your cooking vessels

a thread about your favorite cast iron, crockery, stainless steel, etc.

i got a dutch oven recently (calphalon enamel cast iron) and so far it's produced some wonderful food. i'm using it tonight to make chicken stock from the carcass of the lemon-herb chicken i cooked last night.

last year i got my first serious cookware. a got a lil 3-qt. le creuset dutch oven from the outlet and i love it but it's a little cramped. should've gone with the 5-qt. i also got a calphalon anodized straight-sided saute pan that i love, it's huge and heavy and goes stovetop to oven extremely well.

yeah, my dutch oven is a 5-qt. it's just my bf and me most nights so we don't need more capacity than that.

I'm really really really ready to get a wok but I haven't found one that speaks to me yet

Will you also get a countertop gas burner for high enough heat??

the burner in my apt is actually pretty good

dunno why most american maytags are so anemic though. throw some heat!

My sister gave me a plain old garden variety 10" cast iron skillet for my 21st birthday. I have used it approximately once or twice a day for the past 37 years. Apart from a somewhat crusty exterior, it is as good as the day I got it. With care it could last another 100 years easily. She probably paid under $20 for it. Value!

About 25 years ago I decided my wife and I needed a good stock pot. (I'm more of a cook than she is.) A couple of years later I found one we could afford (around $50). Sturdy stainless steel with a heavy bottom, augmented with 1/2" of solid aluminum. A steel lid. It holds a couple of gallons. Extremely useful item.

Fagor 10 qt pressure cooker. Foolproof, a necessity for vegans and other bean eaters (do invest in a Lorna Sass cookbook to go with it, big enough to make 8 qts of stock at a time, fairly easy to clean.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41se%2Bz%2BwPsL.jpg

We have a few Le Creuset casseroles, from small to unmanageably large, a few stainless pots and pans that I use every day, a non-stick frying pan, a small and a big lightweight pots with steamers on top, that might be it I think.

the best chicken stock i ever had was from a pressure cooker -- and it was just the classic french recipe with mirepoix and bouquet garni. i'd like to buy a pressure cooker someday.

my dutch oven chicken stock tonight came out great btw. definitely inspired by the pressure-cooker stock i made in culinary school.

5 quart le creuset - goddamn i love that thing. soup stew risotto, stove or oven or both, we even take it camping

also calphalon tri-ply copper pots & pans (8pc set iirc) we got 10 years ago at a closeout store. huge bargain, and they cook like the devil. and i love the way the copper patinas with use. they look loved :)

I have a random steel wok that I got from a chinese market, that's taken about 5 years to really season fully, that I love. It no longer get rust and its nicely blackened.

I also have a nice sturdy Swiss Diamond sautee pan I bought a couple years back thats handy for everything: high sided, has a lid, apparently can go in the oven (tho Ive not tried this), is deep enough for a huge batch of sauce or casserole.

The rest of my gear is random assortments of pots and pans.

"it no longer get rust"? geez.

5.5 quart oval and 3 quart round Le Creuset - the smaller one gets used more, probably because it fits nicely on the induction burner I have. 14", 10", and 6" Lodge cast iron skillets - <3 u 10". 2 deep covered pots that work on the induction, unknown brand, found at Ross. Huge lidded oval roaster, big enough for a 25-lb turkey. 30 quart behemoth stock pot (has a ss oar to stir with and a propane burner ring). Giant graniteware canner.

i just got given two MINIATURE la creuset dutch ovens* for my b'day!!!

*not actually dutch ovens - they are cocettes - but they LOOK like little tiny baby dutch ovens