Cooking with Bill and Terri #4.2- Pots and Pans Follow-up!

Thanks for all the comments on what I thought would be my most boring post ever about pots and pans! Here’s a couple of interesting things that were brought to our attention we want to share with you.

Meatloaf pan, ready to start cooking.

Bruce and Kathy from British Columbia shared this great find with us: a meatloaf pan! I never even knew such a thing existed, but this is pure genius! Who amongst us hasn’t struggled to get meatloaf out of the pan after cooking, only to mess up several portions. No more!

Check out all this deliciousness! Photos courtesy of Bruce and Kathy.

So, I recently learned a lot about Dutch ovens. Pre-17th century, the Dutch were the best makers of pots and pans in the world, using copper and brass. Then an Englishman thought cast iron would work, and be much more affordable … but to make it work, he had to use the “Dutch process” to cast them, so they’ve been known as Dutch ovens ever since.

It also turns out that if you want to get really picky, Dutch ovens are made of uncoated cast iron. The French devised a way to coat them with enamel, making them much easier to clean, and became known as French ovens (I never knew this). Here is a great article from Allrecipies on “What is a Dutch Oven” with lots more information, tips, and recipes.

We love both these pans, for very different reasons.

So, last time, as to not totally bore you to death, I didn’t say much about fry pans. Haha, sorry, but yes, there’s more! Besides the Swiss Zyliss non-stick, we also have an uncoated cast iron fry pan (another Christmas gift from Terri to me), and a little, inexpensive copper coated fry/saute pan. After a very bad experience with the failure of a non-stick PFOA (teflon-type) fry pan, we went looking for alternatives. I was VERY skepical because of how little the copper-coated pan cost, but it has been a winner. It is amazingly fast and easy to clean, and the coating still appears to be very durable. Here is a link to a video on USA Today about the differences between cast-iron and stainless steel fry pans, and when to use each one for best results.

So now I’m even more curious – do you have a unique pan you absolutely love? Come on and share with the rest of us!