City Island Southern Girl: Kitchen Maintenance Day - Defrosting the Freezer and Seasoning Cast Iron Skillets

Well, since I have been out of school and have had some free time - I have been enjoying cooking some, and am excited about that. While I advocate a high raw diet, and some people can live by that 100%, but I can't - at least not right now, I want to learn how to cook healthier too. There was a time when I lived out of a box - hamburger helper, Stouffer's Lasagna, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, etc., but those days are gone for me! Since I have become a Messianic I have learned the importance of eating clean, and processed foods (foods processed outside the home) just aren't clean. If they aren't adding pork to your food or chemicals they are adding human hair or duck feathers to it. It doesn't sound very appetizing does it? So though later on I may talk about decorating homes or something like that, but for now - eating healthy is my main theme, whether raw or cooked.

Seasoning a Cast Iron Skillet

Now, all this cooking has gotten me thinking... a couple of years ago I purchased a set of cast iron skillets and used them for a little while and then they started getting rusty and old looking, so I went back to my aluminum skillet. The whole purpose that I purchased the cast iron skillet set (besides nostalgia) was to get away from heavy metal toxins. So I have been thinking about this the last couple of days and decided today to season my skillets. I am afraid that I didn't take very good detailed photos - but this is a hard job (!), not hard laborous, but hard in the fact that your home gets smoky and your eyes feel like they are burning out! I still have both of my A/Cs on, plus a window open to draw all of the smoke out.

However, here you can see that I have taken one of the skillets and sprayed it with Easy Off oven cleaner. It's in a plastic shopping bag.

After you spray the skillet in the bag, close it up. This will help the oven cleaner work better, and the bag (Spray it while in the bag.) acts as a curtain so that nothing around is contaminated. Leave it for several hours. This process helps to remove the hold seasoning and any rest.

Then take out of the bags and rinse with water, scrubbing as you go.

After this I dried mine off and placed them in the oven at 250 degrees to get them good and dry. After about twenty minutes, taking them out and coat them in vegetable oil.

Return your skillet to the oven, turning up the heat to 500 degrees for one hour (I read) - but it got so smoky in here I ended up turning mine down to 350 degrees and leaving them 40 minutes. Anyway, they turned out looking like this.

I guess the 40 minutes at 500/350 (half and half) was good enough.

Defrosting a Freezer

I was partly raised with my aunt, and she had a refrigerator like this.

I hated that thing! It was always packed with food. This was her second refrigerator, as she also had a more modern side by side in the kitchen, but she always had both packed with food. Every so often it required defrosting, so here we would go carrying out all the food to the table and we would boil pans after pans of water and carry them to the freezer.

I never had another freezer, which required defrosting until I moved here, and my refrigerator isn't even that old. That was five years ago, and I still hated defrosting a freezer, but recently I have been drawn to the old way of doing things, and consider it a blessing. I like the convenience of some modern things, but I wish I had grown up in previous times too, because I consider those more wholesome. We really ought to return more to our roots. Proverbs 31 describes a virtuous woman, and that is what I want to be like. She's always busy taking care of her family. Now, I have a long way to go to meet the standards of Proverbs 31, as you can see - I am on the computer a lot, but that's my goal. I have so enjoyed learning to make butter and cheese and things like that, and there is so much more I want to learn! First Timothy 5:13 says that when people are idol that's when people start gossiping and becoming busybodies. So, I believe that maybe YHWH (Hebrew name for God) put that freezer her to teach me a lesson and to show me what a blessing it is to have these extra chores.

But on to the defrosting of the freezer.

I started out with two pots...

And ended up with three (with one always on the stove boiling).

As the pots of scalding hot water melted the inch-thick ice on the walls of the freezer, quite a puddle accumulated in the bottom.

I scooped as much water as I could with this little plastic cup, but then had to resort to a sponge when it got too shallow for the cup. The sponge did a great job though!

Then I wiped it down and it was clean and frost free!

Well, I see my husband snuck some Brier's Ice Cream in there when he returned from walking to the store earlier. What do you say - naughty? At least Brier's is all natural.

Anyway, to my next point. While I am busy in the kitchen today, I thought I would show you my water filter and my ice.

I always have a little box of ice.

We usually drink a lot of ice water, and so I keep the white box filled if ice, while the trays are making more!

Now, regarding the water filter, I cannot afford a huge system that cleans everything out, but I do use a Brita. I guess, at least, it takes out a few things. I want to show you how easy it is!

This is the pitcher.

These are the components of the filter.

And this is the filter itself, and how it fits down into the little "basket."

As the water runs down through the filter, little pieces of charcoal come up into the area, which has not been filtered yet, but none gets into the drinking water, which is already filtered.