With fall just around the corner, Dusty is preparing his fire pit for an afternoon cook-out sometime  in early October.  We’re having a few friends, family, and our neighbors over for some great food, fun, and entertainment.  I’ll get to that in a minute!

The menu for the day is, of course, the roasted pig, but my favorite (especially since I’m not much of a meat eater), are the baked beans, casseroles, and grilled veggies we’ll be cooking in various cast iron cookware.  I plan to grill the zucchini and a medley of vegetables on our reversible cast iron griddle.  Dusty and I tested the cast iron griddle last month on our gas grill on the deck.  We laid the griddle across the flames and cooked zucchini, squash, potatoes, and minced garlic.  Wow, was that ever tasty!

For entertainment, we plan to play some music…me on guitar, our friend Rob on banjo, and Dusty on the upright base.  We’re working on growing our repertoire but there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in a day to practice and do everything else we love to do……can’t wait till we can retire!!!!

For the kids (and adults) we’ll have tomahawk and knife throwing, we may shoot the muzzle loaders, and we’ll definitely play some West Virginia Horseshoes!  I’ll see if I can get Dusty to describe that game…it’s hysterical to watch!

Anyway, it’s good to be back blogging and keeping in touch with everyone.

Until next time!

We have quite a few folks send us questions about what kind of cast iron skillet is best for a specific type of cooking.  My response is always, “It depends on what you’re cooking and how you like to cook.”  Some folks think a large 10″ or 12″ skillet is best and that’s fine, but I like using the smallest skillet possible, and I usually wind up using several skillets at a time to cook different dishes.  I must say, however, that using a large skillet to cook bacon, sausage, and eggs all at the same time makes the process a bit easier, especially when cooking over an open fire. However, sometimes you don’t necessarily want the different items to blend while cooking.  That’s why I like using separate skillets. 

One of my main considerations as to what size of skillet or how many skillets I will use is to answer the question, “What is the most efficient way to cook everything and just as importantly, what is the best way to keep everything warm until served?”  Again, I like using multiple smaller skillets when possible.

If I’m cooking on a stove top, I can use up to 4 skillets of various sizes, or a couple skillets and a long two-burner griddle.  If I’m cooking over a fire in a pit that I made, I can use several skillets at a time.  However, not everyone makes a huge fire pit, and there may be room for just one skillet over the fire.

However you do it, the great thing is, you’re cooking with cast iron cookware – the healthy choice for good ole home cookin’!

Our son was home from college this past weekend and he and a buddy of his came over for supper.  Pam was out at the stables horsing around (literally),  so we just sat around and talked about old time when the kids were growing up in the old neighborhood.

I put some burgers on the grill, fries in the oven, and kicked back to relax.  Well, I checked on the burgers and the grill had run out of propane.  Yes, I had not planned very well and didn’t have another tank.  So, I brought the burgers inside and put them on the cast iron griddle across the large burner of the stove.  A few minutes later, we heard an odd cracking sound and saw a spark coming from the oven.  I opened the oven door and the heating element was on fire!  So, to summarize, the grill ran out of propane, the oven quit working and we were very hungry.

Cast iron cookware comes to the rescue again.  I put about 1/2″ of vegetable oil in my 3 qt deep fry cast iron skillet heated it up and cooked up the french fries while the burgers were cooking on the griddle.  In spite of our bad luck, the meal turned out just fine and it was great reminiscing with the kids.

Some moms like to fill Mother’s Day with elaborate brunches in fancy hotels and outings to their favorite destinations around the city—but not mine. In a typical week, my mom will cook virtually all of the family’s meals, do all of the laundry and clean the house. So when Mother’s Day rolls around, we welcome the opportunity to giver her a reprieve from her usual duties. 

We start the day by preparing her a gourmet breakfast in bed.  I prepare dozens of pancakes cooked on a cast iron griddle —using her recipe, of course—while the rest of the family makes eggs, cuts fruit and brews coffee. The rest of the day we perform random house chores and prep for the traditional family dinner in the evening—all while mom rests and enjoys a much needed day off.

Cast-Iron-4-Life

Well, it’s finally warmed up, and when it’s not raining on the weekends, I’m outside doing some kind of landscape project.  Lately, it’s been grading the ground above a retaining wall that we just built.  We will soon plant some kind of ground cover.  Notice I said I’m outside working.  Although Pamela is much handier at landscaping activities than I am, we’ve agreed that she will do the house work on Saturday morning while I’m outside working.   After working for several hours, I really look forward to Pam fixing one of my favorite weekend lunches – grilled turkey and pepper jack cheese sandwich prepared on our cast iron griddle. 

• Heat up the griddle and maintain low to medium heat.
• Use the bread of your choice and spread either butter or olive oil on one side of both slices.
• Slice the pepper jack cheese thin, or use pre-sliced cheese from the deli.
• Fry the turkey breast for a few minutes on the griddle.
• Place the turkey breast and cheese between the two slices of bread and grill the sandwich until golden brown on both sides.

Pretty simple, but filling and it provides enough energy to keep me fueled for another few hours.

Whether you are cooking at home or at the camp site, you really don’t need a lot of pots and pans to get the job done.   Just a few basic pieces – and a little ingenuity – goes a long way.  Although Pamela and I have a whole trunk full of cast iron cookware that we take to the rendezvouses, we usually wind up using just a few pieces, and use the same ones at home for cooking on the stove and in the oven.  We can prepare all of our recipes with just a 3-piece skillet set, a griddle, and a dutch oven with a lid.

Call me crazy, but I enjoy the challenge of cooking 3 or 4 dishes at the same time and making sure everything is nice and hot when served.  Cast iron pots and pans makes that a lot easier because they retain the heat for a long time.

Our camping trip to Tennessee is fast approaching, and we are very excited about getting away from the rat race for a couple of weeks.  Although, we are not going to an official rendezvous event, we will be setting up our 14′ x 14′ marquee tent and fly, and most of our camp furniture.  And of course, we will take a lot of our cast iron cookware.  In fact, Dusty has already taken the cookware trunk out of the rendezvous trailer and is trying to decide what he wants to take.  I know he has the 10.5″ cast iron skillet, a griddle, the 3qt deep fry skillet, and a large dutch oven and I’m sure we’ll take other pieces, as well.  Unfortunately, we won’t be doing much cooking with an open fire, and I’m a bit fearful that Dusty doesn’t really know how to cook his delicious rendezvous delicacies on a propane stove.  That modern stuff just isn’t his forte.

In a previous post we described the process for seasoning your cast iron cookware.  If you use cast iron long enough, there will most likely come a time when something happens and the nice seasoned surface becomes damaged.  The only way to repair  your cast iron skillet, dutch oven, or griddle it is to re-season it.  You can try to re-season just a spot or two, but I believe it’s better to re-season the entire surface.

The process for re-seasoning cast iron cookware is exactly the same as the process for preparing new cast iron cookware for use the first time.

• Scour all surfaces with a stiff brush, dish washing soap, and hot water (as hot as you can stand) to remove all food, rust, or other materials that may be stuck to the pan. You may even want to use a steel wool souring pad.

• Thoroughly dry all surfaces.
• Preheat your oven to 350-500 degrees.
• Completely coat the inside surface (and outside if you wish) with melted shortening or vegetable oil.  Some folks prefer to use melted lard or bacon fat.  If the cast iron cookware has a lid, be sure to treat it in the same manner.  We suggest turning the pan upside down in the oven so oil does not pool in the pan.  Be sure to put a flat baking sheet or foil on the grate under the pan.
• Place it on the middle rack of the oven for about 30 minutes.
• Remove it from the oven and wipe all surfaces until almost dry – removing pooled oil, but leaving a thin coat of oil.
• Place it back in the oven for another 30 minutes.
• Remove it from the oven and wipe off any residual oil, but be sure to leave a thin coating on all surfaces.
• If you notice the oil pooled and became gummy, simply scrape the gummy oil out and either re-season it applying oil only to that spot, or you can re-season the entire pan.

When Pam and I were recently out of town, we went to a restaurant that didn’t seem to be anything fancy, but the meal was one of the best we’ve had in a restaurant in a long time.  We don’t eat out much due to Pam’s food allergies and we really don’t like the notion of eating food that has been cooked in pots and pans that may be flaking off toxic particles in our meal as can happen when using modern non-stick cookware.

We asked the server how the meal was prepared and he actually brought the chef out to our table.  Come to find out, the entire meal had been prepared on cast iron griddles placed over gas burners.  The chef proceeded to tell us all about the reliability and benefits of cast iron cookware and that he has been using them for many years.

I’ve always been the primary cook in my family. Since I get out of work an hour earlier than my wife, I generally have dinner on the table as soon as she sets foot in the door. When our family takes a camping trip, I easily transition into the role of camp chef and create tasty meals over an open fire. The main difference between cooking at home and over a campfire is that in the camp site I have fewer ingredients and culinary tools at my disposal. Still, the sign of a great cook is his ability to improvise.

Every time we pack up the old station wagon and prepare to hit the open road, I make sure to pack a full complement of outdoor cookware – we’re talking cast iron griddles, grills, skillets, and pots. I might use the griddle over the open flame, but I generally like to use a separate fire pit just for cooking over coals.  By piling the coals high in the back and low in the front, I can achieve reliable temperature control for cooking multiple dishes at once.