Almost everywhere I look up information about caring for cast-iron pans, people are hollering at you not to put soap in your pans. They say in the most definite terms that this is extremely undesirable for your pans and will ruin the seasoning. This just isn’t true–I wash my pans with soap after every use, like my mother before me, and our pans are in perfect condition. Dish soap does not destroy the seasoning–it merely removes the layer of grease that you just cooked in, which is the point of washing something to begin with. As long as you oil the pan after every washing, at least for the first few months after the initial seasoning, you will build up a fine layer of season and your pan will last you indefinitely. You should see the way wash-water rolls off my most frequently used pan–the seasoning is almost waterproof at this point.

How do you get it seasoned like that in the first place? Easy: wipe it with a thin layer of lard or shortening (I use lard; I tried liquid vegetable oil the first time and it gummed up and I had to start over) and put it in the oven for an hour. Some people recommend an extremely high oven temp for this (450-500); others say 350 is fine. Both will work, but the key is a thin layer of grease–if the grease pools it will harden into a stubborn little nodule on your pan. Check the pan 20 minutes into the process and again at 40 (these times are for 350 degrees; if you use higher heat, check at shorter intervals), and if there are grease beads standing on it, wipe them away with a paper towel. Then, each time you cook in the pan, wash and thoroughly dry, then set the pan on a burner to heat for a couple minutes, put more lard or shortening in, wipe it all over the pan (again, thinly) and let the pan sit on the burner a couple more minutes, until the grease is very hot and well soaked into the pan. Turn the burner off, wipe pan with paper towel, and let it sit until cool. It’s okay if the pan remains slightly greasy to the touch.

For especially crusty, old, or rusty pans (or to clear off a botched seasoning job): I cleaned all the gunk of the ages off all my heirloom pans by putting them in the oven during a cleaning cycle–put the pans in the oven while cold, then turn on the cleaning cycle and leave them alone until many hours after the cycle is over, so that they cool gradually. Warning–some people say their pans have warped or cracked during this process, but mine withstood the heat and came out clean as a whistle–well, clean under the flaky ashy stuff, the remains of the formerly crusted-on stuff. From there, just wash, dry, and season. If they’re rusty, take some fine-grain sandpaper or a sanding sponge, sand on them for a bit, rub them with your seasoning medium, then wash with soap and dry thoroughly. Repeat sanding, oiling, and washing until rust-free. Then follow seasoning procedure outlined above.

This is what has worked like a charm for my pans–your mileage may vary.

1) Docweasel asked for my contact info. It’s now in a page linked off the sidebar until I can figure a better way to display it.

2) Karol asked for recipes. My “signature” dish, so called because I’ve made it enough never to screw it up and it’s a yummy, nutritious meal, is pepper steak. I’m making it tonight, in fact.

–1 lb. beef for stir-fry (if your grocery store packages this already sliced into strips, so much the better. If not, get something in a sirloin-class cut and slice it perpendicular to the grain into two-inch strips)
–two or three cloves garlic, chopped
–one white or yellow onion, chopped
–two or three bell peppers, various colors, sliced into thin strips
–two roma tomatoes, quartered
–olive oil
–salt and pepper
–soy sauce, approximately 1/4 cup
–2 tbs. cornstarch
–1/4 cup water
–rice prepared according to box directions

Start your rice simmering according to box directions.

Heat a large skillet or wok over medium high heat. Add approx. 1-2 tbs. olive oil. When oil is hot, add chopped garlic. When garlic is sizzling (if garlic begins to brown, turn the heat down!), add steak, salt and pepper to taste, and stir-fry until well browned on all sides. Remove beef and garlic and any liquid from frying to a bowl, add 1/4 cup soy sauce and set aside. Return pan to the heat and add a bit more oil, enough to stir-fry the onion and peppers until crisp-tender (they will be lightly coated with oil and take on a more intense color, but not brown or soften noticeably). Return beef to pan and add a dash more soy sauce. Soy should mix with beef broth and come to a boil. Lay quartered tomatoes on top of the mixture, cover the whole thing with either the pan lid or aluminum foil and turn heat down till the mixture is simmering enough to steam the tomatoes, about five minutes or until tomatoes look cooked. If there is not a reasonable amount of liquid in the pan, add water, soy sauce, or both and bring to a boil again. While the tomatoes steam, add 2 tbs. cornstarch to a bowl, add the 1/4 cup water, and mix well with a fork or a whisk until liquid is smooth.

When tomaoes are well steamed, add cornstarch mixture to the pan and stir. Sauce should thicken.

It’s done! It can sit on the very lowest “simmer” setting for a while without hurting it if your guests are late or you forgot to cook the rice, as I’ve done many times.

Serve over rice. Enjoy! When I make it tonight I’ll try to measure the soy sauce and update.

Update: If all goes well, 1/4 cup soy sauce is about all you’ll need, and I’ve updated the recipe accordingly. If, however, you cook the beef till the liquid boils away, you’ll need to add some water (1/8-1/4 cup) to your mixture after returning the beef to the pan, with maybe a dash more soy sauce. Mine is simmering and steaming the tomatoes right now, which means I’m live-blogging a recipe, which makes me some kind of serious fusion geek, I think.

3) nk asked for the tank/bra boobage pictures in order to judge whether it’s a traffic-stopping look or not.

Well, you don’t get everything you ask for.

Then give this recipe a try–a baked casserole that looks a lot less labor-intensive than my pomodoro. I’ve got to try something that uses an entire pound of green onions. But I will have a hard time resisting the urge to layer the veggies with some mozzerella and breadcrumbs. Yum.

Thanks to this. And despite what it says, you can use butter if you prefer it to cooking spray (which I do). Just keep the heat low, like it says, and make sure to coat the whole bottom of the pan with butter. And the non-stick, shallow pan with rounded sides is key–as much as I love my cast iron, and I do use it to make plain scrambled eggs, it just won’t work for this.

…was yummy and a good way to use up summer garden produce. Of course, with two steaming pots on the stove, it helps if you have air conditioning, unlike my mother’s Midwestern kitchen, which this time of year feels like the tenth circle of hell, only sweatier. But it was worth it.

Zucchini Pomodoro

Four small-to-medium zucchini, chopped
Two small-to-medium onions, chopped
Two cloves of garlic, minced
Five medium-to-large tomatoes, preferably fresh from the garden, peeled, cored, and chopped
Two big handfuls of chopped flat-leaf parsley, basil, and purple-ruffle basil, proportions to taste
Olive oil, salt, and pepper
Optional: Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into medallions, or Italian sausages, sliced
A pound or so of spaghetti, thin spaghetti, or linguine according to preference
Parmesan cheese, grated

Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic to the pan, and when it begins to sizzle, add onions and stir well. Add zucchini and stir-fry till crisp-tender, five to ten minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Pour veggies from skillet into bowl and set aside. Add a little more oil to the pan and pour in all your chopped tomatoes. Raise heat to high and bring to a boil. Let boil until juice reduces to the thickness you prefer, probably a minimum of twenty minutes. While tomatoes are boiling, add medium handful of herbs to both the tomato mixture and the zucchini mixture in the bowl. Stir both.

Heat water for pasta; saute chicken medallions in a little olive oil till lightly browned, or fry sausage rounds. Set meat aside.

When tomatoes have reduced to your preference, add zucchini mixture back in and stir. Cook till zucchinis are heated through. Turn off heat and stir in remaining fresh herbs. Set aside.

When pasta water is boiling, add pasta with salt and return to boil. Cook ten minutes; drain. Serve sauce over a bed of pasta with meat at the side. Sprinkle with parmesan.

If you prefer meatballs to chicken or sausage and don’t have a good recipe, my mother has a tasty one I can post.