What a Dutch Oven Has Taught Me

My Mom was kind enough to get me a nice dutch oven for Christmas a few years back. It was pre-seasoned and ready to go straight out of the box.

I think what really got me itching for one was Curtis's potato sausage bacon casserole. He made that for us a couple times when we visited him and Hannah. I love the idea of cooking stew, cobbler and all things delicious in the out of doors. Especially when all you have to do is put stuff in the pot and heat it up.

I was able to get some good use out of our dutch oven for some time. We tried to replicate Curtis's casserole (good but pales in comparison to the master chef)...Emily made some excellent beef stew...I made peach cobbler...life was good. Then after one meal, mabye chili (which has acidic tomatoes that eat at the seasoning), I didn't clean it out as I should have and it rusted on the inside.

So I decided to ask the Internet on how to get our dutch oven back into working order. Basically the verdict was to scrub, scrub and scrape the rust off. I tried steel wool to some success, but I think I just made it worse. Every time I thought I had it and washed it off, I would put it in the oven to quickly dry it, it would look even rustier. I read that vinegar would help remove the rust so I tried some of that and got about the same result.

Eventually I decided that I just need to start from scratch and blast the seasoning off of it. So I put the dutch oven into the oven on a cleaning cycle. I was silly and used mugs to use as stands figuring ceramic would be okay with the intense heat. The ceramic was just fine, it was the glaze that melted a bit where it touched the bottom of the oven. We now have three rings of glaze in the oven. So I guess that was my fist lesson that I learned.

After burning off the seasoning. I dusted off the dutch oven and let it sit on a shelf for a long time. Luckily it didn't spoil. My wife is the adult leader for our church's girls camp this summer and she wanted to use it. So I got a wire brush accessory for my drill and started cleaning off the residue and got it as clean and shiny as I could. And I coated it in Crisco and baked it to begin the seasoning process. It's looking good and I hope that I can keep maintaining it so that we can use if for a long time.

Lessons (Re)Learned

• Problems don't go away by ignoring them or covering them up
• Problems require hard work and sometimes won't go away on the first try
• Maintenance is an important part of life to keep us happy
• It's nice to be able to have nice things. Because you know how to care for it. (Conversely: this)