Do as I Say, Not as I Do

Now I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert by any means, but I do know my way around the kitchen fairly well.  But I definitely made a huge kitchen blunder this week. You may remember that I used my cast iron pan in lieu of a wok Monday night for dinner. Just like any other night we cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, washed the dishes—putting the smaller everyday items in the dishwasher and washing the bigger items (including the cast iron pan) by hand and laying them out to dry on a dish towel.

Did you catch it? The big blunder, that is?

We washed the cast iron pan and laid it out to dry on a dish towel. When we should have dried it immediately. So when I went to put it away I saw this:

Yep, that's rust :(

Oh the horror!

Fortunately, it was not the end of the world. If I had had a potato, I would have tried an old trick using it and some baking soda to remove the rust. But there were no potatoes to be had here. So I used a scouring pad instead which meant that I was going to have re-season the pan.  I followed The Kitchn’s seasoning advice and wiped the pan down with vegetable oil and then baking it (upside down) in the oven for an hour (make sure to put some aluminum foil on the bottom rack to catch any drips). After an hour I turned the oven off and then let the pan cool completely before removing (I left it there overnight). Here’s what we ended up with:

Definitely looks a lot better, don't you think? Let this be a lesson to you-- always dry your cast iron cookware immediately!