Can you use the stove top trivets on the glass surface of your stove? Perhaps that will work with regular cast.

Are you sure that the cooking surface is raw cast iron? I have a Lodge enameled Dutch oven, and the outside is red enamel and the inside is white enamel.

Yes, it's raw. I saw them at the Lodge store.

I think you'd have to do all your cooking in cast iron - not enameled cast iron - to get any significant benefit. Yes, there is some benefit from the leaching, but is that enough? Cast iron frying pans and griddles are what I have always used - and I am iron deficient and take an iron pill daily.

Once your stove top is scratched, it's looks are ruined for good. My dad's was, (the scratches got very dark, the surrounding areas turned yellow) but that was in 1985. They're probably not as vulnerable now.

Did someone recommend using cast iron to you?

I think there's easier ways to boost your iron levels. Eating iron-rich foods will give you more accessible iron than using the pans.

There are easier ways to boost your iron levels, but cooking acidic foods in cast iron does work. Note I said acidic foods, just cooking your burger in cast iron isn't going to do it, or eggs, or whatever.

At one point my iron level was high enough that the doctor checked it twice. It was because Ashley was on a "chili" kick and I was making chili a couple of times a times a week in my cast iron dutch oven. It was he!! on the seasoning, but it was the only pan I had that worked for a pot of chili at that time in my life. My girls both liked spaghetti with tomato sauce too, and what I always called "goulash", which was hamburger, onions, tomatoes and pasta. Probably why I still dislike pasta with red sauce! Anyway, I cooked it all in that Lodge 5 quart dutch oven.

The acid from the tomatoes was leaching the iron out of the pan and into the food. Add our regular beef consumption because we raised beef and you've got a darned good iron level. The girls both had very "healthy" iron levels too, so it wasn't just me. I have since acquired additional cookware and no longer use my cast iron for tomato products, but it worked really well for me for several years. I never took an iron supplement, ever, because I never had to. When I stopped using that pan for everything, I started having trouble with my iron levels.

Annie

Well.......I use my cast iron on my ceran smooth top. I also use the un - enameled cast iron Le Creuset on the smooth surface. I do have a few scratches, but I am more inclined to think they are from setting my plates on the top when I plate the food. I am careful not to slide the pans, skillets, etc, but sometimes I do because it is heavy and I need to get it off the heat quickly.
I have eaten out of cast iron my entire life, and my iron levels vary. There are easier ways to insure you get your daily does of iron :). I am not suggesting your smooth top will not get scratched from using cast iron, I am just saying I have been using cast iron everyday-stove is 8yrs old-with very little scratching and I'm not sure they are from the cookware.

I'm going to try one of the lodge pans. The bottom is enameled, the interior is not.
I do eat, well, try, to eat iron rich foods but I could do a lot better. It doesn't help that dh doesn't like beef.
I will not eat liver.

As an offshoot to the question on whether seasoning would mess up the enamel, I want to know if anyone has a way to clean up that enameled outside surface.

Elery bought a red LeCrueset skillet, a small one, on ebay. I can tell the red color on the handle but the rest of the pan is pretty much just blackened. Other than scrubbing with a Brillo pad, which I've done until my arm is tired, is there a product or a method to take the black off the outside enameled surface without destroying the enamel?

Annie

Annie, part of my ''job'' when I was an antique dealer, was cleaning up stuff like that. I would have to check the can first, but the first thing I would try if there were no warnings against it, would be a spray on oven cleaner (out in the garage on some newspaper). I'm not sure about enamel, but I think it might be okay. Something else I've used in the past is soft scrub (very lightly). The oven cleaner takes much less elbow grease!

Annie,
Try Astonish Paste. I've used it for that very reason.
I'm out now. I need to get more. I just did a search and only found it through QVC. But it is great for enamel. And for porcelain sinks. And for marble counters...
Ann

Annie, I've used the fume-free oven cleaner on my LeCreuset in the past, and it works very well. I usually let the cleaner sit on the pot for 30 minutes or so, then I scrub it and repeat if needed.

I've never even heard of Astonish Paste, thanks Ann.

I do have oven cleaner, since I don't have a self cleaning oven, so I'll try that, thanks.

Annie