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I received three cast iron skillets as a wedding gift back in '71. Still using them after all these years. Oven baking or stove top. They're well seasoned now too so it's like having a non-stick skillet on hand. I don't know if it's true but I read somewhere a long time ago that using cast iron to cook foods gives added iron to your meals which is beneficial to your health.
I don’t fry eggs in my cast iron. I use a non stick skillet for that. I do use my iron skillets for making toasted cheese sandwiches, French toast, and as a cornbread pan. I seldom fry bacon these days, but an iron skillet is perfect for this task. I seldom bake biscuits now, but if I do, I bake them in one of my iron skillets.
You are actually lucky to have the old skillets. Newer ones aren’t as balanced or smooth. Learn how to care for those kitchen treasures, and use them.
If you make pancakes, your iron skillet is great for that.
Nothing better than cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet. And I'm not talking about corncakes either. Also good for fried chicken and ribeyes tasted better cooked in a skillet. We could be here for days talking about everything you can cook in a cast iron skillet
You are so right about cornbread. This is making me hungry for cornbread.
My naturopath told me to cook spaghetti sauce or other tomato sauces in cast iron- a good source of bioavailable iron. I use it for eggs, sir-fried food, said spaghetti sauces, searing meat, slow-cook salmon (skin-side down), pretty much anything that's not soup.
I can't think of a better pan for pancakes than cast-iron. I can see your point about a thin metal pan being faster. I have some enameled tin bowls with flat bottoms that I use for eggs for exactly that reason. A lot of metal pans, however, are toxic. that's another reason I use the pans I bought at a thrift store 50 years ago more than anything else.
My cast iron fry pan is also the lid for a cast iron Dutch oven. This is what I use for no knead bread baking, and pot roast. I only cook steak in the cast iron fry pan. I still use tfal for eggs and most things.
I could use cast iron more, but like others have said, they are hard to lift for me.
I haven’t ever cooked tomato or other acids in cast iron for fear of spoiling the coating.
I used my mom's 1940s cast iron--skillets and a big dutch oven--for years, but they're too heavy for me now. I gave them away when I moved.
They're great for stove top to oven cooking, like chili with cornbread baked on top, or a chicken stew with biscuits on top. Most of my stainless pans have nonmetal handles, so I don't put them in the oven.
If you look hard, you can find even down to the standard #7 skillet with dual handles, which makes it a lot easier to manage. The larger ones almost always have 2 handles.
If my cast iron could talk.......the stories it would tell. My wife makes cornbread in 2 or 3 of them, stews, soups, just about everything she makes is with our cast iron.
My tarte tatin and my pineapple upside down cake just wouldn't be the same cooked in anything other than my cast iron pans, handed down from my Mother, from her Mother and yes, from her Mother too.
Thank you great grandmother.
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Indeed Pineapple Upside Down cake is done best in an iron skillet.
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