by A.J. Coltrane
In his book, My Bread, Jim Lahey recommends using a 5-quart cast iron dutch oven to bake the No Knead recipe.
Here’s a very affordable option: The Lodge 5-qt, at about $32. It’s widely available, the picture below is taken from the Target website:
It’s an easy expense to justify too — figure that one large delicious loaf of bread will cost somewhere around a dollar to make; the dutch oven will pay for itself in no time!
How can you resist?!
FlatbreadGarden 
Gee! How did you know? And at half the price of others I found!
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From what I’ve been reading the pre-seasoning is not good.
Reviewers at the Amazon website recommend washing the dutch oven in soapy water, then coating with oil and baking at 450F for 30 minutes.
One reviewer repeated the oil and bake step three times in total and was happy with the finished seasoning. If I purchase one for myself that’s what I’ll do.
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Pre-seasoning is never to be trusted. Ever.
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Oh – I think I need to make peach cobbler in my dutch oven now. Canned peaches (I buy the ones with brown sugar and cinnamon in the juice) and a yellow cake mix. Usually do it in the coals of the fire when we are camping but it works in the over too.
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It is a great dutch oven (I had one for years before moving out here), but it does have its limits – you do have to worry about reactivity with really acid stuff which can be problematic with long braises but if you are looking for something entry level, it is a smart buy. I personally would not trade my 7 1/4 qt Le Cruset for anything, unless of course it is an upgrade to one of the industrial Le Cruset dutch ovens. The drawback is they are spendy, but they are pretty much guaranteed to last until the next ice age.
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