Dutch Oven

I have two favorite things in my kitchen–both of which I definitely splurged on, but both of which make my life so much better that I feel totally comfortable with the amount of money I spent on them. The first one is a KitchenAid stand mixer that I bought for Brandon for his birthday years ago. And the second is my Le Creuset dutch oven. I bought my dutch oven at a Le Creuset outlet store when I passed the bar (so it was slightly discounted, but definitely still a reward) and have been using it constantly since then. Also it’s a beautiful light pink color that I haven’t seen anywhere else that makes me smile every time I look at it.

I originally bought the dutch oven so that I could bake bread in it because my friend Darrah had been making bread in her dutch oven for years and I deeply wanted (and still do) to be as good at it as she is. And it works beautifully for bread baking–it’s the perfect size to fit a nice loaf and the enamel coating makes it super easy to clean up after. All you have to do is rinse it out with water if anything has actually stuck to the inside, which is a rarity.

Since then I’ve expanded into using my dutch oven to make soups and stews and basically anything that won’t fit into my cast iron skillet. I’ve used it to make homemade chicken broth, and to roast an entire chicken. It’s great because it works just as well on the stovetop as it does in the oven–as long as you have real oven mitts. And as long as you’re sure to get a dutch oven with a stainless steel knob on the lid–some Le Creuset dutch ovens have plastic knobs on the lids, which is fine for the stovetop but be sure to unscrew it before you pop it in the oven.

As much as I love my dutch oven, I didn’t really know how to take care of it until recently. I’d been treating it like I treat my cast iron skillet–mainly just washing it with water and if it was absolutely necessary I’d scrub it with a sponge. And it was working well on the inside of the pot but the outside was getting a little gross. By chance I happened to see an Instagram story from a cooking magazine (I can’t for the life of me remember which one now) that showed how to clean off the stains on the outside of an enameled dutch oven! So of course I immediately bought the product they recommended on Amazon and OMG game changer.

Bar Keepers Friend cleaner is amazing. It’s a powder that cleaned my dutch oven so well that I wish I’d thought to take before and after pictures because it’s now a completely different color! All you do is get the pot wet and then sprinkle the powder on it and scrub it away with a sponge. Now because I hadn’t truly cleaned my dutch oven since I got it (don’t judge me, I’m definitely embarrassed about this), it took a bit of effort on the scrubbing. But in the end it literally looks like it did when I pulled it out of the box on the first day.

Like I said, game changer. I was so amazed I knew I had to share because I’m betting some of y’all have been in the same position as me!

xoxo,
J