Well, there’s this thread. 
Edit: Removed factual error.
Wait. I’m confused. I thought that’s how I was supposed to season it.
Well yeah, there’s that issue with sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Someone save me a seat in hell please.
You asked if there’s anything you shouldn’t cook in it. 
As has been noted, acidic foods like tomatoes will take off the seasoning. I wouldn’t say you shouldn’t cook acidic foods in cast iron, but you will have to re-season.
I mostly use my cast iron for cooking breakfast. I start with bacon. Then I remove the bacon and throw diced potatoes and chopped onions into the grease (or some of the grease – it depends on how much there is) and cook them until they’re done. Then I add the bacon back, crumbled, mix it up, and break a couple of eggs on top. Cover (I just use aluminum foil) and cook until the eggs are done (I like the yolks runny). I’d add bell peppers if I ever had any.
Other things I cook are burgers, sausages, fried fish, fried chicken etc. I use the skillets as roasting pans when I make a leg of lamb or prime rib or something.
I have a two-burner cast iron griddle and a round single-burner griddle and nothing else will do when I make pancakes! Pancakes fried on nonstick pans and griddles just don’t hold a candle to those made on cast-iron cookware!
And reading this thread has made me HUNGRY!!!
Try gently steaming them in a bamboo steamer instead.
What is the best way to season a pan? I have an unseasoned one with a little rust on it. I don’t want to use animal fats if possible.
Thanks to this thread, I started reading up on Cast-Iron cooking, and I liked what I read, my stupid Teflon “nonstick” pans only seemed to last for about 6 months before becoming “semi-stick” and leaving Teflon fragments in the food, nothing like scrambled eggs Avec’ Teflon, is there? 
plus there was the side benefit of iron leaching into the food, and the minimal use of butter/pam/margirine/10W-30/WD-40 (just kidding on the last two )
My current “nonstick” pan set was both warped, and non-nonstick, I had to use butter, or Pam to keep food from sticking, even on the “nonstick” surface…
I had to stop off at the kitchen supply store after work, to pick up a basic CI pan and try it out for myself
I ended up purchasing the Lodge Combo Cooker kit, it seemed to be the best value, as it included a deep skillet, and a shallow skillet that doubles as a lid, turning the deep skillet into a Dutch Oven, three pans in one, not bad, and it was even preseasoned, great for impatient people like me
by the time I got it home, it was late, too late to cook, so I put the skillets away, and planned on making myself a hearty breakfast tomorrow, a camp-breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs, that would also help further season the skillet (yes, there was method to my madness)
It turns out that I couldn’t wait till tomorrow to cook something on it, so about 20 minutes ago, I went downstairs, took the shallow skillet, and put it on the electric cooktop, at temperature setting 4.5 or so, and allowed the skillet to warm
it transfers heat surprisingly quickly, within 20 seconds, I could feel warmth beginning to infuse the skillet, and after about 5 minutes it was ready to cook on
I took a pat of butter (well, half a pat, actually) and dropped it in, it melted quickly, and formed a nice, uniform coating, no pooling, no burning off or evaporating, it just stayed there, slickening the cooking surface
I then grabbed a couple slices of Cabot Cheddar and a couple slices of Me and Ollies gourmet wheat bread, and threw together a quick grilled cheese sandwich (or as Tom Servo would say, a “Sammich”) and dropped it in the skillet, running it around over the butter to absorb it, and flipping the sammich twice as it took on a wonderful golden brown hue and the Malliard reactions started to seal in the surface of the bread
long story short, all it took was one sammich to convince me that Cast Iron is The Way To Cook, that simple grilled cheese was browned to perfection, the cheese was perfectly ooey gooey and melty all the way through, in short, it was the most perfect grilled cheese sammich I had ever made, and this is coming from someone who can burn water for Og’s sake!
Okay, this is all well and good, the sammich may look delicious, but how did it taste…
I think the Almighty Homer put it best, as he would have described it as <drooling>
It’s hard to describe in words, it just tasted…goooood!
If anyone’s on the fence about Cast Iron cooking, DO IT, if I can create edible delights that don’t stick to the pan (and I’m a horrible cook), anyone can
Thanks for introducing me to the pleasures of Cast Iron cooking, Fessie
You can use Crisco. Here’s a Wiki article.
I have two 10" cast iron skillets. I used to make roast beef, until I decided I may as well make prime rib instead. But here’s how I made the roast beef: I’d heat the oven to 450ºF. I’d put the roast into one of the cast iron skillets and pop it into the oven for about a half hour or 45 minutes, depending on how big the roast was. Then I’d reduce the temperature to 350ºF and put the other cast iron skillet inverted on top of the first. A makeshift Dutch oven! After cooking for the required amount of time the meat was very tender and tasty.
Nowadays I just use one skillet and roast a prime rib uncovered. The last roast I made was a leg of lamb. (It was from Trader Joe’s. Not only is it very tasty, but super easy. It’s pre-seasoned, so you just pop it in the oven for about an hour.) After roasting I removed the leg of lamb to a plate. The CI skillet had all sorts of wonderful juice and some crusty bits. A bit of flour, a bit of water, and I had gravy. (I could have used the gravy for the potatoes, but I saved it for the shepherd’s pie I made the next day.) There’s something about a cast iron skillet that’s just the thing for making gravy from the drippings.
Okay, I’ve also been reading up on the “dangers” of Teflon pans, I know the fumes they produce when overheated/heated dry are dangerous to birds, but how do they affect humans, if at all
there are a few “OMG TEFLON IS TEH POISON!!!111!!ONEONE!!!” threads/websites, as well as “Teflon is Mostly Harmless, Don’t Panic!” threads/sites, so what’s the Straight Dope on Teflon coated pans?
(aside from the fact that they’re mediocre, don’t last, burn food, heat unevenly, cool down too fast when cold food is put on them to cook, and the teflon coating flakes off with normal use, and generally suck as a cooking surface?)
I’ve already moved my old Non-Nonstick teflon crap pans into storage, I would throw them out, but it’s always good to have backups, you know, just in case…
that said, I really don’t see myself ever using them again, Cast Iron all the way for me 
Wow, so you’ve Seen The Pan, And it Is Good 
. I’ve learned so much from things Dopers have shared over the years, it’s a privilege to “pay it forward”. Lodge is the brand I bought, too.
Bon Appetit!
Heh, just cooked 4 strips of bacon in it (gotta’ reinforce that factory seasoning, y’know) and Oh…My…Og… was it good!, perfectly browned, nice and crispy, (I love crispy bacon), and surprisingly low-fat to boot…
when cooking bacon in my crappy teflon pan, it would stick to the pan (even when new) and it came out both half-raw (MMMM…Trichinosis) and half burnt (not a fan of “Cajun Bacon” here) and dripping with fat…
in the Cast Iron skillet, the bacon browned perfectly, the grease from the bacon was largely absorbed into the skillet’s pores, the bacon never stuck to the pan, even when raw, and I even had to pour off some bacon grease halfway through cooking, as the bacon was starting to swim in it, and cooking slower, pouring the fat off accelerated the cooking back to normal, still without sticking (I actually poured off the grease into a small used foil cake pan, and will be storing it in the fridge/freezer so i have a source of grease for reseasoning the pan, I’m recycling
the pan also helps me save energy, as I can cook on a lower heat and save power and avoid burning the food
Cast Iron cooking is great
…maybe I AM a good cook after all, it wasn’t me that was incompetent, it was my substandard cookware holding me back…
I’m loving cast iron cooking so much now that I finally decided to throw away my teflon crap pans, I also told my mother about the (supposed) dangers of teflon pans, and she’s also tossing her pans and going Cast Iron, for some reason, she has no cast iron cookware at all
I stopped off at the kitchen supply store again, and picked up a 10" griddle for pancakes/bacon/scrambled eggs, and a little 3" mini-pan, perfect for cooking a single egg, or for holding melted butter for lobster and steamers
I guess you could say I’m a believer…
now, to hit the grocery store and get a nice Filet Mignon to cook up rare, and some shrimp to fry up, maybe some cornbread mix, and a dozen eggs to try scrambled and sunny-side up, maybe some veggies to sear/broil
I figure I now have the basic cookware needs covered, a Dutch Oven, a deep fry pan, a shallow fry pan/skillet, a skillet, and a single egg/butter melting pan
the Mini-Pan will also be my test-pan for foods that might damage the seasoning, as well as different cleaning techniques and seasoning techniques, it’s easier to experiment on a tiny 3" pan than a full size pan
It’s amazing how well Cast Iron transfers heat, as I was driving home from the store, I had the Mini-Pan on my dashboard, I had my car’s AC on full-blast recirculation setting, and yet the Mini-Pan was rather warm when I got home, simply from sitting on the dashboard of the car in direct sunlight…
I’m not getting the hate for Teflon. I do mostly cook with one of the cast iron pans, but the Teflon pans are good too. One is a 10" and two are 6", one of which is fairly heavy. I think they’re all Bialetti, but it could be that only two are. They’re all as good and as non-stick as new. I do take precautions. I don’t heat them without food or oil/butter in them, and I don’t use high heat. Also, I always use nylon/plastic or wooden utensiles with them. My saucepans are also Teflon.
Try this in your cast iron skillet. (I use one steak for myself.)
Johnny, the pans I tossed were all badly abused pans, warped, loose rattling handles, and they had only about 50-60% of the Teflon still there, they were really in sad shape
I basically killed them, cooking on them on high-heat settings (8-10), as i thought that cooking food quickly was good, I now know better
the reason I’ve warmed up (heh) to cast iron cookware so quickly is that I see so many positives about it, and no real downsides
CI pans heat evenly, my aluminum ones had cold spots and hot spots
even when new, my teflon pans still had food stick to them (I now know that I had the temperature set far too high, and was simply burning the teflon away
I used metal utensils on them (a big no-no), metal utensils don’t seem to be as detrimental to CI, even though it’s still not a good idea, at least CI can be re-seasoned
then there’s the whole unknown factor of PTFE and it’s outgassing byproducts, it might be toxic, might not, but there’s no downside to erring on the side of caution with Teflon and simply not using it
I like the fact that a tiny amount of iron, probably not dietarily sufficient for an adult, is transferred into the food while cooking
I love the simplicity and durability of CI, it lasts forever, one of the best values in cookware, it’ll outlive me (especially if I keep frying bacon in it )
I love the simple cleanup (wipe down and give a light coat of oil) and the fact that the non-stick properties of the cooking surface can be restored if it’s damaged, if a teflon pan gets all battle-scarred it needs to be scrapped
I love the rich history of CI, it’s a cooking material that’s been with us for generations
so, no I don’t “hate” all Teflon cookware, I hate MY Teflon cookware, or should I say I hated it, as it’s now in the recycling bin
Sand slurry does an excellent job at cleaning a cast iron frying pan.
Seeing as I inherited most of my CI pans from deceased relatives, I somehow find myself cooking in their style when I use them. Lots and lots of bad stuff added to anything that might have been good for you in its original form, of course.
So reading this today inspired tonight’s two sides, fried cabbage (with 4 slices of bacon fried first and sliced to bits in the pan) and candied baby carrots. Since we don’t work in the fields or the mines all day, we should so not eat like this, but dayum Grandma knew what tasted good.