, I love to cook!

Care of your Cast-iron

New cast-iron you will want to prepare it for cooking by heating it in a dry heat (oven works great) at 350° to 400°F to cook off the shipping coating. Allow the cast iron to cool (to touch) and then wash with pure water and green-scrubbie. Place on an stove element to warm up (dry). Take oil (or fat) and coat the entire cast-iron cook-ware (handle, inside, outside, everything) and put into the oven at 350° for 1 hour. Take it back out of the oven and wipe down with paper-towel - allow to cool (stove-top works well).

Daily use of cast-iron

Warm up your cast iron and apply a little amount of oil (fat, PAM, etc) and cook your food on it. Leaving the cook-ware on the stove after placing food into serving dish is fine. For a minor mess, wipe out with paper-towel. For "wet-mess", wipe out cast-iron with water and green-scrubbie. Do not use soap. Do not allow to soak in water. You will damage the cook-ware. If you do - don't worry about it - follow the steps for new cast-iron preparations.

The cast iron must be used - regularly. If it isn't, the oils that are baked into the iron can "go bad" and have a weird smell. If that happens - bake the cast iron in a flame (BBQ works well) - spray fresh oil onto the cast-iron and cook with it while hot.

What can be cooked on / in cast iron

I have baked deep-dish pizze in my 12" pan, BBQ'd my pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage, made my hot-sauces, cooked spagetti, baked lasagna, roasts, ham, deer, chicken, etc.

I will cook with my dutch-oven over an open fire making a chili or stew (with dumplings - yummy). Thanksgiving ham cooked in a dutch-oven out in the middle of no-where is great!

Hmm .. back to topic again

Lids

I purchased lids for my stove-top cook-ware seperately (one 5" and one 12") that are also made of cast-iron, my dutch oven and chili-pot both came with lids. I find using the lid keeps the food moist and hot! The lids have spikes pointing towards the food to direct moisture back into the food. Steaming vegies with a bit of water, oil and spices makes a quick and delicious meal.

There is alot of information on the 'net about cast-iron cooking and dutch-oven cooking. Way more than what I can put into a single message. I have 3 receipe books dedicated to cast-iron dutch-oven cooking which I read and try the amazing receipes from time to time.

Practice daily your cooking skills and you will be able to make meals fit for a king.

 

I like bacon-grease best. In a pan, in the oven start baking the bacon. Make sure that you have the greasiest bacon possible when you start. Remove the bacon from the pan and drain off into a bowl all the bacon-fat.

Take your cast-iron pan (cold) and smear everything with the bacon-grease - handle, top, bottom, inside, outside - everything. Warm oven to 350°F and put the pan in for 1 hour.

Remove pan and wipe with paper towel and then allow to cool on stove-top or hot-pot-stand of some sort.

Regular use of the pan (always using a bit of oil to cook with) will keep it seasoned. The cooking oil can be anything that you have around - Pam, liquid Canola, Lard, bacon-fat, beef-fat .. anything that will help the food to not stick.

Seasoning is not a "one-time-only" deal - each time that you cook with the pan, it will continue its seasoning process - as long as you do not wash the pan, only wipe it down with a cloth or paper-towel.

Washing with more than just hot water will remove the seasoning and you will need to re-season the pan again.

 

With everything that is cooked, some of the cooking surface will enter the food. Every time that you cook with your teflon coated cook-ware, some of the teflon will enter your physical being. Same with stainless and aluminum. Same with the cast-iron. The only cooking surface that is available now that is inert to the cooking transfer of surface to food is ... glass.

As for the studies that I have read about food and food-prep, I have found out that cooking with aluminum is nice for the texture, but, the aluminum has been shown to bring on Alzheimer's. Patients that have Alzheimer's have all shown to have elevated levels of aluminum in their system.

The teflon in cookware is shown to cause cancers - especially at the "end-of-life" of the cookware. Cooking only at very low temperatures and not allowing the surface to chip or peel is marginally safe.

One of the main ingredients of teflon is PFOA. PFOA is widespread in the blood of the general population (though in low concentrations), where it stays for up to 10 years before being eliminated. In laboratory animals, PFOA has been shown cause cancer, liver damage, growth defects, immune-system damage and death. Solid data is not available with regards to humans - yet.

With regards to your original question - both myself and my little lady are anemic. She is worse that I am, having a prescription for iron pills that she has to take as required. Before we got together, she relied 100% on the pills. After I started cooking for her with my cast iron, she only needed to boost her iron levels during her monthly.

For me, when I cooked with only stainless pots / pans / etc, I was anemic. Once I started cooking all my food with cast-iron, the majority of the symptoms went away (in general). I still have limited anemic episodes, and, when I realize that is the problem, I will then iron-boost myself with liver / beets / spinach / etc - all the high-iron-rich foods. Using only the cast-iron cookware for a "small" intake of iron keeps me relatively ok.

 

My little lady gets to the point of having very low energy, lethargic and water-blisters grow on the backs of her hands and arms. For me, I have "head-rushes" and dizzy spells for no reason and feel drained of all energy.

When it is really bad, my "head-rushes" will be 1/2 way to full black-out where my eye-sight is completely gone, my hearing is fubar, but, I still have feeling - so if I am standing when it happens, I can "feel" the floor or a wall or a chair and attempt to hold my balance till my sight and hearing return. I haven't had that level for a good while now.

 

I have a couple of "rough-surface" pans. You can re-finish the pan if you have a twisted wire-brush and a grinder. A flap-disk on a grinder works as well. Start by cleaning the pan with the wire-brush to remove all scale, oils, etc. If it feels smooth to the touch after using the wire-brush - you are good to clean the pan and re-season.

If you are not happy with the results of the wire-brush, you can use a flap-disk on the same grinder to really smooth out the pan. Take care that you do not remove too much material. Clean and then re-season the pan.

If you do not have the tools to polish the pan (or do not wish to purchase the tools, or do not have the space to do it), you can locate a machine-shop near or in your town (welding shops can direct you to one if you cannot locate one in the yellow-pages) to polish it for you.

 

See post #7 in this thread for my theory on how and why my iron-levels have smoothed out.

 

Depends on what you consider expensive. Some of my pans I got for $5 at Sally-Anne ThriftStores, some I got as gifts (because everyone I know knows how much I love cooking with cast), some I bought at loonie-bins (dollar-stores in the US), some came from speciality-cooking-supply stores (very expensive $75+) and some came from hardware stores for what I consider a reasonable price (my large dutch-oven cost me $25).

Look around at garage or estate sales for cast. Look around at thrift-stores and stores that take donations for cast. Hardware stores like CanadianTire and HomeHardware carry some cast iron cookware in their camping supply-zones.