Cast Iron Summer Recipes on a Friday

  Now that it is a bit cooler-finally-for a few days, I am thinking of setting up my dutch ovens outdoors over the weekend and bake a pie. I have fresh lemons in the frig and we love lemon meringue pie so that may be what I bake-not sure yet depends how I feel.
   I also have a Bobs Red Mill gluten free raisin bread mix I may just bake up in the dutch oven as well. (knowing that bread should bake up better smiles)

   I thought I would share some links to delicious food cooked-baked-grilled in your cast iron pieces. These links have some really nice dishes of all sorts.

From    Bon Appetit   large variety of 50 recipes-they all look                                               delicious from meats-pizza, veggies more

From   Southern Living  Using your cast iron on the grill

From   Epicurious   Lots of recipe ideas here as well over 30




Here is a photo of one my last lemon meringue pies-sooooo good baked outdoors

   I had closed down my weekly cast iron Fridays do to lack of participation, interest for a weekly event Soooo since cast iron is my choice kitchen utensil both indoors on my big Wolf stove and outdoors I thought I would still share recipes from time to time on Fridays
   It has been dreadfully hot and humid here the last 6 weeks which has taken me away from bringing out my dutch ovens. I am thinking September and October will be my main months this year to do that.

   Hoping some of you may have gotten those cast iron skillets out and baked up or grilled something since our last visit to cast iron.

  And if you can't get outdoors either here is a recipe for skillet smores in the house-of course you could make this outdoors in a 
dutch oven as well here is the recipe   





At the same site I also found grilled peach smores-now those sound and look delicious!





Happy weekend everyone!!

Cast Iron Friday's

 Hi everyone,
   
     Cast iron is my choice for cooking every day.  I am a farm girl at heart and just love the simple ways of life best. I have never been into electronic gadgets-except my computer keeps me linked with friends, and I do love my tv in the evenings. (we have no use for a smart phone here in our woods with no wifi available)
   My Mom was brought up a farm girl in every way. A wood cook stove and no indoor plumbing for her til she left home to go to college and then get married. A few years after that her parents decided on a more modern kitchen and indoor plumbing.  I have always wanted a wood cookstove but this home has no place for one.
     So with those as my roots, I still love to cook with cast iron, experiment cooking and baking outdoors, and I still love to can and put up allot of our foods. Although retiring here to the Ozarks in Missouri has stopped allot of my large space gardening and canning as it is just so difficult to garden here; nothing at all what I am used to with so many obstacles against a good garden with loads of produce.  The trade off though is we love our woods and wildlife. An inspiring place to retire.

   A few things I have made this week in cast iron-pork chops grilled indoors with my cast iron grill pan-those were super. Thursday I decided to make stuffed poblano peppers. I used a cast iron skillet to saute, leeks, garlic, sweet bell pepper, and the hamburger. I decided to mix the spiced up meat mixture with red quinoa instead of rice, used some of my own canned tomatoes and also a small jar of Classico brand basil-tomato sauce.  I combined everything and instead of using the oven I am baking them in a slow cooker. What ever meat filling is left over I just pile it on the tops and sides.

This dinner turned so tasty, sorry I didn't think to clean up the plates for better viewing (like food network ha ha)  I cut the peppers in half instead of stuffing whole. I made a large tossed salad to go with.

   I have not baked up a sweet for us for a bit-so I grabbed a gluten free brownie mix added fresh blueberries to the top and baked in a square dutch oven skillet. Yum

With the summer holidays coming up and well just fun summer get togethers I thought I would share some easy and fun recipes that you can make indoors or outdoors with your cast iron.
   This collection of links and photos is from Lodge cast iron's site

Skillet S'mores





    Steak Mac'Cheese  for cast iron dutch oven




Gooey Chocolate Skillets




Baked Stuffed Apples    dutch oven
     these would be great camping or bake in your oven



Garlic Parmesan Stuffed Mushrooms cast iron griddle or skillets





Thank you for dropping by

Cast Iron Friday's & Our Cinco de Mayo Dinner Plus More Recipe Links

 Good morning everyone,
Friday's is when I love to share cooking, baking, grilling and more in cast iron utensils.
    You are most welcome to share your own cast iron post, link up at end of this post.  
    I am hoping with warmer weather upon us more of you will be using cast iron outdoors on the grill  or baking in dutch ovens and wish to share with us.
   I enjoy doing these posts but if you are all bored with this already let me know and I will discontinue if there is no interest. I am not even concerned about no one sharing posts if the information is interesting reading for you.

   Today I had thought of baking an apple pie outdoors in the dutch oven, but it was a perfect day for me to work in the gardens. I am so far behind do to the cold April, but now we are headed right into hot summer temperatures already-ugh I had a feeling that was going to happen. So anyways I ended up working outdoors for about 8 hours today (Thursday), so no baking accomplished.

  However, for Cinco de Mayo Day I did use cast iron skillets and a grill for our meal. Our Wisconsin friends brought us down several pounds of their homemade sausages. I grabbed their chirozo and a pound of low fat hamburger and made us tacos. I added a can of chilies and diced tomatoes once the meats were browned. Also added in some garlic and spices.

Check out my new Lodge handle mitts. I was checking to see what cast iron our Wal Mart (big box store) was selling and found these. I used to have some quilted ones but they wore out. These handle mitts are so much safer for me to use on our gas stove instead of folding over one of those square ones. So I am loving these. They are made of plastic which I have never been crazy about but these do work really well.

Since my husband's heart disease has now progressed to congestive heart failure, I now read every label for salt content. I have never cooked or baked with salt using herbs instead, but it has been an eye opener on how much salt is in say a can of refried beans and the flour tortillas and and things you never would have thought of.
    So I used a couple cans of organic black beans that had just a little salt and rinsed them well with cold water and then made refried beans with them. I added garlic, a small can of green chilies and mashed them as they cooked, keeping some of the beans whole. These were very delicious.

I got out one of my cast iron griddles and heated up Hub's flour tortillas and my corn tortillas. I suggested that my corn tortillas have no salt in them at all-but he still wanted his flour ones 

   I want to share with you more links of delicious looking recipes using cast iron that arrived in my inbox this week. 

Blueberry Lemon Pound Cakes

  Don't these look delicious? I have two of these small skillets but I want to find two more to make desserts like this one.




Grilled Browned Butter Pound Cake

I thought this was really clever. Bake up a pound cake and then grill it add fruit




10 Cast Iron Recipes for any cookout

and this next one-Yum everything looks so delicious but this is not for vegetarians except for the grilled parmesan corn the rest are meats





Now it is your turn to link up if you like to share your own Cast Iron Fridays Post

Thanks for visiting

Cast Iron Fridays-Tips

It's cast Iron Fridays where we share everything cast iron-cooking, baking, grilling indoors or outdoors. You are most welcome to join in with your post. 

Last Sunday when our Wisconsin friends were with us for a long weekend, we grilled up a feast for nine people and my friend Marie and I baked in my dutch ovens.  Sadly, I totally forgot to take photos of the process. If had remembered that would have been my post today.
    I haven't had the chance to do anything fun again outdoors. Instead I thought I would share some tips.

My friend Marie uses the coals chart for achieving the desired temperature in the cast iron dutch oven. Many use this, for me I have had better luck just "winging" it.
    Some of these charts have more coals on the bottom then on top-the couple times I have used the chart for baking breads-it always gets too brown on the bottom, even though I have the dutch ovens above the coals. Others though have good success with this method. Our bread from Sunday had that problem too brown on the bottom-and it was because we had more coals on the bottom then the top.

   After baking from that different chart and getting things a little too brown on the bottom-I got to thinking perhaps the chart is for food like stews, lasagnas, roasts etc not baking. This thought popped into my head after last Sunday.



So after researching out charts and reading through this site-Wow the answer was right there ha ha but me like I am sure most don't know this-they just go by the chart with more coals on the bottom for everything. Of course now that I am looking for that I can't find it. oh well  I did also found this site about coals temperature and placement

     For baking, put twice as many coals on top as under the bottom. For example if your heat range calls for 15 briquettes, then put 10 on top and 5 underneath. For simmering, reverse this with 2/3 of the briquettes underneath.

   
Another question that comes up should I preheat the dutch oven first or just add the baked item (cakes, pies, breads) in cold. I think this is a preference too.  It does make sense to heat the oven up first-shorter baking time-but I always place the food in cold, and then just keep an eye on things and have hot coals ready to add as needed.

The above link I shared is a good one to save. It also shares the different ways to cook over the coals-tripod, grate, coals.

Searching online for more tips-setting up your dutch ovens
   Here  and tips with recipes here  There really is allot of information available online-just read a few and adapt what works for you.  I found this video on starting your charcoal-some good common sense tips.

   I will close with another easy bread recipe to bake up in your dutch oven-over and under the coals.

 I have been searching again for the coal charts-as this is bugging me ha ha my friend looked up something that had more coals on the bottom which we don't want for baking. I just found this-which is good information. I will be saving this for future use.


Now it is your turn to share your cast iron post.

Cast Iron Fridays

  Hello Everyone and Welcome,

In this sharing event we post about cast iron. Cooking, baking, grilling, indoors or outdoors. This cookware also includes enameled over cast iron. You are most welcome to link up your Cast Iron Fridays at end of this post.  Tips with using cast iron and recipes are most welcome in our sharing event.

This is a busy week for me, the weather has been very up and down with lots of rain, and I have getting ready for two Wisconsin couples coming down for a long weekend early early tomorrow morning (in the middle of the night ha ha)  I have not had the chance to prepare any fun things this week. 

However, I have found some very yummy looking recipes in my Southern Cast Iron Newsletter this week that I want to share with you.

I think desserts/breakfast foods bake up so nice in cast iron, and they also make a fun presentation as well.

This strawberry skillet cake recipe is on my list soon when the 
fresh berries arrive

Honey Nut Sweet Rolls

Raspberry Jam Coffee Cake with pistachio Streusel 

In the newsletter they also linked me up to some very delicious looking breakfast meals-I am getting hungry looking at all the photos. find here There are potato recipes and cornmeal pancakes too worth a look for something a bit different for breakfast.

Now it is your turn to share your post

Cast Iron Fridays & Sourdough Bread Baked in Dutch Oven

    I have started up a cast iron sharing event.

    You are most welcome to join in with a post (new or old) just link up back to here to help spread the word. 
    If you no longer use cast iron but still have a favorite recipe or method please feel welcome to share. This is a learning and sharing event for all of us interested. 
   Also if you see a recipe or information for cast iron that you think sounds good you are most welcome to share as well.
    Any of you that have used your cast iron at events or camping are most welcome.
   This is for anything cooked, grilled, baked indoors or outdoors in cast iron. This also includes cast iron dutch ovens with the legs and special lids to hold the hot coals.  This event also includes cast iron pieces enameled 


                  Welcome to Cast Iron Fridays

   This week I wanted to share with you another bread baked in cast iron.
    I have two sourdough starters in my frig. an Austrian Rye sourdough and one from King Arthur using unbleached white flour. I have been promising to share the rye starter with a friend, so I just decided to refresh the other one and make a sourdough loaf for my Hubs.
  He likes his sourdough breads really strong so I went an extra 12 hours on the starter before separating it out to save back for starter and for the recipe.

   I decided I wanted to make a no knead bread and bake it up in my dutch oven.  It was ready to bake up around 10 am or so this morning but I visited with my friend an extra hour-so this dough got even more sour. 

     This is the sourdough dough after proofing 12 hours over nite.

 This morning I took a spatula (very sticky dough) and got it out of this bowl onto a heavily floured board  I kneaded in a bit of flour til most of the stickiness was gone

And added the dough into my dutch oven that I had sprayed the bottom with olive oil and sprinkled a bit of coarse cornmeal  I also used a serrated knife and made some slits into the dough. I also sprayed a little olive oil on top-covered and let rise.

  I was about an hour late getting home so this to me was over risen and was not sure how it would bake. 

   I placed it in a hot 450 f degree oven with the lid on and baked for 40 minutes.

it came out of the dutch oven very easily. the crust on the outsides is crunchy-perfectly baked inside.

This bread I thought was a very strange shape as it spread out to the sides of the pan. Actually it turned out perfect for slicing. Hubs says it tasted perfect, it smelled so delicious, like it came out of a bakery. I was soooo tempted to take a bite.

If you do not have a sourdough starter going-that's fine too as I found several recipes with yeast baked this way for similiar results-you just will not get that sourdough flavor. This is a very easy way to bake up bread with excellent results and gorgeous loaves.

Dutch Oven Crusty Bread

Dutch Oven Bread by Le Creuset 

From King Arthur Flour Bread Baking in a Dutch Oven


The last two links especially are full of information and techniques and if interested well worth the read. I pinned these to my bread board on Pinterest.

  and if interested in sourdough this is my most favorite book ever. I may have shared this in the past. I have been baking from this book for many years now-probably over 20 now.  He also has excellent sourdough starters I bought the Austria Rye from him. Back in the day when I did not know I had celiac (gluten intolerance) I was baking all of our breads and had four different sourdoughs in my frig.  His method of handling your sourdough is the best-I realized this again last year when I bought a new starter from King Arthur along with their very awesome crock for sourdough storage - and was reading their recipes. They had you adding yeast-no way-and they had you throwing out half your starter each time. So wasteful and just is not how sourdough is handled-that's my story haha

Now it is your turn to share your Cast Iron Fridays Post

Cast Iron Fridays & Upside Down Cakes

Welcome everyone to Cast Iron Fridays,
   
   I love and still use mostly cast iron in my every day cooking. I thought I would share one of my loves with you on Fridays.
   This event is also open for you to link up with your own cast iron cooking-baking post. 
    Anything cooked, baked, grilled in cast iron or enameled over cast iron indoors or outdoors is welcome. If you take your cast iron on your camping trips or other outdoor events you are most welcome to share as well.
   I know several of my readers have used cast iron but no longer are able to use it much any more. You are most welcome though to join in with tips or your recipes.

   Cast Iron Fridays is for sharing "Good Eats" with each other.

 This has been one of those weeks so I have not done any fun baking in my cast iron. Tonight though I decided to bake up an upside down apple-pear-plum cake. I rarely bake this late in the day but I decided to save time and bake tonight-great for breakfast too (smiling)

   Upside down cakes turn out so well in cast iron. You can pretty much use any fruit you like on the bottom. Even canned fruits bake up well just be sure to drain well.  I had never been a fan of box cake mixes, but they do work out really well for gluten free cakes. Tonight I am using a new to me cake mix by Bob's Red Mill. I also loaded up the bottom of the pan with lots of fruits, this way some of the fruit will also bake into the cake as well.
   I grabbed a deeper Wagner cast iron skillet which I also have the lid for. The photos really show up the rusty outside which I will remedy this summer. The inside though is seasoned very well. I have used this pan allot in my outdoor cooking

I took this photo so you can see the depth of the pan on the left compared to a regular skillet

These are the ingredients. the cake mix, coconut oil instead of butter, coconut sugar instead of brown sugar, and 4 smaller eggs instead of 3 large ones I also melted a little butter around two tablespoons.

I melt just enough butter to cover the bottom of the pan-most recipes call for allot more but I have found you don't really need it if you care not to add all that butter in

Instead of brown sugar I now use coconut sugar. I sprinkle a good amount all over the bottom

I used fruits that I peeled and diced. I ended up with too many apples so I am thinking I used 4 apples, one pear, and the three plums I added in some plums to add some juiciness

Over the fruit I sprinkled cinnamon and added about 4 tablespoons of homemade maple syrup that our friend from Green Bay Wisconsin brought us last November

Sorry I totally forgot to take a photo of the fruit on the bottom before I added the cake batter. The fruit was pretty thick on the bottom guessing over an inch deep

  The directions for baking the cake was for 325 f degrees. I thought that sounded pretty low for this After the recommended baking time plus a few more minutes my cake is still not baked so I just upped the temperature to 350 f degrees.

The cake is in the oven while I type my post.

Since it is getting late here I am going to post this so if any of you wish to link up tonight you can.

   Do stop by again though to see the results.

It's almost 10 pm here now but the cake is out of the oven-and it smells so delicious, the maple syrup is coming through

The cake came out of the oven an hour ago so the cast iron is warm but not super hot. Don't know how I managed it but I did get the cake flipped over. I used a big cookie pan and thought positive haha

This cake smells even more amazing now

and with a well seasoned cast iron pan the cake came right out no sticking

Of course I needed to reward myself with a warm slice-soooo delicious the maple syrup really added to the cake. (no this is not my piece-what is missing was haha)

 

Cast Iron fridays

    I have started up a cast iron sharing event.
You are most welcome to join in with a post (new or old) just link up back to here to help spread the word. 
    If you no longer use cast iron but still have a favorite recipe or method please feel welcome to share. This is a learning and sharing event for all of us interested.
    Any of you that have used your cast iron at events or camping are most welcome too.
   This is for anything cooked, grilled, baked indoors or outdoors in cast iron. This also includes cast iron dutch ovens with the legs and special lids to hold the hot coals.  This event also includes cast iron pieces enameled 

     Happy Cast Iron Fridays everyone and Welcome.


This past week I haven't done anything really special to share with you in my cast iron. We have a friend that is staying with us from Georgia that I was hoping to be baking up some dutch oven pies outdoors but our weather here has not been cooperating at all. Now they are saying snow over the weekend. I say Really? haha
  Just some of my normal dishes instead: eggs for breakfast, I grilled a sirloin pork roast in my grill pan-which is my favorite way to cook tenderloins and little roasts now where I get the grill pan very hot, spray the meat with a bit of olive oil and season and grill the meat on all sides-then turn the temperature down add a meat thermometer and a lid, grill til done. Let rest and enjoy. It's just like grilling outdoors on your grill. I did also make up a skillet of apples.

These apples are easy and delicious and a good way to use up fruit that needs to be worked up. This is good with peaches or pears too. I add just a little water to the pan, spice as desired, and sweeten as desired.This batch I used pure maple syrup. I also add a little instant tapioca to thicken. Cook in you cast iron skillet with a lid til tender. I check them every 5 minutes or so.

   In the mail this week I received my issue of the Southern Cast Iron magazine. In it was something I had never thought of. They were suggesting to chill your cast iron skillet in the freezer, then make up a summer cold pie, and keep in freezer til ready to serve. Just as the cast iron skillet keeps your hot dishes hot longer, the same is true for cold.  Just remember to never put a hot skillet into cold, or a cold skillet into hot water or it may crack.  Here is a link to an old favorite icebox cake that can also be made in your cast iron pan  Here is a photo from that site of the cake

So glad you dropped by