Urgent help required- drastic domestic fail

[Mymothersdaughter]

Please can someone help!

I forgot to wash up a pot and I have a mould-splosion

Can anyone give me tips for how I'd even start going about restoring this pot!

Warning- graphic image below

How long was it left for?

Wash it up and see what it looks like then. From memory Le crueset have a section on their website for cleaning advice.

Discard mouldy curry in bin and soak pot with hot soapy water with dishwasher tablet or washing pod/ tablet.....then rinse and if necessary repeat

Scrape it out, wash it up with very hot water and then dunk it in Milton once it's clean. And make sure you dump some water down that outside drain to rinse any mould away.

Out of interest, how long was it on the cooker to go that mouldy?

Scrape it out, and wash thoroughly. Cast iron seems to clean really well, well my cast iron pots do.

I left a grill pan in the grill for a few months without realising it, as forgot was pissed from the party we had and that had mouldy on it. Cleaned it with boiling water and Fairy, then threw it in the dishwasher. Though I've never put our cast iron pot in the dishwasher, don't think you can???

It's going to be fine. Bit of hot water and it'll be like it never happened.

Have fun scraping all the mould out of your drain though

Haha thanks everyone! Would have just left it without the encouragement!

I put on some gloves and picked all the food out of the drain and scraped the rest into the bin. It's chilling with some hot soapy water in it now. Hopefully it won't walk off

Been on the hob for a week, it was last Sunday's dinner. Might be able to get the pot well enough to cook tonight's dinner in ;-)

Cast iron is OK to go in the dishwasher.

Don't attempt anything without the gloves!!!!

You should just scrape it all out into a carrier bag and then dump that big in a bin liner and straight into your wheelie bin. Then use a hose or a jug of water to wash it out in the outside drain. Then bring it in and wash like normal. It'll all come off super easily.

Shoot us the nice clean pot afterwards please.

If you aren't using Milton/Dettol/a dishwasher, one of the best ways to make sure all the mould is dead is to let it dry out overnight - most fungi/bacteria will die very quickly in the absence of moisture and nutrients.

If you really need to use it tonight, pop it in the oven for an hour or so (empty) to kill everything.

Do what usual said soak it with washing powder then wash it out then boil water in it on the hob it will be fine no need to bin it

Le creuset comes up really well in dishwasher.

Still wouldn't be enough for me though....

This happened to a dish of mine left it in the microwave it was boaktastic but did clean ok

This happened to us - DH was in charge of the washing up, he didn't realise their was still stew in the slow cooker.

Most distraught when I went to make a goulash two weeks later and whole new life forms had evolved in the slow cooker.

I couldn't even look at it without gipping so into the bin it went. On the plus side, we had a kebab for tea.

Blimey, I must be a proper slob, but I'd just scrape out the mould, scrub pot in very hot soapy water several times, put itin the dishwasher on its own on an intensive setting ( maybe twice). No way would I sacrifice a good pot.

Haha thanks clashcity makes me feel better

It's in the dishwasher now, we don't usually dishwash the pot as it was getting a bit rusty but desperate times call for desperate measures

Of course I won't be using the fact I cleaned to pot as leverage against DP to get out of the next 5 cleaning tasks ;-)

How did you not SMELL that?!
Urgh.

A friend of mine who is not that crash hot on the cooking front once had a hideous smell emanating from her kitchen. She cleaned everything, checked cupboards etc. but couldn't eliminate it - until she finally (honestly!) opened the oven up and found a week-old broccoli and cauliflower cheese bake, or rather what it had morphed into (not dissimilar to your curry, tbh!)

The pot should be fine once it's been cleaned properly - unlikely the mould will have been able to penetrate the pot surface, and indeed why would it bother when it had all that curry to play with?!

I'd probably bleach it as well just to be on the safe side though.

I must have a stomach of steel it didnt phase me the microwave did whiff though kept wandering into the kitchen saying what is that smell i must be a complete slob

For future reference:

Rubber gloves - scrape the mould into a plastic bag, tie it off and into the outside bin with it.
Put pot in sink and carefully pour boiling water from the kettle into it and then drain it out.
Then fill with very hot soapy water, leave to stand for a few minutes then give it a good scrub and rinse with hot water.

Dam.. that's nasty!

shit youve just remined me about the stew in the slow cooker

Oh ok dont do that (whats thermal shock)

Sorry, good spot I skipped a step - forgot it was a cast iron pan. Stand it for of hot soapy water and then follow up with the boiling water. The latter step is to kill off anything nasty.