HUUUUGE!

It's no secret that I love Le Creuset enameled cast iron. All the joy of cooking with heat-retaining cast iron, none of the worry about tomato-based recipes killing the seasoning. I am particularly in love with their round French ovens - they are my go-to pots and I have a fair number of them. My favorite one has always been what we called "the big orange pot". It's a nine quart pot (the #30 size, for those non-quart people) that has pretty much been my daily-use pot ever since we bought it. It spends more time on my stove or drying on the counter than it does put up in its cabinet. There's only one problem with it - when we make soup we get really close to boiling it over.

So last weekend, we happened to be near a Le Creuset outlet. And that outlet happened to be having a sale. You see where this is going? Yeah, we bought a new "big" pot. How big? Well, here it is next to our previous big-boy, the 9 quart.

The new pot is a whopping 13 quarts (#34!). It's HUGE. And heavy. It barely fits in the sink for washing. And I love it. In the first two days we owned it, we used it twice, once for a triple recipe of applesauce (we had a ton of apples) and once for soup. Fabulous.

Of course, I don't think it will replace my beloved orange pot for daily use. But it will be our go-to soup pot, which is the whole point of it.

Part of me knows how ridiculous it was that we got this pot - I mean, it's HUGE and nothing Le Creuset is cheap. That being said, don't think we actually paid anywhere near full price for this. I've wanted this pot for ages but could not justify paying what it sells for. But knock a couple hundred off the price? Yes please!

And now I must return to the kitchen to pet it and tell it how fabulous it is.