Learning to be a Cast Iron cooking pioneer!!!

The cast iron skillet lay buried in my pots and pans cupboard for 3 years. Dirty, dusty and worn, I took it out one day and decided to see what all the fuss was about.  

After asking, researching and reading, I spent one day cleaning and seasoning it!  So easy really.  Give it one good scouring, put a coat of vegetable shortening or oil on it, and bake it on 450 degrees for one hour.  Turn off the stove, let it sit another hour [http://www.lodgemfg.com/use-care-seasoned-cast-iron.asp#3]  I did this several times throughout the day, gave it a few good layers.

The next day I took it for it's first test run.  I baked chicken in it.  I was impressed!  It didn't stick, it didn't burn, it browned beautifully and was moist!  And best of all, the skillet cleaned up in no time, some rinses under hot water, a wipe out with a hot water towel [no soap].  Dryed and a coat of veggie oil.

Cast Iron!  Better than any non stick skillet I have ever used or owned!  I will never turn back!!   I have become a cast iron junkie!  Upon further reading I was even more impressed to learn that if you keep it seasoned and taken care of, the can last 100 years or more!  What a great investment really.  It will certainly last my lifetime and I can pass them onto my children!


I don't even know how I came to own the first skillet.  I may have bought it at a second hand shop.  But I'm so glad I pulled it out that wonderful day!


Since then I cook most everything in it.  Eggs have never been so easy, stir fry, taco meat, sausage gravy.  Then another thing happened.  My mom said I have 3 more cast iron pieces you can have!  WHAT???  Cast iron is not "cheap" initially [at least to me anyway!]


So I acquired a wonderful griddle, another skilled and an enamel coated grill!
The griddle made awesome french toast and the grill browned up our steaks in the oven beautifully!  


And thanks to a gift card, I also was able to purchase a cast iron dutch oven!!  I'll be using it tomorrow for the first time for Hungarian goulash! 


So now I have a nice set that I look forward to using over and over, and hopefully, slowly adding to it!  Just a few more pieces that look interesting ;)


The only thing I wish is that you could make tomato based sauces.  But knowing that I can use them for about everything else, I can live with using a regular sauce pan every now and again :)


I'm also looking forward to making our first "deep dish" pizza sometime this week in the skillets!  I can't believe how very versatile they are!  


Now I just need to fulfill my fantasy of camping and cooking over an open fire with them!  Okay, I'm a dork, I've always admitted it!


Please feel free to share your cast iron stories, recipes, website referrals and love! :)


Here are some great sites I've been referring too for information and recipes!


http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes_menus/collections/cast_iron_recipes

http://lodgemfg.com/

http://www.recipesfromscratch.com/dutch

Here's the beginning of my wonderful collection!!  2 skillets, 1 dutch oven, 1 griddle, 1 enamel coated grill.

 

Comments

  1. MsSmartyJuly 17, 2011 at 10:46 PM

    My mom and dad always used cast iron skillets to cook with and used aluminum or stainless steel for the tomato based dishes. I gave you your first one and the other three!! I wanted to pass them on to you becasue you really love to cook, just like my dad and mom and your grandma Kathleen! Love you, Mom.

    ReplyDelete
  2. TerraJuly 18, 2011 at 7:35 AM

    ahhhh okay, I couldn't remember how I came by it since it had been so long! :) You got me addicted! lol

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6.5 years later....I still wonder about you tiny one!

Image
I will never forgot the day when I found out I was pregnant for the very first time.  It was such a rush of emotion.  Fear, happiness, contemplation, all wrapped up into one.  It wasn't the most opportune time, but let's face it when is it really?  At the heart of it all, I was ecstatic.  I was going to be a mother, and Eric a father. Several weeks later I could tell, things were not going well.  One night we found ourselves in the emergency room.  An ultrasound had been ordered.  Eric was made to leave and I was left alone in a sterile room with just the technician and myself.  She barely spoke 2 words to me.  I saw the baby and the screen was then quickly whisked around so I could see no more.  My heart sunk.  The doctor came in and said we see the baby, but no heart beat.  But don't worry.  It's still early! But I already knew in my heart.  I was nearly 8 weeks and the heart should have already been beati...
Read more

She was using food stamps! Why doesn't she work? Those are MY tax dollars!

Image
I will never forget that day. I was judging!!! I watched the lady as she absently scanned 2 Lunchables, a carton of Capri-Sun, some individual applesauce pouches, a single serving of some soda product, and a pack of mixed nuts. (do you KNOW how expensive and processed those Lunchables are anyway?? Not to mention juice pouches full of sugar.) Come on, wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to make a couple of sandwiches, and have some reusable cups and portion containers to get virtually the same meal?   Her children were a little disheveled and good god I don't think she ever brushes their hair. They were also not under control but arguing back and forth. To be honest it was rather annoying and I thought why doesn't she intervene? But wonder of wonders, they were on electronics.  And of course, she was paying with food stamps.  No mistaking that debit card anywhere. They have welfare, but still have money for that apparently.   She had some kind of Vera Bradle...
Read more

Our own one room school-house

Image
This summer we have our own one room schoolhouse, but this thought....this action has a much deeper meaning. There's something about history that draws me.  Pictures of ancient days...decades, generations, centuries gone by... black and white, faded...torn...all draw me in.  I wonder about the buildings.  About the people who came and went from those buildings.   As I was looking at old one room schoolhouse photos online I came across one that was both beautiful and eerily haunting all at once.  An abandoned, almost dilapated schoolhouse.  Not much around it, just emptiness where once there had been life. And I began to wonder again.  About the teacher or teachers that the schoolhouse had seen.  About the students who had come and gone.  About their lives, what they did, about the marriages they may have had, their own children.  If any of those descendents were living today.  And how those lives touched other lives...th...
Read more