It's Friday

[Bethers]

Ty and I are in a waiting room while Winnie gets new tires and my bank balance takes a hit. Ah, planned for this but it always hurts spending money.

Then off to buy a new l.p./co2 detector. Time for a new one, also.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying this January 2019.

[Acadianmom]

I was wondering where everyone is. I just got back from bringing my RV to the shop. A ride home cost me a lunch. Considering what it costs to eat out, Uber might have been cheaper. lol

My pain from yesterday finally settled in a tooth but of corse it was after the dentist office was closed. I hope they will see me Monday.

We are having another nice sunny day. The temperature almost made it back to 70 but it's starting to fall so need to walk Hank. We have more rain coming tomorrow. The clover is taking the yard so I should probably see if the mower will start.

Martha

[Colliemom]

They must be Beth as it’s late afternoon here on the east side and nobody has yet posted. I just got back from a walk with the fur kids. They gotta go blow off the energy. Although I do keep them on leash, I do let them run and chase each other when their mood strikes to do so, then it becomes a free for all, especially with the snow.

I’ve put two intense days in working on my project. Wanted to cut 2 feet off three shelves mounted on the wall and that involved measuring, removing screws, back and forth up the stairs, out to the garage to do the cutting and then get them back in place and screwed back down. They need to be supported on each end as they are framed with 2x2’s front and back along their length. So made some new and different supports. This kind of work is very time consuming, not to mention a second pair of hands would have been nice a few times, but now they are done. Time to paint. Tomorrow. Also got second cost on the shelf boxes and then mounted one on the wall today. Took another one down in the old sewing room previous owner had. It was made to hold thread spools and I have used it to store craft paint bottles. Like a mini wine rack. Painted it and will put it on wall in work room tomorrow. All the painting I’m doing has me thinking of doing same in my trailer. But not now of course

So now that I havevyou all tired out, I am going to retire t6o the kitchen a prepare something to eat.

[OregonLuvr]

Good afternoon. Haven't been very productive today, just a load of laundry and I made a pie.

Took Emma for a walk and ran into a neighbor lady that I helped last year. She called us in and she gave me a bread machine. She said she got it for Christmas and has zero use for it....cheaper just to buy stuff she said. Thought since I liked gadgets she thought of me. I asked her how much she wanted for it and she said NOTHING. Just wanted to give it to someone instead of a donation center. I tried to give her something for it (altho I dont know that I need a breadmaker either) but she flatly refused so I am now the proud owner of a bread machine LOL LOL Have never had one before but she assured me I will love it LOL LOL she doesnt want it, but I will love it LOL We shall see.

Had some cut up roasted chicken in the fridge so sauteed it up and put a terriyaki sauce on it with some crushed red peppers to spice it up and put it over rice for lunch....mmmmmmm good.

[BirdbyBird]

I took a day off from driving. I caught up on laundry and found a nearby Albertsons to help with picking up some fresh fruits and milk, etc. Am looking at the route across I 10 tomorrow. For now I was making my sights for the Benson area. Are any of you out and about in southern NM or AZ that are just hanging out until later next week? Let me know! I have wiggle room to change up the jello before I arrive in Q. And you can be assured that I have clean laundry and a recent shower.

Tina

[Acadianmom]

Karen, sure you will love the bread machine. I had one that I loved and lost in the flood. The new one I bought I don't love so much. lol It takes a lot of experimenting to get the feel for them and to tell if you have the mix just right. I might drag mine out and try it again. Like I need homemade bread hanging around.

Martha

[Redetotry]

The snow has just started here but fore cast says snow all night. UGH I always feel trapped when it snows a lot.

I think I ruined my favorite cast iron skillet!! After I last used it I washed it out with hot water in it and wiped dry with a paper towel. Heated it on the stove with a bit of vegetable oil, cooled it well, put the lid on and stored in usual place. I went to use it today and when I wiped out a bit of excess oil, I noticed it was a rusty orange color and the pan had.a terrible smell. So far I have rinsed it again and heated it but it still stinks! Does anyone have any idea as to what happened or how to fix it??!!
I think I ruined my favorite cast iron skillet!! After I last used it I ran hot water in it and wiped dry with a paper towel. Heated it on the stove with a bit of vegetable oil, cooled it well, put the lid on and stored in usual place. I went to use it today and when I wiped out a bit of excess oil, I noticed it was a rusty orange color and the pan had.a terrible smell. So far I have rinsed it again and heated it but it still stinks! Does anyone have any idea as to what happened or how to fix it??!!

[Cudedog]

Could be that your oil was bad. Or it maybe spoiled in the pan, with the pan covered - especially if excess oil was left in there. The bad smell is probably from the oil. Difficult to remove a spoiled oil smell from cast iron.

I have an old - very old - and large square cast iron skillet here that my Dad gave me maybe 35 years ago. It belonged to my grandmother (he gave it to me after she passed), so it is likely more than a hundred years old. I have used it pretty regularly down through the years.

You can try the following. It likely won't hurt your pan, but even if it does your pan might have been a lost cause anyway.

Find some scrap wood somewhere, and (if you have the space) build a small fire in your backyard. Or you can just put some charcoal in your bar-b-que (if you have one).

Anyway, get the fire (either the wood or the coals) nice and hot, and put your empty pan into the fire. Take a shovel or something and pile some of the hot coals around, and even into, the pan.

Let everything burn until the fire goes out, and the pan is cool. Then take the pan, give it a wash, then re-season it.

It will probably be good to go.

Anne

[JudyJB]

If the outdoor hot fire method does not work, you can also use oven cleaner. I had an over-100-year old antique cast iron pan that was rusted and had burned stuff on the bottom. (It was my dad's and given to him by my oldest uncle who had gotten it from his grandfather.) I used about ten coats of oven cleaner and took it down to "grey metal" or the way it looked when the iron was poured into a mold and cooled. I would heat it in the oven and then coat it with oven cleaner. It took maybe ten coats to get off the rust and all the baked-on oil gunk that had accumulated over the years. Most of the bottom of my old pan was covered with crusty stuff (burned oil or fat) that would not come off with regular scrubbing or even soaking. You can even use steel wool to remove rust. My last step before re-seasoning was to bake it in my self-cleaning oven until it was back to grey metal.

Then, I had to start the re-seasoning process from scratch, but when I was done, it was gorgeous, and all the crusty black stuff on the bottom was gone and you could clearly read the lettering. I have a smaller old pan my aunt gave me which is rusted and one of these days when i can work outdoors, I am going to treat it with oven cleaner and use steel wool to get rid of the rust.

Beware that there is a lot of controversy about what kind of oil you should use to season your pan. Some of the vegetable oils will turn rancid, especially if the layer is too thick and if it is not used very often. Here is a website by Lodge, the maker of most of the really good, old stuff. http://www.lodgemfg.com/use-and-care/what-is-seasoning It says they use soybean oil. You also might want to store the lid separately in the future and make sure the pan is thoroughly dry before you store it. I remember my mother wrapping this one in old feed sacks, which were 100% cotton. (I finally tossed out the last of my collection of horse feed sacks when I sold my condo. Unfortunately, my mother had very carefully bleached off almost all the pictures of horses on them, or they would have been frame-able!)

Since I had not used mine much in the last few years, I gave it to my niece and her brother to fight over. My nephew and my niece's husband went to culinary arts school, so I knew they would appreciate it, as compared to my kids who thought I ought to just buy a new pan!

[dpf]

Good evening!

Karen, I love my bread machine. I always use bread flour and I never bake the bread in it. Only use the dough only cycle and then form to what I want and bake in the oven.

I revived a cast iron griddle by putting it in the oven when I ran the self clean cycle. Came out great...then I seasoned it again.

Speaking of ovens, I just ordered a new range....it has a convection oven....looking forward to trying it out.

[Cudedog]

I'm thinking the self-cleaning oven cycle probably would do the trick.

A lot easier than building a fire in the back yard, that's for sure!

A self-cleaning oven gets really hot - or so I understand (although a fire would be hotter).

I have never had a self-cleaning oven, so I have never tried the oven method.

I took my little Webber "Smoky Joe" grill over to a friend's house a while back to char up some meat
(LOL- don't ever ask me to bar-b-cue!), and after our bar-b-cue dinner, she took one of her cast iron skillets outside and put it in the coals.

Came out clean as a whistle, and only took one "treatment" . No chemicals needed, either.

Anne

[JudyJB]

I would NOT use the self-cleaning oven method until I had gone through several oven cleaner cycles to get most of the crud off. The problem with doing this indoors, and in an oven where the door locks shut and you cannot open it, is that it can REALLY produce a ton of fumes!! And it might even start an oven fire. My self-cleaning oven came with a warning to remove most of the grease and crud before starting the cleaning cycle, and even then, I had to open windows to get rid of the fumes, so I did it only when I was alone and on a day I could leave windows open for several hours!!!!

Note that I only used the self-cleaning oven as a last step to get the final stuff off. Outdoors, no one will notice the smell or the smoke--especially in Oregon during fire season!

So, if you don't want to use chemicals, you had better do it outside so as not to smoke up the house.

[Redetotry]

Thanks for all the tips on saving my skillet. I think it was the Crisco oil I used to oil it with although I have been using that (not the same bottle) for over a year. I starting the Crisco Oil when I read vegetable oil should be used on cast iron so I switched from olive oil. I think that even though it was dry when I put it away, I put the lid on. Since I can't use chemicals of any kind the oven cleaner is definitely out. I use baking soda to clean my oven, just sprinkle it on while oven is a little warm, spritz with water and wipe off the next day. Works great. I do have a self cleaning oven but have never cleaned with it as I was afraid of fumes. I think I'll cook some bacon in it and see how it smells after that, I'll toss the bacon. If that doesn't work will resort to firing it. I have cast iron pieces from my Granny ,who was born in 1890, that I know they are over 100 years. I have a big outdoor kettle and can remember her making lye soap out back of her house in it. I hated that lye soap but we used it to wash dishes. I also have her kettle that is about an 8 quart but it's way too heavy for me to use.