When my children were younger we used to congregate around the table every evening to eat dinner as a family and share our stories from the day. As the children have grown older however, it’s become increasingly difficult to find time to get everyone around the table together.  We’re lucky if we eat as a family more than once or twice a week. Still, I like to prepare home cooked meals to ensure everyone is getting the nutrition they need.

Since everyone eats at different times, I have to think of ways to keep the food warm and fresh for a couple of hours at a time. Dishes like stews and chilies are the obvious choices, but you certainly can’t serve them every night. One of my personal tricks for keeping the food warm is using cast irons pots and pans. When I cook a meal in a cast iron pan, it retains the heat for much longer, which means I don’t have to reheat the dishes or keep the oven running indefinitely.

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.

One of our favorite dishes to cook at the rendezvoues is chicken breasts in a mustard wine sauce.  It’s so easy to make and is always a hit with our camp visitors.

Ingredients

• 2 plump fresh skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cups of your choice of red wine – we prefer Cabernet Sauvignon
• 4 Tbs Grey Poupon mustard
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp curry powder
• pinch of white pepper
• pinch of thyme
• pinch of basil

Preparation

• Mix the wine and other ingredients in a bowl and whip until thoroughly blended.
• Pierce chicken breasts with a fork on both sides.
• Place the chicken breasts in a cast iron sauce pan or a cast iron dutch oven.
• Add the blended ingredients to the sauce pan or dutch oven.
• Turn the chicken breasts over several times to ensure they are thoroughly coated with the blended sauce.
• Place over medium heat (over flame) until the sauce starts to boil, then place on low heat (over coals) and simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Cooking time depends on how thick the breasts are and the temperature of the coals.

We like to serve with rice pilaf and Italian bread with olive oil.

Bon Appetit!

P.S.  Hope you don’t mind eating purple chicken!

This week was the Northern Lancaster Longrifles Redezvous and this was the first time in several years that we did not set up camp.  We had planned to be in TN this week, but had to return early due to the nasty weather and tornadoes coming through the area where we were camping.  So, we will at least be able to make a day-trip to the rendezvous site and visit with our many friends who have been camping.  We plan to ride our motorcycles on the back roads and through the Amish country in PA.

We are looking forward to relaxing for the day and to a meal that our friends will prepare over an open fire using their cast iron cookware.  We might even pick up a new cast iron pan – as long as it will fit in the saddlebag!

We have mentioned several times over the past few months about how durable and strong cast iron pots and pans are compared to modern cookware.  I’m a bit embarrassed to tell you this, but it really is a good example of how you can get away with mistreating them.  Dusty and I spent two very long evenings packing up the truck for our camping trip to TN.  We usually have most of the gear in a covered trailer that we take to the rendezvouses (primitive camps), so everything is always nicely organized and the time for packing is minimal.  Since we didn’t take the trailer, we had to unpack all the gear from the trailer and load it into the truck.   We joking said that we will look like the Beverly Hillbillies cruising down the interstate!   We were ready to head out and I remembered that several pieces of our cast iron cookware were still on the stove.  I ran in and got them and literally tossed them into the back of the truck between all the other gear.  They survived the 1,800 mile round trip just fine.

We took our first camping trip of the season and once again we discovered how easy it is to use various pieces of our cast iron cookware to prepare the meals.  What we really like about it is the durability and easy clean up.  Depending on your personal preference, cleanup can be as easy as wiping out the debris, applying a think coat of oil, and you’re done.  

Another great aspect of all cast iron pots and pans is that they retain heat for a long time.  So, you can take them off of the fire (or camp stove) set them on the table and the food stays warm – even long enough for those of us who like to go back for seconds!

I was trying to think of something different to get my girlfriend’s daughter for a wedding gift.  I didn’t want to give her something that she probably already has, that she won’t use, or that she will get several of as wedding gifts.  About that time, Dusty pulled out a cast iron skillet to prepare breakfast, and it occurred to me that newly weds could probably use something as versatile as a cast iron deep fry skillet.

You can prepare a variety of dishes in a cast iron skillet – meat, stews, fried foods, steamed veggies, sauces, eggs, and the list goes on.   Not only will they get something that will last a lifetime, but it will give them a healthy start to their lifetime of cooking experiences.

Most folks have probably heard about some of the negative aspects of using modern non-stick cookware, especially that it can be toxic if it flakes off into your food.  What some individuals may not know is that it also emits toxic fumes when heated to a certain temperature.  There is a lot of information on the web on the subject and it may be an eye opener for you.

On his way home from work the other day, Dusty called me to tell me about a program he was listening to on a Washington, D.C. public radio station.  There was a veterinarian on the program talking about how toxic Teflon, and other non-stick surfaces,  can be to canaries and other types of small birds.  He sited an incident where 4 canaries died after their owner cooked a meal using a Teflon-coated skillet.

People are not near as sensitive to the toxic fumes, but why even risk it.  The best way to avoid it is to use cookware that does not have a chemical non-stick surface.  That would include stainless steel, aluminum (but probably not a safe choice), and cast iron cookware.

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.

In Pamela’s last blog, she referenced how much fun it is to get the kids or grand kids involved in helping you make muffins.  As simple as that may sound, it is really a much greater accomplishment than simply getting them to help you bake muffins.  It’s an easy, fun way to introduce them to a method of cooking that is about as basic as you can get and that has been around for hundreds of years.  Using cast iron cookware is truly about as “green” as it gets when it comes to cooking.  Even very young kids these days know what “going green” means, and teaching them to use cast iron cookware is something that they will appreciate for the rest of their lives.   It is very inexpensive, very durable (will last a lifetime or more), has no toxic coating or chemicals, and it will give them at least a touch of appreciation for the good ole days.   I was fortunate enough to know, and spend time with, four of my great grandparents, and I distinctly remember seeing my great grandmas cooking everything in cast iron pots and pans.  Of course, that was probably about the only thing available at the time, but looking back on those experiences, and remembering how good it all tasted, makes me realize there must have been something to it.  Progress and technology are wonderful, but some things just can’t be beat!