Amay Zheng

Anne Miller wrote:Amay, you are not giving your cast iron pan long enough to not be able to use no oil.

When cooking and egg there would need to be at least 1/8 inch of oil that way it will not stick.

Generally, it's good to get your pan heated before you crack the egg on it. That helps it not stick. Medium heat tends to work well for me when cooking an egg.

Put a bit of butter or other oil in your pan. You don't need much. Wait until the oil is hot enough that a drop of water sizzles on the oil in. Now crack your egg in! Depending on your egg, you might want to turn the heat down to medium-low (duck eggs tend to do better at lower temps), but, some people like their eggs crispy, so cook your egg the way you want!

https://permies.com/wiki/30/103204/pep-food-prep-preservation/Fry-egg-cast-iron-skillet

Oh thank you so much! So I don't need a new Cast Iron Pan I just need to put more oil. I will try that. Thank you for the frying egg thread it is inspiring to see so many eggs sliding around the cast iron pans.

Quick update, Got the stainless steel spatula, gotta say WOW! It was so good at scraping bunch of black gunk from the cast iron, now it looks better.

With excitement, I cooked an egg, which stuck to the pan and broke the egg (image attached). Cast iron is really hard to love. I actually hate my cast iron to be honest because I watch how easy my MIL cooks her egg with her non-stick pan. Her egg slides off, making her cleanup so easy. With my cast iron, cleanup means a scrape down with my steel spatula first.

Will I have a better experience if I spend more on a better cast iron pan? I came across https://finexusa.com/ but it seems like they are also owned by Lodge. I am the Gilligan of using cast irons and ideally I'd like a Gillian proof cast iron pan.

Scott Lawhead wrote:Before we get too far into this, in my experience the spatula used is the second most important factor, after the pan.  

Okay I will try this for a year and hopefully it will improve my cast iron experience. Thank you very much. For spatula, do you think this is a good start? I have never bought a spatula before so I don't know what to look for.

https://www.amazon.com/Bellemain-Stainless-Spatula-Hardwood-Hamburger/dp/B0BB3FTMJH/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3VYQFSK3VCSFL&keywords=stainless+spatula+flat&qid=1671034879&sprefix=stainless+spatula+flat%2Caps%2C308&sr=8-2

Hi, I've been trying to love my cast iron and I need some help. I don't like seasoning my cast iron (takes too much effort and the oven makes my house smell) so maybe you can give me some tips?

My biggest frustration is that if I cook fish or chicken, pieces of it gets stuck to my cast iron. Then it becomes burnt and gets stuck to the cast iron. After wiping down with napkin, I still end up burnt food stuck to the cast iron.

A layer of seasoning will build up over time with cooking, which will make things a little bit more non-stick and prevent rusting

If I continue cooking over time, will the burnt food that is stuck to the cast iron eventually go away?

attached a few pictures of my cast iron, one is before wiping with napkin and one is after wiping with napkin.

Perhaps I'm using a bad cast iron pan and maybe I should buy a new one? According to this article: https://richsoil.com/cast-iron.jsp

use a good cast iron skillet with a glassy-smooth cooking surface (Griswold or Wagner). The new cast iron with the rough cooking surface is gonna be frustrating (Lodge Logic).

My cast iron has a rough cooking surface?

Hello, I have rented a plot (named ZoeLand) and would like to use it as an opportunity to treat existing boots / ants / residents.

Here's how it works! Take a picture / video of yourself at ZoeLand (by yourself or as a group) and post it here!

At the end of the month, $300 will be split equally among the ants and boots who showed up in the pictures in that month. Showing up multiple times does NOT get you more!

There will also be more budget to make the place more enticing (like a picnic table?). If you have ideas message me!

If you wish to participate please message me your PayPal/Venmo/ however you wish to receive coin.

Eric Hanson wrote:Two years ago I had a huge abundance of wood chips left over from a major brush clearing project..

Hello, I want to dabble and try to grow myself some wine caps, but I am too lazy /busy to get wood chips. My wife recently bought a bunch of stuff for our newborn so I have a bunch of cardboard boxes, could I use those instead to grow wine caps? Cardboard boxes and wood chips are similar right? haha.

Abraham Palma wrote:

is cloth diaper better for the environment if we don't recycle laundry water?

If you wash them with eco-friendly cleaner (potash soap), I should think that it's more ecological. In the worst case, the poop goes to the sea and it feeds algae (though it can be recycled too!). Meanwhile, the disposable diaper requires resources (energy, petrol) to be produced and the waste is non recyclable plastic that pollutes for centuries and gets in the trophic chain. The cloth diaper also needed some resources (energy and fibers) but it last much longer, so I think it should use fewer resources. The reason disposable diapers are cheap is because we don't price petrol properly, because if we did we wouldn't be using much of it, to the petrol industry lose.

Thank you for the analysis, I feel much better about using cloth diapers now haha.

I have a newborn, born 6 weeks ago.

We've been doing cloth diapers during the day, but I'm curious, is cloth diaper better for the environment if we don't recycle laundry water? The cloth diapers results in alot of laundry (twice a day) and I'm not sure if it's more environmentally friendly to just use disposables. Anyone have an idea?

I found a couple of exciting things around the area!

https://www.rayofsunshinefarm.com/dairy
This seems to be embrace permaculture values and I hope to check it out soon! Will update if I do.

https://getchipdrop.com/
Someone online mentioned this site to get wood chips and with a click of a button, a neighbor 10 minutes walk away from me reached out to me. They have a big load of woodchips in their backyard and offered me to take as much as I want.

Stacy Witscher wrote:Hi Amay, San Jose is lovely and I hope you find lots of people to connect with. I'm no longer in the SF Bay Area, but I was born and raised in Palo Alto, and raised my kids in the East Bay. The climate is lovely and you should be able to grow lots of amazing things.

Thank you Stacy! I'm new to gardening, and I've documenting my journey here: https://permies.com/t/164053/Gardening-Journey

Currently just focused on healing soil.