Friday, February 24, 2017

Cast Iron-Dutch Ovens On Fridays

   I will be getting back into baking in my big dutch oven in my outdoor "kitchen" area soon. Spring is not quite here yet to stay-it is February still after all lol-and we do have strong winds here this time of year as well-but soon.

  So I thought I would share recipes and things on friday when I can. Please feel free to join in with recipes, tips  and more if you enjoy this too.

    I never did figure out how that linky works-I think one needs to pay the monthly fee to get it to work right and I don't want to do that-but I will provide a link to your post if you provide one in comments.

Last year I just decided I wanted to finally set up an area for over a wood fire cooking and also with coals and dutch ovens. We had brought down a heavy grate back when we retired and moved here and have been mowing around this grate all these years lol so last summer I decided I am doing this lol.

We had a big pile of sand-gravel mix not too far away that I could wheel barrel it into place-me and Mr Blue wheel barrel have gotten allot accomplished over the years.

I went in to town to Lowes and picked up blocks to set the heavy grate on and also red square tiles and red bricks to use as a fire break for the dutch ovens.

I searched on ebay for weeks til I found the French trivets I could afford-and I love them-they fit perfectly in the bottom of the large dutch oven and then I set the pie pan or baking pan on top to keep the bottom from burning. I have smaller trivets for the smaller ovens but needed a larger one.

I also splurged and bought a new 12 quart lodge dutch oven for pie baking and bread baking.  My husband and I have collected allot of vintage cast iron over the years that I use allot of daily but had never run into a nice dutch oven-so I decided to buy this one new. and it is Heavy too.

Here are a few photos of my project:


















The first baked pie photo is my gluten free pie and the last pie photo is a regular pie-I still have not perfected a gluten free pie crust but am getting better.  
     When baking pies I put a trivet down on the bottom and then a big piece of parchment paper and the pie. I place coals around the outside bottom of the dutch oven and the the coals on top. So far I have not gotten into counting how many briquettes I use. I keep charcoal going so I can replace where needed about half way  through the baking process

I usually don't preheat my dutch oven-but I am thinking it would probably be a good idea to speed up the baking time.

I have not baked bread yet but that is on my list for this summer. 

For a recipe I ran into this one by King Arthur Flour over on facebook about baking bread in a dutch oven. The are baking it in the house but information still can be applied for baking outdoors in your dutch ovens
    Also on my pinterest page I have a board for cast iron, camp fire, wood stove cooking with lots of recipes and such.

Please feel free to share your recipes and tips with cast iron

9 comments:

  1. Hi Kathy! You've really done a lot of work on your outdoor cooking area. It looks great. And I LOVE those trivets. When we were doing re-enactments I bought 12 qt. and 16 qt. dutch ovens, and they are wonderful for baking. I always had a sea pie for demonstration purposes at those events, but I've baked several whole chickens in them at home. They're my favorite thing to cook in them.
    Have a great weekend!
    Toni

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  2. Your dutch oven with the usable lid is fabulous! I need a lid like that one. The outdoor area is envy producing, very nice. This morning, using King Arthur flour, I made shortbread for all the workers. They love me. lol

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  3. ...and then there is me. I don't even dye fabric because it reminds me of cooking. So, I guess you can tell, no recipes are coming from my end. BUT, I love that you are doing this, and I also love your trivets. Have fun!

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  4. What fun! I can almost smell the pies.

    I will be looking forward to your posts as I always do. Thank you so much for sharing.

    Aloha,
    Hunter



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  5. Hi Kathy! Really like your new blog!
    Not to mention all the work on that outdoor cooking area for your Dutch-Oven recipes. Those pies look very edible! YUM!
    Never thought of cooking in this manner....then again I have always learned many 'new to me' things from you over the years!! Happy cooking!

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  6. The bread sounds amazing... I used to bake a lot of artisan bread in dutch ovens in my regular oven and they were amazing... cooked outdoors would be great.

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  7. I know I'm supposed to be visiting T posters, but I wanted to stop by and applaud you on all the hard work you did on this project. I was not only amazed, I was in AWE. I'm not much of a baker, but I am a super good griller and smoker. In fact, people used to look forward to my smoked salmon each Christmas until salmon prices went through the roof. Thank you for sharing this with us.

    I heard Mr. Linky has started charging, and that is probably the reason I can't change the links like other link owners can. However, if you stop by for Second on the 2nd, I use a different link program for it. Granted, their goal is to get you to buy membership, BUT their free program is equally good and you can set it up so anyone can delete and change their links. If you want, I can walk you through it. However, it's so simple, you are apt to figure it out on your own.

    I wanted also to thank you for the comment on my ARTifacts project. I think what you are doing with your dye projects is commendable. I had to laugh because I don't paint and don't sketch. I couldn't draw anything if my life depended on it. Instead, my scrappy journals are made from junk mail that catches my eye, and many, many magazine images. The "tool" heart was from a gift card from Home Depot. I don't have any skills like that, so this journal has become a true challenge to me. Thanks for your comment. I appreciate it.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Elizabeth, so glad you dropped by this post-I just sent you a long reply back forgetting that you are a no reply blogger-lol so that one is off in cyber space somewhere.
      I was excited building this project I did it all myself except I needed help putting the heavy grate in place.
      I want to do some cooking over the open flame this year-will need to see how that goes-I forgot about the part that the grill is too heavy to move off and on-so its permanent--I will need to sit down in front of it and build my fire that way-I figured on 6" from the heat.
      We would make a good team!! as I still have not figured out how to work the smoker well-don't know why but haven't done well with it yet-and we have a really nice smoker.
      Thanks much for the linky information I will for sure stop by and check it out-thank you much,.
      I think it is fun to get out of our comfort zone once in awhile for our arts-crafts-you did good with your pages--I did that one journal book-mostly lots of handstitching handmade papers in-I may just share that project here one day.

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  8. So cool! I have baked with a Dutch oven in the past, but haven't done so in about eight years. Your pies looked great!

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