We were invited to a cookout a couple weekends ago and we were asked specifically to bring a big batch of my crawdad etouffee.     We posted a blog on June 24 with the recipe and talked about how we cooked it in a dutch oven on the wood stove in our tipi.

Since Pam is allergic to the peppers and onions, I had to prepare the ingredients outside, and I used the side burner on the grill to cook it.  The 3 qt deep cast iron skillet fit perfectly over the burner.  It worked great, didn’t heat the house up, and I won some brownie points with Pam!

Using cast iron cookware on the grill in the same way you use it on your stove is pretty simple, and if you have a large grill – especially with a side burner or two – you can cook a lot of dishes at the same time.

It’s been unusually and oppressively HOT since May…..only now are we getting a reprieve and some rain here in Md. Still, I can’t believe it is already August, and autumn is just around the corner.  Dusty is anticipating erecting the tipi and we’re already planning meals to cook over the fire pit in the backyard.

Here’s one I’m going to try in either my 3 qt Dutch oven London Broil in a Cast Iron Dutch Oven or my 3 qt. deep fry skillet.  My girlfriend prepared this in a Dutch oven (in her modern day oven) and it was delicious!   She calls it her ‘London Broil Delight’.

Starting with a London broil about 2” thick and 6” x 6” wide/long.  Pre-season it with:

• a pinch of sea salt
• one Tbsp. black or white pepper
• chop two cloves of garlic and fork it into the meat
• sprinkle some fresh basil (3 – 4 leaves) finely chopped over the meat

Place the meat in a shallow container and add 1/3 cup olive or canola oil and 1/3 cup of balsamic vinegar.  You can add 2 Tbsp of Worcestshire Sauce if you like (optional).  I’m allergic to W. sauce so I leave it out.  Close/cover the container and let sit on your countertop for 3-4 hours.

When ready to cook, simply remove the meat from the container and place it in the pre-seasoned Dutch oven or skillet.  Bake in the oven at 385⁰F for about 45 minutes or if you don’t want to heat up the house you can cook it on the stove top making sure to keep an eye on it .  If cooking on the stovetop, set the temperature to low to moderate heat and add a little extra oil (2 Tbsps).

Dusty and I would love to hear how yours turns out!

Fall camping season is just around the corner and cooking outdoors over an open fire is just another fun adventure…especially if you have young kids.  Dusty and I have many fond memories of cooking hotdogs and hamburgers with our young children (now in their 20’s) using our cast iron pie irons.  I’ll forever have their squeals of delight imprinting in my memory.  Even the youngest (5 at the time) took such delight ‘in making his own dinner’, and clean up was no work at all.  To top it off, Dusty baked a delicious cherry cobbler in one of our smaller Dutch ovens…what a blast!  I hope Dusty and I will NEVER out grow our passion for camping and cooking outdoors.

Now you can get hamburger and hotdog cast iron cooking irons. How cool is that?

With the Autumn season fast approaching, Dusty and I are hoping to attend the Eastern Primitive Rendezvous in September and we’re looking forward to sharing some incredible meals with some wonderful friends, and with friends we haven’t even met yet.  That is one wonderful thing about Rendezvous;  nowhere that I know of, is there an environment that is so relaxing and safe.  You can bring young children to one of these events (which could be greater than 2000 people) and everyone looks after them, looks out for one another, and shares a genuine feeling of community.

Here there is no crime, no one is in a hurry to get anywhere, and we live as they did before 1840…..how refreshing and peaceful.  If you would like to socialize there is music most every night (guitars, banjo, violin, mandolin, harmonica, washboards, etc, and everyone has a great time.

At Rendezvous there is a great sense of community and a feeling of closeness to many kindred spirits.  Life is slow-paced, harmonious and carefree.  We have all day to cook our meals in our cast iron cookware.  From gourmet roasted pheasant to chicken in curry sauce over rice pilaf.

See you at Rendezvous!

When we first started primitive camping (rendezvous), Dusty always kept a pair of welder’s gloves close to the fire so he could handle the hot cast iron pots and pans.  He also kept a nice hand-forged hook hanging on the utensil rack and used it to hook the bail of the dutch oven when he lifted it off of the fire to see if what he was cooking was done.

One day, an old timer happened to walk by the camp and saw Dusty lift the dutch oven off of the fire, lift the lid off with the welder’s glove, check the contents, put the lid back on, hook the bail, and set the dutch oven back on the fire.  Sounds like a lot of work, eh? Well, it was.  The old timer said howdy and said he was going to be back in a few minute with something that would make cooking over the fire a lot easier.  Of course, Dusty thought the old timer was going to bring back his wife to do the cooking – yeah, right.  

What he brought us was a cast iron lid lifter.  It’s a very handy tool that is made specifically for lifting  the lid off of a dutch oven while it’s still over the fire or in the coals, and you can do that without getting burned.  You just slip it through the small loop on the dutch oven lid and it stabilizes the lid when you take it off.  It’s great, and made cooking even more enjoyable – for Dusty.  If you use a dutch oven you shouldn’t be without it.

I think we’ve mentioned a time or two that we have a teepee (or tipi) set up in the woods out behind the house from late September to early May.  It is really a unique experience and our friends love to come over and hang out.  The great thing about the tipi is that we have huge, roaring fires right in the middle of it, and when it’s 20 degrees outside, it feels great.   It’s extremely hot and humid here in Maryland right now, and just thinking about sitting in the tipi while it’s freezing cold outside with snow on the ground, mentally cools me off for a while.

Anyway, one of the most memorable tipi parties was our Cajun Night when we cooked crawdad etouffee in a cast iron dutch oven right on top of the wood stove.  Oh, I forgot to tell you – when it’s really cold outside, we have a wood stove and an open fire cranking inside the tipi.

Crawdad etouffee is relatively easy to make.  The recipe below uses 1 pound of crawdads, so just do the math if you want to make more.

Ingredients

• 1 lb of crawdad tails
• 1 onion – I prefer a mild flavored onion, but if you like that zesty taste, go for it
• 1-2 bell peppers – I like using 1 red and 1 yellow
• Garlic – at least 1 teaspoon per pound of crawdad
• Flour – at least 1 tablespoon per pound of crawdad; adds a little body
• Butter or margarine – 1/4 stick per pound of crawdad
• Water (optional) – add to consistency of choice
• White rice

Put the dutch oven on low heat and melt the butter/margarine.

Add the onion, peppers, and garlic and saute slowly – still at low heat.

Stir in the flour.

Add water – optional.

Add the crawdad tails and let simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Serve over hot rice and season to taste.

I sure do miss the homemade bread that my grandma used to make.  It was a yeast type bread and I swear I could smell it baking a block away from her house!   Grandma had somewhat of a schedule – or routine I guess you could call it.  On certain days she did specific things, and Sunday morning was always bread baking day.  They had moved from the farm into town a long time ago, but their internal alarm clock was still on farm time – they were up before the crack of dawn, and shortly thereafter, Grandma was baking bread. 

Although, I was much younger in those days, I wasn’t that much of an early bird unless I was going fishing or on a motorcycle ride, so I usually got to Grandma’s house after the bread was done.  I never thought much about it, but even when I arrived quite some time after the bread was out of the oven, she would cut a slice for me and it would still be warm.  Thinking back on it, and picturing the kitchen and the associated surroundings in my mind, I can see the cast iron bread pan sitting on the stove.  Those of you who cook with a cast iron skillet, dutch oven, or baking pan, know what I’m talking about.  They hold heat for a very long time after removing them from the oven, and your food stays nice and warm – even for the late-comers.  Ah, the good ole days!

When I first started using cast iron cookware, I was camping at rendezvouses (primitive camping) with a friend of mine and I did all of the cooking.  I had always enjoyed cooking over an open fire, but using cast iron was new and I discovered that it was a lot of fun.  I especially liked baking in my dutch ovens, but I had a long learning curve before I was whipping out perfectly baked cornbread, cakes, and cobbler in my dutch oven.  It wasn’t until I was cooking for a few other friends and one of the ladies was kind enough to teach me how to tell if what I was baking was cooked all the way through.  Have you ever cut into what looked like the perfect pan of cornbread and found out that the center was still liquid or gooey?  Well, believe me, it’s embarrassing.

If you are new to baking in cast iron, here’s a helpful hint to tell when your cornbread (or cake) is done:

• Insert a toothpick into the center and quickly remove it.  If it comes out clean, or with only a few dry crumbs attached, it’s done.  If it has moist batter on it, it’s not done.  This is the method I use most.  You can actually test it with a fork in the same manner.
• You can also look at the edges of the cornbread. When they start to pull away from the sides of the pan, it is probably done.  However, if the cooking temperature is too high, the edges may look like it’s done, but the center may still be too moist.
• If the cornbread rises at the center, you can touch the surface near the center and if it is done, it should bounce back without leaving a finger imprint.

It’s been a while since we have mentioned some of the basics concerning cooking with cast iron cookware.  I guess we get a bit wrapped up in trying to provide useful technical information and great recipes that we forget there might be folks out there who are new to using cast iron cookware and are looking for helpful hints and reasons to start using it.

There are many advantages of using cast iron:

• It is very inexpensive compared to most of the modern “technically advanced” cookware.
• Non-toxic – will not flake off like modern non-stick surfaces
• Ideal heat conductor
• Allows for even heat distribution and consistent cooking temperature without hot spots
• Extremely durable – will last a lifetime (actually many lifetimes)
• Old fashion way for fat-free cooking
• Non-stick surface
• Can be used on or in any heat source – on top of stove, in oven, over an open fire, or in the coals
• Healthy choice for every day cooking
• Easy to clean

If you’ve never used cast iron cookware, you will discover that you can cook just about anything with a few cast iron skillets of various sizes, and a dutch oven lends a lot of versatility to your arsenal of cooking implements. Give it a try and let us know what you think.  If you already use cast iron we would love to hear your comments, helpful hints, and personal recipes that we can share with our readers.

As far back as I can remember, my grandma and mom always prepared blackeyed peas on Jan 1st to bring good luck in the New Year.  Well, I know it’s a ways past the New Year, but I think we can all use a little good luck these days.

Pamela makes a fantastic Good Luck blackeyed pea, sausage, and potato soup in a dutch oven right on top of the stove.

• Soak the blackeyed peas (one bag) over night.
• Drain the blackeyed peas, place them in a dutch oven, add enough water to cover the peas.  Place the lid on the dutch oven and bring contents to a boil.
• Simmer for about 20 minutes.
• Add spices (to your taste):  garlic, salt, pepper, basil, Italian seasoning.
• In a cast iron skillet, brown 1 lb of seasoned sausage.  We like using mild seasoned turkey sausage.
• Chop about  6 medium new potatoes into bite size pieces and add them to the dutch oven.
• Add the cooked sausage to the dutch oven, cover, and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring frequently.
• Add water as necessary to make the soup the consistency you like.

I like to splash just a bit of Tabasco sauce on mine.

Although many folks enjoy using real hardwood coals, I have to admit that using modern charcoal briquettes can be quite handy, especially if you’re pressed for time or have several dutch ovens going at once.  I found a handy reference on line that can help give you an idea of how many briquettes to use to cook at a specific temperature:

Size of the cast iron dutch oven x 2 = the number of briquettes needed to reach an internal temp of 325 degrees.  For example, if you are using a 12″ dutch oven, you would need 24 briquettes to reach an internal temp of 325 degrees.  Adding one briquette will increase the internal temp approximately 15-20 degrees:  example, 12″ oven with 25 briquettes = 340 – 345 degrees.  

Most folks put the majority of the briquettes (or coals) on top of the dutch oven.  You can also place some under the dutch oven and/or around the perimeter.  The cooking characteristics can be drastically different, so be sure to experiment before cooking that gourmet meal or dessert.