Cleaning Up an Old Le Creuset Dutch Oven

I found this little gem at an estate sale.  It's an older 1 quart Le Creuset Dutch Oven.  You can tell it is older by the handle on the lid. 

Newer lids have the black handle

 

The older Dutch ovens were marked on the bottom of the pots and the undersides of the lids as to what size they were.  "A" indicates this is a 1 quart.

 I bought it for only $11 but it was really nasty on the inside.  Nasty dirty, but there were no huge chunks out of the bottom. Since it was so cheap I thought I'd buy it and try to get it back to a usable state.

First order of business was getting off the "old nasty". I soaked it in hot sudsy water; I use Dawn dish washing soap.

Then gave it a good scrub. This is a good scrub pad to use on your enameled cast iron.  You don't want to use an SOS - type product or abrasive cleaners.

This was the next step.  I poured several inches of Hydrogen Peroxide into the pot and 1 Tbsp. of baking soda.  

I brought it to a boil then lowered the heat, put the lid on and simmered for 15 minutes.  I let the mixture cool down and then used the Dobie pad to really scrub the inside.  I used a good amount of elbow grease on the grimey parts.

This is how it turned out.  Not bad.  Got the sticky gunk out of it but it still was not as clean as I would want in order for me to cook in it.

 The final step was a good soak in OxiClean.

Four cups water and a half scoop of the powder (scoop comes with the OxiClean) .  Stir around every once in a while to dissolve and let sit for about 6 hours on the counter top.

After one more cleaning in hot sudsy water here is what I have!  All ready to use! Now there is no reason to spend $140.00 on a new one (smiling to myself)