Greasing Your Pan

Hi friends!

Some healthy fat in your diet is good, but you certainly don’t want to overdo it.  I for one would rather enjoy my healthy fats in the form of raw nuts/seeds, avocados, homemade salad dressings and the like rather than adding unnecessary calories in the bottom of my pans. But sometimes you need a little oil in the pan to build some flavor through caramelization, get a good crust or even make some eggs.  I’m not a fan of sprays (because of the propellants in the cans among other things) and I also prefer to cook with organic coconut oil.  If you already use unrefined coconut oil,  you know that when it’s room temp or warmer it’s liquid, but any colder and it solidifies.  Which makes it kind of challenging to put in a Misto® or other type of sprayer. 

So when you want to get a very thin layer of oil to cook with, use a pastry brush!  That way you can start with a very tiny amount and build up as you need.

(Hopefully in that last picture you can see the tiny beads of coconut oil.  I was using my new ceramic lined sauté pan so there is a bit of a glare in the photo.)

If you are cooking something in batches where you’ll need to re-oil the pan, just spoon a little bit of your oil into a ramekin first so that you aren’t double-dipping your the pastry brush back into your clean jar of oil.

I also recommend a silicon pastry brush over natural or synthetic ‘hair’ bristles – the hairlike bristles tend to fall out and that’s no fun if you are serving guests!  I found this OXO brush in my Christmas stocking one year from Santa Cory and I LOVE it.

Happy cooking!

– Shari B. =)