What to Do With… An Old Dutch Oven?
A few weeks ago, our beloved dutch oven developed a chip in its enamel, and after much deliberation, we’ve decided to go ahead and replace it. (Thank you, everyone, for all your great advice!) Here’s our next question: what should we do with the old dutch oven?
We really can’t imagine just chucking this dutch oven into the trash, so we’re trying to brainstorms some clever ways we can put it to another use – either in the kitchen or out. We already have a short-list of ideas gathered from the comments on the last post with a few of our own:
• Use it to store bread or other baked goods
• Use it to store onions and garlic
• Use it to store potatoes (though not with the onions!)
• Use it to store spices
• Use it to store grains
• Use it as a planter
Now that we’ve been thinking about it, we can see a lot of advantages to using a dutch oven for food storage. The thick metal means that the contents will stay relatively cool if we store the pot in a cupboard away from the stove or direct sunlight. With the lid on, it will also be dark in there, which makes it ideal for light-sensitive foods like spices and potatoes. The heaviness and tight fit of dutch oven’s lid should also protect contents from little critters.
The biggest disadvantage is that dutch ovens are pretty heavy and can be fairly unwieldy. We’re not sure we want to use it for anything that we’d need to access frequently. Ideally, it would sit on a low shelf or even on the floor of the pantry and we could just lift off the lid to get inside without having to move it.
What do you think? How would you re-purpose this old dutch oven in your home?
(Image: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)