Cooking use to be a chore and something I dreaded every single day. Making dinner for my family was the last thing I wanted to do until I actually started doing it and it has slowly over the last 2 years become one of my favorite times. (Minus the crying because toddlers.) When my husband told me he wanted to buy a cast iron pan I didn’t think anything of it. It’s just a pan. He made the purchase and then told me all the things I needed to do to said pan. I never used it. Taking care of a pan seemed asinine since I literally spend all day taking care of everything else. I kept seeing my friends using it and talking about how much they enjoyed their cast iron, so I decided maybe I should look into it again.
A family member took the time to show me how to care for my pan in a simple easy way. This small but meaningful gesture has allowed me to change my view from cast iron is too much work, to cast iron gives me 5 minutes of peace.
4 therapeutic steps to cast iron. 1. Rinse; make sure you rinse with HOT water to allow all the left over gunk to flake off.
2. Scrub; I say scrub but it’s really a light rub with a brush. The most important thing is to NEVER use soap on your cast iron. The light scrubbing and hot water should be plenty to get you pan clean.
3. Dry; I wipe the bottom of the pan with a paper towel and set my pan on a warm element (med-low) this allows the water in the pan to dry without sitting and causing rust. Make sure you stay in the room while it does this or you’ll end up discovering 20 minutes later your pan is cooking. (I usually use the time it's drying to wipe down the counters and sweep)
4. Seasoning; the second most important thing is to season your warm pan with oil. We just use olive oil. Put a dollop in the pan and spread it around the bottom and sides with a paper towel. (The pan will still be hot so be careful)
Here is a clip on how we take care of our cast iron!
The 7-10 minutes it takes to wash, dry and season my pan has become my favorite part of the day. It’s such a peaceful time to take a few minutes to focus on the task at hand to make sure I’m not missing any steps. I like to put on some sweet jazz and use the time to meditate on my day.
So tell me, do you cast iron?
