If I have stuck on food, which is very seldom since my pans are very well seasoned antiques, I use a little white plastic scraper, it may be a bowl scraper. It is about 4x3 and it is thicker and rounded on top. I keep one in the trailer and one at home. It does the job very nicely and doesn't remove the seasoning. I do use water if things don't just wipe out with a paper towel.
For my skillets, when clean,I always put them on the top of the stove, heat, then wipe a very small amount of good veggie oil on their surface. I continue to heat until it is starting to smoke and shimmer. I then wipe again, distributing any oil around and let it cool. When cool, I wipe again and put away.
I always stack with a paper towel in between so they can breath. If I am using a pot with a lid I always make sure there is something, like a folded paper towel between the pot and the lid.
I've been married 40 years. As a new bride I brought a couple of seasoned cast iron pans that I only cleaned with salt and paper towels. My husband was horrified and claimed he would never eat anything that came out of an unwashed skillet. I still have and use those pans and have washed them in a sink of hot, soapy water after every use. It is rare that anything sticks, but if it does, I just use a plastic scrubbing sponge. I let the pans air dry before putting them in the cupboard.
There's two reasons why you should not use soap with cast iron.
First, your seasoning is oil-based. Soap is going to degrade that seasoning because that's what it's supposed to do -- remove oil.
Second, cast iron is very porous. Many folks will find that if they use soap on their cast iron, their food will wind up tasting like soap.
There's absolutely no reason to use soap on cast iron. Hot water, salt & water, cast iron cleaner, etc. are all you need to clean seasoned cast iron.
My cast iron has two purposes. One, to cook with, two, as a decoration in my kitchen! All my cast iron is hanging on the walls. The cheap plastic lazy susans in the corner cabinets are not strong enough to hold the amount of cast iron I have, and I don't want them "banging" against each other. Hanging them on the walls works great for me!
Julie
* This post was
edited 06/15/08 06:32pm by Mrs. Mik *
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