Friday, October 30, 2020

How I Restore and Maintain Cast Iron Skillets for Use On The Grill

[FTC Standard Disclosure] I received no compensation for this blog post. I will include Amazon Affiliate links to show a source for products that I use; however, you can likely find the same or similar products at your local kitchen or home goods store.


When I post pictures of my cast iron collection, I often get comments and questions about how I season and maintain them. As promised (ahem...months ago), here is what I do to keep my cast iron looking black, shiny, and beautiful. 

Some of the cast-iron cookware that I use day to day.


I'll start by saying this. Maintaining cast iron isn't about a magic product or special oil. Maintaining cast-iron skillets is a behavior. If you clean and spend 10 minutes reseasoning your skillets each time you use them, they will stay immaculate, non-stick, and last a lifetime. 

A second important point. Cast-iron is meant for use day-in, day-out. The best thing you can do to maintain your cast-iron cookware is to use it often.

Restoration

A good story starts at the beginning so let's start with the 1930's era Griswold #8 skillet that I restored earlier this year. 

When Do I Need To Restore A Skillet?

Typically, when a skillet loses its seasoning or gets a little flaky, the cast-iron just needs a thorough cleaning, reseasoning, and frequent use. But when a piece of cast-iron cookware has been abused and has built-up carbon or large sections of rust, the restoration will make it as good as new. Restoration is time-consuming, but you should never have to do it again if you maintain your cast-iron in the first place. Restoring cast-iron includes: 

  • stripping/cleaning, 
  • establishing a base coat, and then 
  • repeated use to build up the seasoning.

How I restored this 1930's era Griswold cast-iron skillet
This skillet definitely needed restoration. It was made over 80 years ago and had definitely seen better days. 

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Gorgonzola and Bacon Burger

 [FTC Standard Disclosure] We received no compensation for this post.

The black and blue burger, a burger topped with blue cheese, is one of the classic burgers. You either love them or hate them. I'm a lover of these pungent flavored burgers, they make my mouth water like a car hitting a fire hydrant.  

I did a spin on this time-honored burger for happy hour tonight. Some folks are wary of blue cheese because of the intense flavor. Instead of the typical blue cheese crumbles, a thick, creamy gorgonzola sauce graced our burgers. The milder flavor works better on a burger for me.

Gorgonzola & Bacon Burger featuring fresh ground chuck from Food City
This burger is bursting with flavor! The sharp taste of the cheese sauce, the smoky/salty bacon, and fresh ground chuck patty make this a spectacular burger.

I start off making the cheese sauce because I like to give it time to rest and thicken. That way it stays on top of the burger on the grill instead of dripping off into the flames below.

NMT Gorgonzola Burger Sauce

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Steak and Cheese Sandwich on the PK Grill

 [FTC Standard Disclaimer] I received no compensation for this post.

I haven't been posting much on here lately. That is because we have been busy on weekends doing home repairs. We are also renovating our basement patio, which we have never used much in 20 years, into an expanded grilling area. 

Here's a quicky that we did this past weekend when the heavy rains from Hurricane Delta's remnants kept us from working on projects. I made these super simple steak and cheese subs on the PK grill.


Normally, I will do these when I break down a whole ribeye, and I save one of the ends just for steak and cheese sandwiches.  I run it through my meat slicer on a near-zero thickness setting for shaved steak. I don't do that often because a whole ribeye is not inexpensive, and cleaning the slicer is a bit of a chore.