My Personal Take On Cookware

September 19, 2015

First of all, I highly recommend you go through your cupboards and get rid of any Teflon® skillets and pans you might still have. Knowing all that you know now, there is no way you should continue to cook with them.

With that being said, what should you cook with and for what dishes? Here’s my personal insight on what I like to use and think works best for certain foods.

I use the Green Earth Skillet by Ozeri with the Greblon® non-stick coating for fried eggs, omelets, and pancakes. This pan is the most similar to Teflon® but 100% PTFE and PFOA free.

I use the Zwilling J.A. Henckels Twin Spirit Thermolon ceramic Fry Pan for stir-fries, pan seared sea scallops, fish, grilled cheese sandwiches and bacon. The ceramic coating helps prevent sticking but I still use some sort of oil or butter to coat the bottom of the pan.

I use a 10 in. tin coated copper frying pan that I love for fried eggs, searing Ahi tuna, and chicken. I hope to acquire a few more pieces in the future.

I use a Lodge cast iron round fry pan for Tortilla Española (potato pie, my kids’ name for it), cornbread, bacon, sausages, dutch baby pancakes, and paninis.

I use a Le Creuset enameled cast iron dutch oven for chili, soups, stews, roasts, and casseroles. I love my dutch over because you can use it on the stove top and or in the oven.

I use All Clad Stainless Steel cookware for the majority of my pots and pans. Cooking with a stainless steel skillet or frying pan can be intimidating. The trick to preventing foods from sticking is to heat the pan until hot before adding the oil, then add the food. Steel expands when hot and contracts when it comes into contact with a cooler temperature, which is why foods stick to the surface. By adding oil to the pan when it’s hot, the steel becomes static, resulting in a temporarily nonstick surface. I like to sear, braise or brown meat or chicken in my stainless steel skillet.

Hopefully this has given you some insight to help you decide what safe cookware you need for your own kitchen

Bon appétit!

~ Anna

Ceramic Coated Aluminum Cookware

September 19, 2015

Ceramic is a newer material in the world of nonstick cookware. It’s widely considered to be the safest and most environmentally friendly option. Ceramic is free of PTFE and PFOA. Ceramic coatings come in a wide variety of styles and colors. The two technologies I like best are Thermolon® and Greblon®.

Zwilling J.A. Henckels Twin Spirit Thermolon Fry Pan

Thermolon® – is liquid type ceramic coating material that is an inorganic ceramic polymer created by a Sol-Gel Process. It has a full range of color tones applicable to almost all kinds of substrates such as stainless steel, cast iron, aluminum, plastic, wood and glass, etc. Thermolon is completely non-flammable with no emission of toxic gases when heated. Its heat resistance characteristic remains at even very high temperatures.

Greblon® – is a wet organic process for the production of ceramic coatings. This is achieved by using a nano scale sol, based on organo-metallic polymers that build a 3-dimensional gel. The ceramic layer is finally formed by a baking process at moderate temperatures.

Some argue that ceramic has a shorter life span than Teflon® cookware, but it is the safer choice by far. However I don’t cook with cooking spray, which can dramatically affect the life span of both ceramic cookware.

Green Earth Pan with Greblon® ceramic coating

If you cook with oil, it’s critical to completely clean off all of the cooked oil after each use. Otherwise layers of oil will build up, quickly diminishing the nonstick properties of the cookware. But unfortunately if you vigorously scrub off the layers of oil, you inevitably take the nonstick surface with it. This can cause both ceramic cookware to age prematurely.

http://w.thermolon.co.kr/html_w/mn04/mn04_01.html

http://www.greblon.com/index.php?id=home

https://weusedthat.wordpress.com/tag/greblon-ceramic/

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400862/Are-Nonstick-Ceramic-Pans-Better.html