I just picked up my first cast iron skillet from a garage sale for $2
1) How should I go about sanitizing it? I know I shouldn't use soap on it, but if freaks me out that someone else has been using it for god knows how long.
2) What should I try to cook in it? I hear eggs are pretty good in cast iron, what else?
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First thing you want to do is take some sand paper to it for an hour.
Wash it down good with soap and then scrub the hell out of it with water.
Then you want to coat the entire damn thing in oil, inside and out, and leave it in a 350F oven for an hour then let cool. Repeat this process 2-3 times.
Don't listen to this faggot.
Just look up proper cast-iron cleaning methods
The sand paper thing does sort of scare me, but I see other people doing it online when I looked it up
Lots of vinegar and kitchen/bathroom sanitiser.
I honestly wouldn't worry about it. Any bacteria die from the heat anyway
wtf, what he said is literally what you do to properly clean cast iron.
stop being a 12 year old fag
You don't need to remove the entire seasoning to properly sanitize it unless it is obviously rusted. You might go at it for just 10 seconds with steel wool to remove a tiny little bit if it looks flakey.
You should check out what kinds of oils are best to season it with though, and 350f doesn't sound hot enough. From what I've read either crisco or raw flaxseed oil from the fridge in fancy health food stores works best.
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You don't want to use soap or steel wool (or sandpaper for that matter) for cleaning cast iron. You use the sandpaper to strip the seasoning and expose bare iron so you can reseason it yourself (the coating it in a thin layer of oil and heating in the oven for a long time) the seasoning is a coating of polymerized fats or some shit idk I'm not a doctor, anyway the seasoning protects the iron from rust and a really good season is practically non-stick.
After stripping it and reseasoning it you won't have to worry about what the previous owners used it for or how they treated it, it's like a hard reset.
Yeah lard smokes like a motherfucker but if you have good ventilation it can make an amazing seasoning. 350°F almost certainly isn't hot enough.
Flaxseed oil is great because of it's retardedly high smoke point.
That's way too much.
You don't need to reseason it after literally every usage. Every 6 months or so is fine and I've had my $300 cast iron set for 5 years now.