Cast-iron cookware help?

First, wash it thoroughly with soapy water - you need to get all the crap and gunk off. If there's rust, you'll have to remove it with steel wool. Serious rust may require sandblasting. Once cleaned down to bare metal and thoroughly dried, you'll have to re-season it.

Coat it inside and out with vegetable oil. Put in the oven upside down and turn the oven on and heat the item to 325 degrees. Let it bake at that temperature for an hour and then turn off the oven and let it cool to room temperature. Remove the item from the oven, wipe inside and out with dry paper toweling and repeat the process with the oil and heat. After it's cooled and been wiped out the second time, store it in a dry place on it's side if possible. If it has an iron lid, it's best to store that separately. Otherwise, prop the lid open if it has to sit on its bottom and put a sheet of paper toweling inside to absorb any moisture.

The rich, heavy black surface coating it had when you got it came only after years of use. You know not to wash it but this once with soap and water, right? After each use, wipe it out thoroughly while still warm with a clean, soft cloth such as a cloth baby diaper or a cotton cloth dishtowel. If you have to get aggressive to remove baked-on bits, use a plastic scrub pad and hot water ONLY - no steel wool and no soap.

Caring for cast iron cookware is a pain in the butt for most folks, but I hate cooking in anything else - food done in iron is just soooooo much better! And I'm an old retired geezer so I have the time to properly care for my cast iron. Let's see, how much do I have? Um - ten skillets of various sizes, a cast iron griddle, two Dutch ovens and four cast iron camp ovens - those're the ones with three short legs and a lid with a flange so I can put hot coals on top, and two large iron sauce pans. I need another deep fryer, too...that's gonna cost me a hundred for a 14-inch one with a lid...

jennifer, if you try to cook that skillet in the oven your house will smell like burned grease for months. crisco it up real good and put it in the charcoal grill outside just like a steak and let her rip. burn it good and long. this ain't no high teck thing, but once that grease starts burning and smoking in your oven, then what?

re-season them...oil them with vegetable or olive oil---wipe off excess....bake in oven at 250 for 2 hrs...after using a few times they will blacken again

Whatever you decide to do, do NOT use vegetable oil. You will create an entirely new problem if you do. It goes rancid.

Cover the metal with fat (shortening) and cook it slow (on top of the stove or in the oven). It might smoke a little but if your getting a lot of smoke, then it is too hot. After a couple of hours it will be as good as new. All cast iron comes unseasoned (that is the term) and must be seasoned before use.

http://www.wikihow.com/Season-Cast-Iron-Cookware

I agree with EF1