I was cleaning my cast iron skillet today and thought with all the health related issues with partaking of fried foods I was wondering what are you doing with your cast iron skillets now a days? I have cut back on cooking home fries with onions, fried chicken, pork chops, and ground beef for meals. I hardly use it any more other than for cornbread. What are you doing with your cast iron skillet(s)?
We have taken to using cast iron more often, since everything cooks better in cast iron. We have been buying and selling cast iron skillets for a while now, beginning when my wife was able to acquire a large collection of cast iron skillets and other implements. We're keeping some for the house, and putting some away for our camp, but we've made quite a bit of money selling the others on eBay. Beginning with those, we've been checking yard sales, and have also bought some cast iron on eBay to be resold later. I had forgotten how easy it was to cook with cast iron.
We have a lot of cast iron but don't use most of it. We have a glass top stove so only use cast iron in the oven. Fried food got a bad rap years ago along with butter, eggs, lard and whatever is on the latest "healthnut" agenda, which have all been proven wrong but people have it stuck in their heads that these things are bad. Of course if you're frying with Crisco, that IS bad.
I only have one small cast iron skillet and use it only for making tortillas. It seems to be the perfect size and the cast iron makes the tortillas seem "real" as they brown perfectly!
I make fried potatoes in my cast iron skillet. I don't do a lot of frying but wen I do I use the cast iron skillet.
We don't have a cast iron skillet and don't prepare fried foods very often, more out of convenience than for health reasons. However I believe that the most healthy oil to use for cooking is coconut oil, which apparently is the only type of oil that isn't damaged by heat. So, if you want to prepare fried foods but are reluctant to do so for health reasons, it might be worth giving coconut oil a try.
If anything, we're using cast-iron for more stuff now than we were a few years ago when I last posted in this thread. Everything seems to cook better in cast iron, and it's easy to clean, particularly as compared to the no-stick stuff that works only a few times before everything starts sticking to it. All of our skillets are cast-iron, and we also use cast-iron saucepans, including a large cast-iron bean pot. Aside from being easy to clean, it's so much easier to regular temperatures in cast-iron.
We have two cast iron skillets we use a lot. A 10 inch and an 8 inch. We also use our club aluminum cookware a lot. BTW many years ago I bought a bunch of cast iron from a newspaper ad. I paid $75 for the lot. Kept the 10 and 8 inch skillets and sold the rest at auction recently. I got $255 for it. I would say cast iron is getting more popular these days.
I have a few cast iron pieces that belonged to my mother; a well-seasoned skillet and a griddle thing that she used to make the best "ho-cake" in the universe. I have always loved to cook and have a fairly large investment in cookware, including several Le Creuset pieces which are enameled cast iron. They are quite heavy but have excellent heat distribution for even heating. I need to begin distributing those between our kids; I don't use the larger pieces any longer since I'm cooking for 2.
I can't even remember the last time I owned one. I remember them being really heavy and you had to oil them.
I have about 5 and I still use them to make biscuits. Not all of one time but I rotate each time I need them. My daughter has purchased some and now she is using them too.
Wrought iron is good for fences and outdoor decorations, but cast-iron is much better for cooking. By the way, I strongly suspect that if this thread were about wrought iron skillets, you would say that you prefer cast iron.