u/ISNIFFPROPANE

New to cast iron and wanted to restore a old pan for a project so I picked a griswold I found on eBay. Came super crusty and I kinda went through a few different methods I found online to clean it. I started with oven cleaner which did a great job on the bottom but didn’t really get the sides, so I ended up just cooking it under coals in a fire which worked great. Soaked in vinegar for around an hour and scrubbed the crap out of it. Seasoned a few times with grapeseed and just made some eggs on it this morning, I’m really happy with the result.

First time cooking rice in a cast iron skillet and it came out surprisingly really well, cooking some onion and garlic and scraping up all brown bits from the chicken thighs, toasting the rice then deglazed and simmered with chicken stock. I didn’t know this was an option with CI so it’s nice to know I have it in the toolkit.

I’m assuming it’s just some seasoning coming up but just wanna double check as I’m quite the noob. If this is the case anything I can do to keep it from happening in the future?

Any tips for these sad looking basil plants? I’ve been pruning but started a little late after they got lanky. Was thinking to maybe tie them down to the side to train them… these were from a basil plant bought a grocery store transplanted into these little pots with indoor grow soil. 2 of them have their own individual pots and 1 has 3 plants in it.
Any help is much appreciated!

I made a post a bit ago asking for help with my seasoning on a #10 Smithey CI. A significant amount of seasoning was coming off from practically every time I cooked. I was scratching my head wandering what I was doing wrong. Someone commented saying to try a vinegar etch due to the surface being too smooth to hold seasoning. After debating it for a bit, this is exactly what I did. Simmered 50/50 white vinegar and water for about 10 minutes (pic #3) - ever since my pan has been amazing at holding seasoning, no issues from eggs to searing steak. I can now give it a hard scrubbing with sponge and soap plus sometimes chainmail after every time I cook without having to worry about my seasoning flaking off as well. I can’t recommend this enough if you’re struggling with the same problems.