Derek on Cast Iron - Cast Iron Recipes

Article: Can I Cook with Cast Iron on a Glass Top Stove?

2012-01-16T16:14:00.001-07:00

A cast iron skillet sits atop a glass top range

Short answer: Yes!

I get asked this question with some frequency, so I thought I'd create a post on the issue. I've been cooking with cast iron on an electric glass top stove for 8 years.

My particular make and model of stove is a Frigidaire brand Gallery. Quite frankly, I hate it. But the reason I hate my stove has nothing to do with cast iron cookware. Glass top stoves/ranges are slow to respond to changes in burner heat. This is particularly true when you need to lower the heat quickly. I'd much prefer gas.

More often than not, I have to remove the pan from the heat for a few minutes while the burner cools down. Sometimes I place a cool cast iron skillet on the burner to "soak up" the extra heat before I replace the pan that I'm cooking with.

One of the many benefits of cast iron cookware is that it holds and radiates heat very well. If you're cooking on a glass top stove, this means you'll probably need to allow a few extra minutes for your cast iron skillet to heat up. Resist the temptation to turn the burner heat higher than it should be.

So go ahead... toss out your teflon and start cooking with cast iron... even if you cook on a glass top stove.

Recipe: Outstanding Tuna Salad Sandwich

2011-12-28T20:58:00.004-07:00

The art of the tuna salad sandwich

A tuna salad sandwhich is a quick and easy way to squash hunger for the whole afternoon. Tuna is loaded with protein, and the addition of fresh veggies and herbs adds roughage and vitamins. There are two "secret ingredients" in this recipe that take it to the next level: chopped dill pickle and fresh Italian parsley.

Mayonnaise is ideal for tuna salad, but if you're looking for a healthier option you can use plain yogurt.

A note on tuna: For the best sandwich, you'll want to make sure your tuna isn't full of mercury, PCBs, or organochlorine pesticides. It's sad to say, but humans have pretty well poisoned the oceans, and large predatory fish such as tuna end up holding all the toxins consumed by the smaller fish they eat.

According to Seafood Watch, one of the safest tuna products is chunk light albacore tuna that's been line-caught or troll-caught. Troll/line caught tuna is more friendly to the oceans (less "bycatch" of other species) and also tends to catch younger, smaller fish that contain less toxins.

OK, back to the tuna salad sandwich. This recipe make enough for 4 sandwiches, and takes about 5 minutes to make.

Ingredients

2 7oz cans of tuna in spring water
1 1/2 tablespoon finely chopped onion
2 tablespoon finely chopped celery
1/4 cup finely chopped dill pickle
a few sprigs of chopped Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
1/2 cup mayonnaise (or yogurt)
1/4 teaspoon dijon mustard
salt and black pepper to taste

Procedure

Ingredients ready for mixing

This one's pretty straightforward... combine all the ingredients, and mix well. Be absolutely sure that you taste the tuna salad before you put it on a sandwich. Adjust the salt and pepper as necessary. It should burst with flavor... and if it doesn't, you need to add more salt.

Put it on a sandwich or over a bed of mixed greens, and devour it immediately!

Article: Campfire Cooking with a Dutch Oven

2011-12-12T20:57:00.001-07:00

Camp dutch oven pot roast cooked over an open fire.

Camp dutch oven cooking involves applying heat from two directions: the bottom and the top. This dual heating, when done properly, simulates the even heat of a real oven.

I do all of my camp dutch oven cooking over a campfire (as opposed to using charcoal briquettes).

To my mind, charcoal briquettes are just one more thing to buy, another thing to pack, and are loaded with additives like coal dust, sodium nitrate, borax, parrafin, and other petroleum products.

If you search around for camp dutch oven recipes, you'll find that the vast majority of them use charcoal briquettes. But these days, a lot of home barbequers (myself included) are using hardwood lump charcoal instead of briquettes. These real-wood glowing coals are exactly what you'll harvest from your campfire for dutch oven cooking.

Here's how it works:

Preparing the Fire Rings

The main "coals" fire is seen at upper left, while the

dutch oven simmers at lower right in the "cooking" fire

Begin by preparing two fire rings. The first ring is for your "coals" fire, from which you'll keep pulling fresh hot coals to heat your dutch oven. The second fire ring is your "cooking" fire, where your dutch oven will sit and cook your food (see image at right for an example).

Depending on where you're camped (and the flammability of the ground surrounding your fire pit) your "cooking" fire ring may simply be a patch of ground next to the main fire ring.

If you're in a developed campground with one of those metal fire-ring-grill-combo thingys... you can usually plunk your dutch oven on a corner of the concrete pad on which the fire ring sits.

The Perfect Campfire for Dutch Oven Cooking

Once you've prepared your fire rings, make a large fire in your "coals" fire ring. Use smaller pieces of very dry wood to start this fire. The idea is to quickly develop a big pile of hot coals to put above and below your camp dutch oven. A large fire made of sticks (as opposed to logs) is the quickest way to develop a large pile of hot coals.

Grilling bratwurst over the "coals" fire while the
french fries roast in the dutch oven

Hardwood is better than softwood since the coals last longer. Out here in the west, the closest things we have to hardwood are locust, aspen, and cottonwood. Pine or other softwoods are also fine (you'll just have to replenish the coals more often). I often end up cooking with ponderosa pine and things work out great.

Once your "coals" fire is established and you've placed your initial pile of hot coals above and below your dutch oven (more on that in a sec) you can add logs to the "coals" fire to keep it burning more steadily. Of course, you may also choose to grill parts of your dinner (burgers, steaks, bratwurst, fish) over your "coals" fire, in which case you'll hold off on the logs until you're done.

When I'm making a recipe that involves a few hours of cooking, I prefer to make my initial fire in the "cooking" fire ring where I will eventually place the dutch oven. This warms the rock and soil, and helps provide more even heat. This means, of course, that you'll move your fire from one ring to the other. Moving the fire isn't as hard as it sounds, but if it seems like too much, don't bother.

Applying Heat to Your Camp Dutch Oven

Add plenty of top heat for a tasty strawberry rhubarb crisp

Dutch oven cooking involves applying heat from two directions (the bottom and the top). It's important to also rotate the base and lid periodically to even out any hot spots. The goal is to simulate the even heat of a real oven.

Most dutch oven recipes call for approximating a 350 degree F oven. Depending on what you are cooking, you may apply more top or bottom heat.

For boiling or deep frying, you'll apply all of your heat from the bottom. For making chili, stew, or other high-liquid dishes, put most of your heat underneath, and a little bit on top. If you're making pot roast, you'll split the coals pretty evenly between top and bottom. If you're baking crisps, cakes, or enchiladas, you'll put the majority of your coals on top, and just a few underneath.

For baking, you'll be preparing your meals in the cold dutch oven and applying heat once things are ready. For pot roast, soups, stews, and chili, you'll likely be browning meat, caramelizing onions, or doing other tasks in the hot dutch oven base prior to adding the rest of the ingredients.

Whatever you do, before adding food, make sure your camp dutch oven starts shiny (coated with oil).

Applying top heat to a camp dutch
oven with long-handled tongs

To begin heating the dutch oven, grab a single layer of coals from your main "coals" fire, and sprinkle them into the second "cooking" fire ring in a disc that roughly matches the diameter of your dutch oven. What you are doing is creating a "burner" for your dutch oven. The thickness of this burner depends on how much bottom heat you want. For boiling, it should be packed full and 2 inches deep. For simmering, maybe 1 inch deep and somewhat loosely packed (there should be spaces between the coals). For roasting and baking, start with just a few sporadic coals, and add more once you confirm that your food is not burning (more on that later).

Place the camp dutch oven on the disc of coals. If you're making a pot roast or chili, you'll probably keep the lid off and do some browning and searing first. Once things have settled down and you're ready to place the lid on the dutch oven, go ahead and pile some glowing coals on top of the lid.

For boiling, you'll probably skip the top coals altogether. For stewing and simmering, place a few coals on top to help move things along. For roasting, you should have a 1-inch pile of coals that mostly cover the lid. For baking, you'll pile the coals up to 2-inches high and cover the lid thickly with them.

It's also fair game to pile a few medium-sized flaming sticks (see picture above) on top instead of coals. You have to be careful of hot spots (more on that below), but sometimes this approach is easier than messing with a bunch of smaller coals.

Campfire Cooking

Dutch oven enchiladas

The #1 mistake of camp dutch oven cooks is applying too much heat and burning the food.

To avoid burning your dinner, check on your food frequently (at least every 5 minutes). This is especially true in the beginning when the first data points about how hot your fire really is are trickling in.

To check your food, lift the lid off (coals and all) with a pair of long-handled tongs. Place the lid on a clean surface so you don't end up with dirt or ashes in your food after replacing the lid. I usually use two smaller logs laid next to each other as a lid rest.

With the lid removed, visually inspect the food for any signs of burning, and try to get your nose down there to smell for any burning-food-type odors. Vigorous bubbling means your food is already burning or is about to burn.

I usually reach into the dutch oven with a wooden spoon and dig to the bottom to make sure nothing's burning or sticking (sticking is a precursor to burning). If you're cooking something like chili or pot roast where stirring is no big deal, performing these burn-checks is easy. If you're making a crisp or a cake, you'll have to rely mostly on scent (that said, a little inter-mixing of layers is far superior to a burnt crisp).

When you're satisfied that nothing is burning (yet), rotate the base of the dutch oven by 90 degrees, and then place the lid back on top. When you place the lid back on top, rotate it by 90 degrees in relation to the base. Here's a tip: If you pick up the lid and put it back in the exact same orientation, when you rotate the base underneath it you'll have effectively rotated the lid in relation to the food. Don't worry too much about proper rotation as long as everything looks and smells fine inside.

Always err on the side of too little heat as opposed to too much. If, upon checking your dutch oven, nothing is bubbling and everything seems to be getting colder, go ahead and add coals. Never be afraid to remove your dutch oven from all heat (pick it up by the wire bail and set it on cool ground).

With a little experience, you'll get the hang of how much heat is needed and you won't have to check on your food as much.

Essential Gear for Campfire Dutch Oven Cooking

The dutch oven:

I use an 8-quart Lodge camp dutch oven. It's big enough to handle meals for 6 or 8 people, but not so huge as to take up half the car when packing for a trip. The lid doubles as a frying surface in a pinch.

I've posted more information on dutch oven care, cleaning, uses, and more on my camp dutch oven equipment overview page (warning: dork alert!).

A good pair of insulated gloves:

When doing any campfire cooking, I use a pair of leather welding gloves with a good-sized gauntlet to protect the wrist. They're not cheap (up to $40 a pair), but they beat the pants off kitchen oven mitts when working around a campfire.

It is a real bummer to burn your hands when you're out in the wild. It's an even bigger bummer to drop your dinner into the dirt due to burnt hands.

In campfire cooking... as in life... a good pair of gloves is a purchase you'll seldom regret.

A pair of long-handled tongs (maybe two):

I use two pairs of long-handled tongs when I cook with the dutch oven. One pair is for moving hot coals, logs, and lifting the lid of the dutch oven. The other pair is for touching food.

The tongs I use are 16 inches long. I've found that tongs made for grilling & barbecue are sub-par compared to restaurant utility tongs. Restaurant tongs are stronger, and have a better spring mechanism to keep them open without extra effort.

I got my tongs at a restaurant supply house. They have a website with online ordering, so you can buy the tongs online if you can't find them locally (no, I don't get any kickback).

A small whisk broom:

The whisk broom is really handy for removing coals and ash from the top of your dutch oven prior to serving. This helps keep unwanted junk out of your food.

Be sure to get a non-plastic whisk broom, since plastic will melt when it comes into contact with a hot dutch oven. In a pinch, you could easily make a simple whisk broom from some dried grass stems and string.

A bag for the dutch oven:

Initially, I felt a little silly for purchasing a dutch oven carrying case. But a trip to the slickrock desert outside of Moab, Utah last spring cured me of my gear-fear.

A camp dutch oven should always be put away well-oiled, and sand will stick to it in a hurry!

Every night on that early spring trip to Utah we had blowing sand and dust. The dutch oven was ready to go first thing in the morning only because it had been protected by the carrying bag.

Questions? Comments? Leave a comment! Thanks.

Recipe: Rice Pilaf

2011-11-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

Rice pilaf garnished with fresh sage

Rice pilaf is an easy way to add flavor to rice. When I was a kid, we called it "good rice." At its simplest, rice pilaf is just rice that's cooked in broth instead of water.

I like to start my pilaf with caramelized onion, which adds sweet, bitter, and savory flavors to complement the salt of the broth. I also toast the rice prior to adding the broth, which adds a nice nutty flavor to the finished pilaf.

This recipe serves 3-4.

Ingredients

1 cup rice
2 cups broth (I usually use chicken)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1-2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
1 small pinch of thyme

Procedure
Begin by heating a medium stainless steel saucepan on medium heat. You can also use a dutch oven for pilaf.

Once the pan is hot, add the oil. After perhaps 30 seconds, when the oil is hot enough to shimmer (but not smoking), add the chopped onion.

Add the broth after toasting the rice

Saute the onion for 3-4 minutes, stirring often, until the onion is beginning to turn golden. Add the rice and saute for another 3-4 minutes to finish caramelizing the onion, and to toast the rice a bit. Grind in some black pepper, stir things around, and then add the broth.

Immediately add the bay leaves and thyme, stir again, and then taste the broth. The flavor of the broth is pretty close to what the finished rice will taste like (minus some of the herb flavors). Adjust for salt if necessary.

Bring the water to a boil, and then lower the heat to a simmer and finish the rice just as you would normally (cook for another 10-15 minutes until the rice is tender).

Recipe: Skillet Fried Beaver Anal Glands

2011-11-06T08:12:00.001-07:00

A tasty beaver with ripe young anal glands (Photo credit: NPS Photo)

Beaver anal glands have been a staple of the American diet for decades. In fact, you have almost certainly eaten many helpings yourself. You wouldn't know it, of course, since this fine ingredient is listed as "natural flavoring" on the back of most foodservice packaging. You can thank your congress for that.

Disclaimer: This isn't a post featuring a recipe for skillet fried beaver anal glands (sorry, for those of you who really wanted to make this dish).

It is a post about how freeing Americans from excess government regulation is resulting in beaver anal glands (literally) being shoved down your throat without your knowledge.

How did I suddenly develop a keen interest in beaver anal glands?

It turns out I came across a blog by Bruce Bradley. Bruce is a former marketing exec who worked with heavy hitting corporate food giants like General Mills, Nabisco, and Pillsbury.

At Bruce's blog, you can learn about awesome lobbying successes such as disguising cow stomach, hair, feathers, and insects under innocuous-sounding ingredients like "enzymes," "cystine," "confectioner's glaze," and "natural red #4."

I thought you'd want to know.

Fried grasshoppers

And just to set the record straight, I'm not vehemently opposed to eating insects. My 7-year old made me eat some fried grasshoppers a few weeks back. They weren't bad. Tasted like shrimp.

But if I'm going to eat insects (or beaver anal glands) I want to know about it first. Is that too much to ask here in America?

Recipe: Clam Linguine with Crushed Red Pepper and Oregano

2011-10-14T22:31:00.002-06:00

Clam linguine garnished with a sprig of fresh oregano

This is a surprisingly easy recipe to make. Surprising because it is really tasty. What's more, it is classy enough to impress any guest (those with shellfish allergies excepted, of course).

In the summer and fall, we have fresh oregano and thyme in the garden. Either herb works really well in this recipe, but I prefer to use one or the other for simplicity. If you're using dried oregano or thyme, only add about a third as much—since dried herbs tend to be much more concentrated.

This recipe serves 2, but can easily be doubled, tripled, or more. The recipe takes about 20 minutes to make.

Ingredients

Fresh oregano adds a brightness to the flavor

14 ounces of linguine
olive oil
3 cloves pressed garlic
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup dry white wine
3 - 6 1/2 ounce cans of chopped clams with juice
1 tablespoon of fresh oregano or thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon of dried)
grated parmesan cheese

Procedure
Start by boiling water for your pasta. I use Tinkyada brand gluten free pasta (it being the only gluten free brand that doesn't taste like wet cardboard). You can, of course, use whatever linguine suits you.

Your pasta water should be well salted. It should taste more salty than soup. Remember, most of this salt will stay in the water, but a small amount of it will infuse the pasta with more flavor.

Undercook your pasta slightly, because you'll cook it for a few minutes with the sauce to meld the flavors.

Your pasta should be cooked and drained by the time you start sauteing the garlic for your clam sauce—since things move pretty quickly after that point. Immediately after draining the pasta, stir in some olive oil to prevent sticking.

To make the clam sauce, heat a medium stainless steel saute pan on medium heat. Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil.

While the pan heats up, open the cans of clams so you're ready. The clams (with their juice) are essential to prevent the garlic from burning... since they immediately cool the pan down and lift the garlic from the heated surface.

Sauteing the garlic will take less than a minute. To do it, heat the oil up enough to shimmer (it should not be hot enough to smoke), and then add the pressed fresh garlic.

NOTE: If the garlic burns or gets dark brown, you're better off starting over. Browned garlic imparts a strong bitter flavor to the whole dish. Toss out the oil, cool the pan and give it a quick scrub, and re-heat a new batch of oil.

Clam sauce ready for linguine

Stir the garlic around with a wooden spoon, being sure to scrape any stuck bits off the pan surface to prevent them from burning.

After the garlic is golden, but before it gets anything close to brown, toss in a pinch or two of crushed red pepper flakes, and immediately add the white wine and all of the chopped clams with their juice.

Add the pasta to the saute pan, and stir things around a bit to mix the sauce in with the pasta. Gently simmer for 2-3 minutes, and season with fresh chopped oregano or thyme to taste.

Serve immediately with a topping of grated parmesan cheese.

Recipe: Outstanding Caesar Salad

2011-10-05T20:26:00.002-06:00

Caesar salad with cast iron croutons and home-made dressing

This recipe takes about 2 minutes, and beats the pants off bottled caesar salad dressing. I highly recommend pairing this with my cast iron croutons (the croutons add about 15 minutes of prep time).

I use red wine vinegar, but white wine, apple cider, and a host of other vinegars would be just fine. The only vinegar to avoid in caesar dressing is balsamic vinegar... which is to boldly flavored.

This recipe serves 4.

You can also make a larger batch of this dressing and save it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Ingredients

2 cloves of garlic, pressed
1/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 large head romaine lettuce (or two romaine "heart" heads)
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
freshly ground black pepper
1 egg (optional)

Procedure

Smashing garlic and salt in a wooden bowl

Place your pressed garlic in the bottom of a wooden salad bowl. If you don't own a garlic press, just mince the garlic finely, and then smash it with the blade of a knife.

Add the kosher salt, and use a spoon to further smash the pressed garlic and salt together. The salt acts as an abrasive to help break down and smash up the garlic.

Once the garlic is nicely smashed (after 30 seconds perhaps?), add the olive oil. Use the spoon to scrape the garlic off the sides of the bowl where you did your smashing. Add the dijon. Dijon mustard is an important ingredient because it causes the oil and vinegar (once added) to form an emulsion instead of staying separated. The emulsion makes for a salad dressing that coats the lettuce leaves instead of running off them to the bottom of the bowl.

With your dijon, oil, and garlic mixed together, add the worcestershire sauce and red wine vinegar. Mix things around again, and taste your dressing. It should taste strong, but balanced. It should have a nice punch of salt, garlic, acid, and savory flavors. If any of these flavors is too strong, consider adding some olive oil and a slight bit of the not-so-strong ingredients. If you adjust to the point where you've got too much dressing for the salad, save a little off and use it later.

It's a good idea in any case to save off about half your dressing before adding the lettuce. You will very likely add all that dressing back, but it's much easier to add salad dressing than it is to remove it!

Home-made caesar salad dressing

So, with half the dressing saved on the side, add your washed and chopped (not ripped) romaine to the bowl. Toss the romaine with the dressing, and then taste a piece.

You'll likely add all that dressing back, but be sure to add a little and re-mix and re-taste to make sure the dressing doesn't become too thick or overpowering.

With your salad and dressing in balance, it's time to add your egg (optional). To do so, break a raw egg into your salad, and toss things around until the egg evenly coats the lettuce (with yolk broken, of course).

Add your grated parmesan and re-toss.

Toss your cooled croutons on top, and crack some black pepper for garnish. Serve immediately, or at least within 10 minutes.

Recipe: Gluten Free Fried Chicken

2011-09-23T22:50:00.001-06:00

Fried chicken in a cast iron dutch oven

Fried chicken is a fine thing. It's been around for centuries, but didn't really come of age until the 1700's when cast iron cookware became available to the masses by virtue of the industrial revolution (Yay capitalism!).

Lately, fried chicken has gotten a bad name. I attribute most of this bad press to the money-grubbing numbskulls who bought out Colonel Sanders in 1964.

Fried chicken can't be rushed. It should be moist but not greasy. It should be full of savory chicken flavor and not loaded with synthetic chemicals. Most importantly, it can't be made from chickens that have been force-fed chicken manure, arsenic, and dead chicken mince (why does this even need to be said?). For this reason, use organic chicken. Organic chicken is the cheapest of all organic meats... and is even cheaper when bought whole.

This recipe is pretty easy and results in some damn fine dutch oven fried chicken. It serves 4, and takes about 1 1/2 hours.

A butchered whole organic chicken

My preference is to buy a whole chicken and butcher it into skin-on and bone-in pieces, but you could of course use fryer parts (breasts, thighs, drumsticks).

It is best to brine your chicken for 24 hours, but if you don't have time for that, you can still make this recipe (add one extra tablespoon of salt to the marinade).

As always, you can use wheat flour in place of the gluten free flour, and things will work out fine.

Ingredients

1 whole 4-5 pound organic chicken (or equivalent pieces)
salt and water for brine
2 quarts canola oil for frying

For the Marinade:

4 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons table salt
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
dash ground thyme
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
2 bay leaves

For the Breading:

2 1/2 tablespoons corn starch
2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
1/4 cup corn meal
1/2 teaspoon table salt

For the Egg Mixture:

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 cup marinade (once the chicken is out)

Procedure
Brine the chicken (whole, or in pieces) for 24 hours. The brine should consist of 1 cup kosher salt (or 1/2 cup table salt) to 1 gallon of water. After 24 hours, remove the chicken from the brine, and pat dry with a paper towel.

Butcher the whole chicken into drumsticks, wings, bone-in breasts, and bone-in thighs. Cut the breast pieces in half the short way to make smaller pieces (which cook through more quickly).

Mix up the marinade, and add the chicken pieces. Marinate for 30 minutes.

Use a candy thermometer to measure the oil

Begin heating your oil in a 5 quart cast iron dutch oven. As the oil heats, mix up the breading and the egg mixture.

When the chicken has marinated for 30 minutes and the oil has reached 350 degrees F, remove 1 cup of the marinade and stir it into your egg mixture.

Prepare the chicken pieces by tossing them in the egg mixture, and then breading them thoroughly in the breading mixture.

Place them gently into the hot oil. Add 4-5 pieces to the dutch oven, but don't over-crowd the pan.

You may need to turn up the heat if the oil temperature comes down below 300 degrees F. Keep monitoring the oil temperature, and don't let it get much hotter than 350 degrees F.

Fried chicken ready to be turned

As the chicken fries, you'll need to turn it a few times to ensure even browning.

Larger pieces will take 20-25 minutes to cook through, smaller ones 10-15 minutes. Measure the pieces as they cook with an instant read meat thermometer to ensure you get it right.

Remove the fried chicken pieces from the oil when the thickest (coldest) part of the meat reads 160 degrees F. Lay the pieces on a bed of paper towels, and cover them with foil to rest. As the pieces rest, they'll come up to 165 degrees F.

Continue breading and frying pieces until it's all cooked! Serve immediately for hot fried chicken, or put them in the fridge for a cold fried chicken picnic.

Fried chicken with potato salad and bleu cheese salad

Needless to say, fried chicken goes great with potato salad, cole slaw, and fresh corn on the cob.

You can cool down, strain, and then freeze the canola oil for re-use. You can also re-use it in other chicken dishes, or in dishes with lots of flavor (where the taste of fried chicken will blend in).

Be sure to clean up thoroughly with bleach or vinegar any raw chicken juice. Salmonella isn't as big an issue with organic chicken, but it's still a risk.

Article: Backyard Chickens Chapter 4

2011-09-04T16:26:00.001-06:00

Our backyard chicken run, with the multicolored coop visible through the door

Wow. So much has changed since my last update in Backyard Chickens Chapter 3. Back then we had just put the chickens outside after their indoor growth period in early spring. We had a smaller coop, and a smaller chicken yard.

Here's how it all breaks down nowadays:

Egg production

One of our first eggs

We get 3-4 eggs a day at the moment, but that's only because only 3 or 4 hens have started laying. We expect we'll get 6-8 eggs per day in the summer, and a bit less during the winter.

The eggs started small, but got bigger after a week or so. They're really tasty! The chickens somehow know to go into the nesting boxes to lay them.

Will Cash predicted it. About 10 days ago, in the morning before I left for work, he assured me that we'd have an egg that day. He was right! That boy is in tune with the universe for sure.

The passive solar chicken coop

Passive solar chicken coop to catch winter sun

Our chicken coop is a modified play house that our babysitter and her fiancee brought us from south Denver.

The floorspace of the play house is roughly 4 feet by 3 feet, and it is about 3 feet tall. It is WAY overbuilt, and practically airtight with caulking, paint and such. This is good, as I've read that chickens hate drafts in the winter.

To make sure we have enough room for 6 hens, I put on an addition that's 4 feet wide, about 30 inches deep, and about 5 feet tall.

The added-onto chicken coop has a passive solar design: the taller addition has a 12-inch overhang to shield the coop from summer sun, but will easily let in the lower-angle winter sun.

Our plan is to not heat the coop in the winter, but to insulate it and hopefully let the passive solar chicken coop do its thing.

Chicken bedding

For bedding inside the coop, we began with pine shavings like we used in the early days, but quickly shifted to straw.

Straw composts much more quickly, and the chickens seem to prefer it now that they are older. Wood products also take nitrogen from the soil if they have not fully composted, so even partially composted straw bedding can be used on the garden for mulch or compost sooner than pine shavings.

Willa and Eliza dusting themselves clean

Composting
We compost all our chicken bedding (from inside the coop), and also rake the predator-proof chicken yard from time to time for more straw/manure.

We put it all in a composting bin for several months to temper the high nitrogen content of the chicken manure. We then spread it on our garden beds as mulch, and let the worms do their work of pulling it deeper into the soil.

Chicken feed
We use organic chicken feed. We can get it at a local feed store, Lafayette Feed & Grain, and they also have lots of great advice about bedding, care, and other chicken-raising odds and ends.

Predators
We had a hawk come by for a visit a few days ago while the chickens were out in the garden. Will saved three of them, and the other three had enough sense to get under cover. The hawk was literally perched on top of the post of the chicken yard. Guess we'll have to be careful about letting the chickens out into the garden!

More updates coming soon. If you've got a question, please leave a comment!

Recipe: Quick Tuna Salad Over Mixed Greens

2011-08-17T21:18:00.000-06:00

Tuna salad over summer greens

This recipe has absolutely nothing to do with cast iron cookware. But it's tasty and quick, and I just had to share.

Some version of this recipe serves as dinner at least one night a week during summer when we don't want to heat up the house by cooking. This time of year the garden is also bursting with greens, cherry tomatoes, and other goodies.

You can adjust quantities depending on how hungry you are.

This recipe serves 2, and takes about 5 minutes to make.

Ingredients
For the tuna salad

10-12 oz. canned tuna, drained
1-2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 stick of celery, finely chopped
a small wedge of onion, finely chopped (roughly 1 tablespoon of chopped onion)
cracked black pepper
salt

For the green salad

a pile of mixed greens or mesclun
juice from 1/2 lemon
olive oil
salt
cracked black pepper

Procedure

Drain your tuna, and then add the mayonnaise, dijon mustard, chopped celery and onion. Mix things around to combine. Salt and pepper the tuna to taste. It should burst with flavor. You can also add finely chopped pickles and/or dill if it suits your fancy.

Wash your mixed greens and spin them dry. Drizzle the greens with perhaps a tablespoon of olive oil, and then squeeze in the juice from your half-lemon. Again, salt and pepper the greens to taste as you toss them around. The dressed salad should taste good on its own.

Arrange your mixed greens on plates, and add half of the tuna salad mixture in the enter of the pile of mixed greens. I happened to have some fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden, so I tossed those on as well.

Serve immediately.

Recipe: Charcoal Grilled Salmon

2011-08-16T22:38:00.001-06:00

Grilled sockeye salmon with loose chives tossed on top

Grilled salmon is a real treat when done right. The key, as with just about any fish, is not to over-cook it.

This recipe comes from my days cooking at an adventure lodge in Alaska. Just about every time we served this grilled salmon rendition, a handful of guests would exclaim that it was the best salmon they had ever had in their life... and demand the recipe. We were happy to oblige, because we knew that an earnest request for a recipe is the finest praise a cook can receive.

Now, I bring this recipe to you.

As for the fish... I'm a sucker for wild-caught sockeye or silver salmon. Of course, this recipe works great with whatever salmon variety you've got on hand. NOTE: If you have yet to make your salmon purchase, you can review my article (rant) about the different types of salmon.

You'll want to marinate the salmon for 6-8 hours, so plan accordingly. This recipe serves 8.

I use a charcoal-fired Weber kettle to do my grilling, but you can do just fine with a gas grill. You can also use skinless salmon filets or even steaks... just be sure to closely follow my guidance on when to pull the fish off the grill—as it applies to steaks and skinless filets as well.

Ingredients

8 skin-on salmon filets
2 cups soy sauce or tamari (for a gluten-free experience)
1 1/3 cups water
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup grated ginger
7 large cloves pressed garlic
1/4 cup sesame oil

Procedure
In a large glass bowl, make the marinade by combining the soy sauce (or tamari), water, brown sugar, black pepper, grated ginger, and pressed garlic. Make sure all ingredients are well-mixed. There should be no brown sugar sitting on the bottom of your mixing bowl.

Salmon marinating in a Ziploc

I typically marinate the filets in a Ziploc bag. If you're using a bowl, cover the top with plastic wrap so the parts that stick out of the liquid don't dry out.

Marinate your salmon filets for 6-8 hours. Ideally, give things a stir or shake every 2 hours to ensure even coverage, and to eliminate un-marinated spots that occur where two pieces of fish are pressed tightly together.

Be sure not to marinate for longer than 8 hours, otherwise the salmon gets too salty. If you need to marinate overnight (up to 24 hours), double the water in the marinade.

When you're about 45 minutes from serving time, light your charcoal grill with a full chimney of hardwood lump charcoal. When the coals are glowing at the top, dump them out in an even spread, and then place your grill surface over the coals to heat. Always let your grill heat for 5 minutes and then clean it with a grill brush before adding the food on top.

When grilling tender and/or lean meats (like salmon), be sure to oil your grill surface before adding the food. Otherwise, the meat will stick and make a mess of things.

Oil the hot grill surface with canola or some other relatively high-heat oil. I typically pour a quarter cup of oil into a small glass bowl, and then immerse two folded paper towels and pick them out with grill tongs to oil the grill with them. You can also use spray-on oil... just be sure not to blow yourself up.

Grilled salmon started skin-side up

With the grill well-oiled and hot, toss on your salmon filets skin side up (i.e. red flesh side down). You'll probably want to cover the grill to keep the heat from getting too intense. Grill the salmon for 3-4 minutes, or until you've got some nice grill marks.

Then, flip the salmon filets over so they are skin side down, and finish them off. You'll likely want to cover the grill for this portion as well.

It will probably take another 7-8 minutes to finish the filets, but it depends entirely on the thickness of the filets, the heat of your grill, and the alignment of the planets.

Therefore, you should be in the habit of gently peering inside your salmon filets to check doneness. Do this by gently separating the flakes of flesh—working with the grain of the meat. Salmon filets can go from "just right" to "dry and tough" in less than a minute.

If you will serve your salmon filets immediately onto the plates of your guests (with all other side dishes plated and ready), pull your salmon when there's just a hint of deep red (not fully-cooked) color left in the thickest part of the filet.

If the filets will sit around for 5 minutes after grilling, pull them when there's a good bit of deep red left—maybe half an inch of thickness. Because the filets are being cooked at such a high temperature, they will continue cooking until eaten.

If the filets will sit around for longer than 5 minutes after grilling... save your salmon for another time and cook hot dogs instead.

Just prior to serving, brush the filets gently with sesame oil. This gives them a nice sheen, and also helps keep the filets from losing moisture. It also adds a nice flavor complement to the soy-ginger marinade.

Serve and enjoy!

Recipe: Cast Iron Skillet Omelet

2011-08-06T08:58:00.003-06:00

A cast iron skillet omelet

For many, the idea of cooking an omelet in a cast iron skillet is overwhelming.

That's why Teflon was invented, right? (wrong).

Sidebar: Teflon was actually invented to help lubricate the insides of nuclear weapons. But the cold war dragged on for 43 frickin' years without the thrill of all-out nuclear war... and those nuclear warheads just didn't get used up at the revenue-producing rate the marketing team had predicted. No wonder DuPont diversified into cookware. Unfortunately, Teflon emits PFOA at stovetop cooking temperatures. PFOA is a known carcinogen. When building components for nuclear weapons, emitting cancer-causing chemicals at stovetop temperatures is not particularly problematic. When building cookware, however, it is problematic. I encourage you to check out my Ignite Boulder presentation for more info on this topic.

I believe it is imperative that you learn to cook omelets on cast iron cookware. Your family is counting on you! Fortunately, it's really easy.

For starters, just about any old (or new) cast iron skillet will work. If your skillet has some rudimentary seasoning and a good coating of oil, things will turn out great. Of course, the more well-seasoned your cast iron is, the easier a time you'll have of it.

A small bunch of chard

I typically use two cast iron skillets for omelets—one for sauteing the filling, one for the omelet itself. You could do it all in a single skillet by sauteing the filling first, and then setting it aside in a covered bowl until ready. If you use the one-skillet method you'll probably want to wipe out or rinse your skillet before beginning to cook the eggs to avoid unsightly vegetable residue on the outside of your finished omelet.

Speaking of the outside of your omelet... Escoffier himself relished a well-browned exterior. So don't be afraid to let those eggs set and set well.

For this recipe, I had on hand chard, onions, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes. But you can put just about anything into an omelet as long as you taste the filling and it tastes good.

This recipe serves 2-4, depending on side dishes and appetites.

Ingredients

4 eggs
1/2 small onion, sliced
1/2 pound of mushrooms, sliced
Small bunch of chard, chopped
10 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 pound (4 oz.) grated cheese (cheddar, jack, what have-you)
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Canola oil

Procedure

Any time you cook with cast iron, your skillets should start out shiny with a coat of fresh oil. If they weren't put away shiny, you should wipe them with oil until they are.

Begin by heating a medium cast iron skillet on medium heat. This skillet will be used for the filling. Slice your onions, slice your mushrooms, and roughly chop your chard. When the skillet is hot, add a tablespoon or so of oil, and toss in the onion to begin sauteing. Saute your onions for 2-3 minutes, and then add the mushrooms and chard. Continue sauteing until the onions are caramelized and the mushrooms are soft and tasty (pull them out and taste them). Perhaps another 5-7 minutes.

While your filling is finishing up, heat a large cast iron skillet on medium heat. This skillet will be used for the omelet. As the skillet heats up, crack four eggs into a mixing bowl, add a pinch or two of salt, and beat the eggs well with a fork.

Turn on your broiler.

Omelet fillings ready to go

Back in the "fillings" skillet, clear everything out from the center of the skillet and add your halved cherry tomatoes face-down.

After 2-3 minutes—when they've developed a nice brown crust, add your minced garlic, and stir everything together after about 30 seconds.

Remove the skillet from heat and set aside. Taste your filling, and season with salt and pepper as necessary.

Meanwhile, your "omelet" skillet should be nice and hot. Toss in your butter, stir it around for an even coating, and then pour in your eggs.

Massage the eggs gently as they cook: pop bubbles, smooth out rough spots, and tuck the ragged edges back in.

The goal is not to scramble them... just to move things around and to create bit more structural integrity for the omelet.

An omelet cooking in a cast iron skillet

Once the bottom of the omelet begins to firm up, stop stirring, and add your grated cheese on top. Place the whole affair under the broiler for 20-30 seconds.

The idea is to melt the cheese and give the top layer of eggs a chance to cook a bit more.

BE CAREFUL! It's really easy to burn the whole thing at this point. Do not walk away once you've placed the omelet under the broiler.

As the cheese melts and the eggs begin firming up (but before they cook through), pull the skillet and turn off the broiler. Again, this will take 20-30 seconds.

Omelet filling ready to be covered up

Add your filling to half of the omelet. Then, using a spatula, gently turn the empty side over to cover the filling.

Remove the omelet from the skillet and serve immediately. It's easier to get it out of the skillet if you cut it into sections for serving first... that way you don't have to get the whole thing out in one piece.

If you do wish to get the whole thing out in once piece... it can be done with two wide spatulas and a little bit of skill.

Enjoy!

Recipe: Camp Dutch Oven Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp (Gluten Free)

2011-07-27T20:46:00.005-06:00

Strawberry Rhubarb crisp prepared over an open fire

This recipe is a slight variation of my camp dutch oven apple crisp recipe. In this recipe I've doubled the flour and oats since we all agreed that a thicker crisp was tasty. Accordingly, I added more butter, sugar and salt to ensure enough flavor in that extra crisp bulk.

This is a gluten free rendition, but you could easily just use wheat flour and regular oats.

This recipe serves 8-10 people, and takes about an hour to prepare. We used strawberries and rhubarb because that's what was in the garden, but you could use just about any fresh fruit. We used about 2 pounds of strawberries and maybe 18 foot-long stalks of rhubarb.

Ingredients

Roughly 12 cups of sliced fruit
Roughly 1 cup sugar
Juice from 1 lemon
2 sticks butter
1 cup gluten free flour
1 cup gluten free rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon salt
cinnamon

Procedure

2 fire rings: one for dutch oven
baking & one for a steady supply of coals

As always with camp dutch oven cooking, begin by preparing your fire rings. You'll need two fire rings: one for your maintenance fire from which you'll pull fresh hot coals, and one for cooking food in your dutch oven (see image at right).

In one of your fire rings, make a large fire with small pieces of wood. You want a bunch of hot coals to put above and below your camp dutch oven... and a large fire made of sticks (as opposed to logs) is the quickest way to get there.

Once you begin cooking, of course, the story changes entirely. You'll keep a medium-sized "maintenance" fire in one fire ring to provide fresh coals. It's important that this fire stays small enough so as not to burn the food in the dutch oven nearby. You'll likely add logs to the maintenance fire at this point to sustain an even burn without throwing off too much heat. The camp dutch oven itself will cook your food in the second fire ring at relatively low heat (mimicking a 350 degree F conventional oven for this recipe).

So, with your fire started, it's time to prepare your crisp.

Wash your rhubarb in cold water and slice off the leaves (they're poisonous). Also cut off the bottom part of the stem that was underground. Then, slice the rhubarb stems into roughly 1/2 inch thick sections. For the strawberries, wash them in cold water, and then cut the tops off and cut them into roughly 1/4 inch slices.

The fruit mixture

Toss all your fruit into the camp dutch oven. Add lemon juice, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1 stick of butter (sliced into 1/4 inch thick pieces).

Stir the fruit around, and then add roughly 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Taste it. You should be able to detect a general increase in fruit flavor because of the salt, but you don't want the fruit to actually taste salty. Add salt if you feel it isn't salty and more flavor might be nice. You may also feel it needs more sugar. The raw fruit mixture should taste quite sweet. The proportions provided in this recipe are good guides, but the sweetness of the fruit you are using will also play a role. When in doubt, taste it!

When you're satisfied with the flavor of the fruit, add a pinch or two of cinnamon, stir things around, and taste it again. You should detect a hint of cinnamon, but no more. As the crisp cooks, the fruit will cook down and concentrate the cinnamon flavor, so don't overdo it!

For the topping, combine the flour, oats, the rest of the sugar (roughly 1/4 cup), another dash or two of cinnamon, and the other 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Mix things around, and then taste a pinch of the dry flour/oat mixture. It should taste sweet, salty, and good. If you aren't tempted to eat more of the flour/oat mixture, you need to add more sugar and/or salt.

There's no such thing as too much butter

Sprinkle your flour/oat mixture on top of your fruit mixture, and then add the remaining stick of butter (sliced) on top of the crisp.

To begin cooking the crisp, grab a single layer of coals from your main fire, and sprinkle them into the second (empty) fire ring in a 1-inch thick disc that matches the diameter of your dutch oven.

You are effectively creating a "burner" for your dutch oven. Place the camp dutch oven on the disc of coals, and then pile glowing coals on top of the lid about 3 inches high.

It's important to check in on your crisp frequently. To check your crisp, lift the lid off (coals and all), and place it on a clean surface (so you don't end up with dirt or ashes in your crisp after replacing the lid). Visually inspect the crisp for any signs of burning, and try to get your nose down there to smell for any burning-sugar-type odors. I usually also reach in there with a wooden spoon to push things around a bit to make sure nothing's burning on the bottom.

The crisp cooking under a pile of coals

When you're satisfied that nothing is burning (yet), rotate the base of the dutch oven by 90 degrees, and then place the lid back on top. When you place the lid back on top, rotate it by 90 degrees in relation to the base.

The idea here is to even out the heat from top and bottom in relation to the food inside the dutch oven. Just make sure you rotate in the same direction... and don't worry too much about it as long as everything looks and smells fine inside.

Your crisp should bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Keep checking it every 5-10 minutes (depending on how quickly it seems to be cooking), and always be on the lookout for burning. It can happen quickly. That said, you will almost certainly need to add coals above or below the dutch oven to maintain a constant temperature. Keep rotating base and lid every time you check.

After 35 minutes or so, grab a piece of fruit out of your crisp and taste it. Keep doing this from here on out every five minutes... and once your test fruit pieces are coming out sufficiently soft, pull the crisp from the fire, remove lid coals, and serve after 5 minutes of cool-down.

Crisps are pretty robust, so if you aren't yet ready for dessert, keep a few lid coals on top and set it next to the fire to stay warm. Rotate it every 5-10 minutes to provide even heat.

If you have the means, serve with ice cream or whipped cream. You can also just pour heavy cream over the crisp when serving. If you're particularly adventurous (or happen to be French), you can add a few dollops of goat cheese on top of your crisp. It is divine.

Enjoy!

Recipe: Sausage and Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta (Gluten Free)

2011-07-23T20:07:00.003-06:00

A tasty pasta filled with all five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami.

I've always been a sucker for a creamy pan-sauce pasta. Especially one with with sun-dried tomatoes and rosemary. We don't typically keep a ready supply of heavy cream in the house. But on a recent camping trip we had made whipped cream for a strawberry rhubarb crisp, and happened to have half a pint left.

This recipe contains each of the five basic tastes: sweet (cream, caramelized onions), sour (sun-dried tomatoes), salty (salt, butter, sausage), bitter (rosemary, sun-dried tomatoes), and umami (sausage, sauteed mushrooms and onions, sun-dried tomatoes).

The essential ingredients of
flavor come together in this recipe

This means it's packed with flavor. Thankfully, it's also quick and easy to make. It takes about 30 minutes, and most of that is just waiting for the pasta to cook.

My rendition is gluten free, but you could make it with wheat pasta as well. If you go for gluten free pasta, use Tinkyada brand. Everything else tastes like monkey balls. Note: if you follow that link, you'll have to pardon the Tinkyada website (I thought animated GIFs had gone the way of the coelacanth).

OK, here's how this recipe breaks down:

Ingredients

1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon butter
3 large mushrooms, sliced
1/2 small onion, diced
4 sausage links, sliced into 1/3 inch sections
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
cracked black pepper, to taste
salt, to taste
1 loose teaspoon dried rosemary
1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup dry white wine (e.g. chardonnay)
8 oz elbow macaroni

Procedure
Start the pasta water first thing. Make sure the water is nice and salty. Pasta water should taste like a somewhat too-salty soup.

While the water works up to a boil, slice your mushrooms into 1/4 inch slices, dice your onion, and chop your sun-dried tomatoes.

Once the pasta water gets within a minute or two of boiling, heat a medium stainless steel saute pan on medium heat. Add the canola oil to the pan. After perhaps 5 minutes of heat, when the oil shimmers (but before it smokes), toss in your diced onion and sliced mushrooms.

While you're working on the sauteed ingredients, begin cooking your pasta as soon as the water reaches a rolling boil. Just after you add the pasta to the boiling water, make sure to stir things around a bit to break up any clumps that form before the water gets back to a rolling boil.

Mushrooms, onion, and
sausage cooking.

Saute the mushrooms and onions for 5 minutes—stirring or flipping often. Add the sausage and continue to stir/saute.

Don't forget to keep track of your pasta while it boils. When it is al dente (a tad underdone), strain it and then toss it back into the (empty) pot in which it boiled. Stir in some olive oil and then cover the pasta and set it somewhere off heat (trivet, cutting board, etc.). Give it a stir in another minute as well.

Cook the sausage and saute the mushrooms together until they're done—stirring quite frequently.

It's almost time to eat. The sausage doesn't have to be completely done, but it should be pretty darn close. Mushrooms should be essentially done (taste them!).

Deglazing fond from the pan

Toss in your chopped sun-dried tomatoes, stir things around briefly, and then deglaze the pan with white wine.

Scrape the browned bits of goodness up off the bottom of the pan for 30 seconds, and then add the heavy cream and rosemary.

Stir things around some more, and let the whole concoction come back up to heat for 2-3 minutes. This helps reduce the cream volume and concentrates the flavors.

Taste the sauce. You'll almost certainly need to add salt and cracked black pepper. If it doesn't burst with flavor, keep adding salt until it does.

Add your pasta to the sauce, and stir things around for 1-2 minutes.

Serve immediately.

Recipe: Gluten Free Pancakes

2011-07-04T09:27:00.003-06:00

A gluten free pancake doesn't have to taste like cardboard!

For those that are not gluten free, I have a regular wheat flour pancake recipe as well. As noted in my regular pancake recipe, there are two secrets to perfect cast iron griddle pancakes: 1) keep the heat low, and 2) make sure the griddle surface is shiny with oil every time you pour the batter.

When I found out I had a wheat allergy, I thought my pancake-eating days were over. But there's been a bit of an awakening among restaurants and grocery stores in recent years, and a lot of gluten free products and ingredients are now available. I decided it was time to concoct a good gluten free pancake recipe.

In addition to being tasty, my pancake recipe had to be easy to make on a weekday morning. For this reason, I opted to stick with a "pre-mixed" gluten free flour—Bob's Red Mill in this case. In my experimentations, I found that technique had a lot more to do with the flavor and texture of the pancakes than a proprietary mix of flour.

This recipe makes about 10-12 pancakes.

Ingredients

2 Cups Bobs Red mill gluten free all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 3/4 cups milk
4 tablespoons canola oil

Procedure

I typically heat the oven on 200 degrees to hold the pancakes before serving.

Heat a cast iron griddle on medium-low heat for 10 minutes. As the griddle is heating, oil your griddle lightly using a paper towel. This ensures even coverage, and removes any excess oil. You want to use an oil that doesn't bring it's own flavor, and has a reasonably high smoke point. I use canola oil.

You'll know when the griddle is hot enough because a drop of water thrown on it will dance for a few seconds and disappear. The griddle should not get so hot as to smoke.

While the griddle is heating, combine the dry ingredients and mix them thoroughly. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then pour in the milk. Add the milk/egg mixture and oil to the dry ingredients, and mix together carefully. Mix the liquids and solids enough to combine them into a lumpy batter, but be sure not to over-mix them.

When the griddle is hot (and shiny with oil), spoon out the batter for the first batch. Cook the pancakes for 2-3 minutes, and flip them once bubbles begin appearing (but before the bubbles pop). Cook the pancakes for another 2-3 minutes on the other side, and then either serve them immediately (or hold them in a warm oven).

If you're holding the pancakes for more than a few minutes, consider pulling them off the heat a little sooner. I've found that gluten free pancakes don't hold in the oven as well as their wheat-filled brethren, so I recommend serving them immediately.

Be sure to re-oil your griddle prior to beginning each new batch. You also want a good thin spatula for flipping. If your griddle is well-seasoned, a metal spatula is just fine.

Serve your gluten free pancakes with lots of butter and a steady supply of warm maple syrup.

Article: Small Batch Cast Iron, Made in the USA

2011-06-16T22:47:00.003-06:00

The Borough Furnace cast iron lineup: skillet and braising pan (photo used by permission)

People often ask me what brand of cast iron cookware they should buy. I counsel them to stick with cookware made in the United States for bare cast iron, and cookware made in Europe for enameled cast iron.

These days, finding anything that's manufactured in the United States is pretty tough. This is especially true for things that are simple, cheap, and mass-produced (like cookware). A near as I can tell, Lodge is the only company that still makes their bare cast iron cookware here in the States.

So when my friend Jake sent me a link the other day about the fellows at Borough Furnace, I was intrigued. These guys are looking to make new-fangled cast iron cookware using recycled iron, a solar-powered blast furnace, and United States manufacturing facilities. What a concept!

Of course, these noble ideals will only matter if the company manages to stay in business. And the key to staying in business will be the in-kitchen performance of their cookware.

I have not yet had the opportunity to cook with Borough Furnace cookware. But I noticed some things right off the bat that made me think these guys are onto something.

Check it:

The 9 1/2-inch Frying Skillet (photo used by permission)

The skillet has a long handle. The biggest complaint I hear when trying to convince family and friends to adopt cast iron cookware is that it's too heavy to lift. While cast iron ain't light, the bigger problem is that it's awkward to lift. The long handle on the Borough Furnace skillet will provide extra leverage to make lifting easier. A lot of restaurant pots have really long handles—and one of the tricks you learn for carrying a full pot is to slip your elbow and/or forearm over the top of the handle-end to provide additional leverage. The same trick should be possible with the Borough Furnace cast iron skillet. I have a slight concern that the lower sides under the handles might cause spillage when sauteing, but it's hard to say from here.

The handles are designed to stay cool. The open-triangle design where the handle meets the skillet is designed to stay cool during stovetop cooking. Same with the oversized loop-like handles on the braising pan. A hot handle is another complaint I hear often with traditional cast iron skillets—which usually have very short handles. I'm ever so slightly worried that the handles might break off a few generations down the line, but no doubt they'd still last longer than any Teflon-ware.

The Braising pan with two stay-cool handles
(photo used by permission)

Two handles are better than one. Both the skillet and the braising pan have double handles. This is a huge boon to folks who don't have a rock climber's forearm strength. The handles also stick up more than out, which makes the pans easier to handle when carrying them around.

The cookware comes pre-seasoned. I've developed a small love affair with cleaning, restoring, and seasoning cast iron cookware. But most people have trouble getting over the fact that they can't put it in the dishwasher. When the major manufacturers began pre-seasoning cast iron cookware, it made a lot of people think they could try cooking with cast iron. The Borough Foundry boys have been experimenting with flaxseed oil and lard for their pre-seasoning. I'm a fan of buffalo fat myself, but that might be a bit impractical. Also, I would expect that the lack of a vegetarian pre-seasoning could dampen sales among the expected target audience. Flax seed oil has a relatively low smoke point, so I might suggest using avocado oil, grapeseed oil, extra light olive oil, or even just canola oil. In any case, I think it would be a nice differentiator to use organic oil (I've always wondered what, exactly, Lodge uses to pre-season their pans).

The Borough Furnace guys are looking to raise $25,000 in initial funding for their start up. They've already raised more than $15,000. The deadline is Friday, July 8th. Check out their Kickstarter campaign to learn more and make a contribution. Thank you gifts include cast iron bottle openers, trivets, skillets, braising pans, and an invite to a barbecue hoe-down in upstate New York.

Good luck guys!

Article: Backyard Chickens Chapter 3

2011-06-01T21:39:00.001-06:00

Will Cash holding Willa the chicken

It's official: the backyard chickens are in the backyard!

While they were lovely creatures to have sharing our home... eventually they got pretty darn dusty, and it was time for them to go.

Chickens love "scratch": grass, weeds, and branches

The chickens are about 8 weeks old now, and are about the size of footballs. They still chirp rather than cluck or coo... which is cute. They are pretty self-sufficient, needing only fresh water and plenty of food.

The chickens absolutely love snacking on grass, weeds, shrubs, and just about anything else that's green and within their reach. As we weed the garden we throw most of the payload into the chicken yard.

A note of caution: We have lots of poppies in the yard, some of which need to be thinned. But I've read that poppies are bad for chickens... so we've composted the poppies instead.

Rita: "you talkin' to me?"

We've had a few neighborhood cats that have come into the yard and stirred up the flock. I believe I've built a secure chicken yard from all predators, but let's just say that the cats are not welcome here.

Still about 4 months to go before we'll see eggs—which is a good thing since I haven't extended the chicken coop to include laying boxes!

More to come soon.

Article: Pork Cooking - USDA Updates Safe Internal Temperature

2011-05-27T22:38:00.000-06:00

Don't eat your pork chops this raw...

Taking a cue from my April 2009 recipe for Pan-Seared Pork Chops, the USDA has finally put down the crack pipe and realized that pork doesn't have to be cooked into balsa wood to be safe to eat.

The new USDA recommendations, issued on Tuesday, May 24th, 2011, lower the safe cooking temperature from 160 degrees F to 145 degrees F.

I frankly think 130 degrees F is just fine. Perhaps in another 50 years the USDA will agree. In any case, for those of us who dig on swine this minor victory is appreciated.

Article: Backyard Chickens Chapter 2

2011-04-10T21:00:00.001-06:00

Willa, Rita, and Eliza roosting on their new branch

We've now had our chickens for about 10 days, and they are about 2 weeks old. They're getting big fast! The eight chickens under our care have gone through three quart-sized mason jars of organic feed.

They are beginning to develop their adult plumage, which makes them look a little ragged. It also changes their markings and colors... so there's an added challenge in keeping track of who's who.

The chickens have recently been fitted with a roosting branch, and they like it quite a bit. Three or four of them are on the branch practicing their roosting at any given time. The word on the street is that this helps them practice gripping, which serves them later in life when they roost for real. While we plan to keep their coop and yard free of chicken-eating predators, old habits die hard... and the chickens are more comfortable if they can perch somewhere off the ground.

Margo trying to escape

Within a few hours, Margo figured out how to use the branch to get to the top of the box. Time to find some wire mesh to put over the box.

Speaking of... the chickens have been upgraded to a larger box. The new box is about 2-feet square. They had been pecking at each other a bit in the former, smaller, box (roughly 16 inches by 2 feet). The pecking has died down a bit in the new box.

We've also lowered the box temperature to around 90 degrees F. We plan to start feeding them things like worms and kitchen scraps in the coming week.

Will Cash sharpening the chainsaw

While I have not yet begun building the chicken coop, I bought the lion's share of the lumber this weekend. I also transplanted a grape vine and an apple tree that needed to be moved from the planned coop and yard area.

The apple tree couldn't be moved until a whole mess of juniper bushes were cleared... which Will and I also did today. As a side benefit, Will learned how to sharpen a chainsaw.

The chickens are still very cute, and are developing their own "chickenalities." Willa, like her namesake Will, is the most curious and sociable of the flock. Margo, in addition to being adventurous, is also the largest. Let's hope she doesn't develop a complex about it.

Article: Backyard Chickens Chapter 1

2011-04-04T20:37:00.002-06:00

Our newly-hatched chicks hanging out in their makeshift brooder

Well, we've gone and done it. We went and got chickens. Our neighbors Kevin and Jenny inspired us to do it. You see, we eat a lot of eggs around here, and figured we might as well raise our own.

We also have two kids: Will (6 years old), and Elias (3 years old). Both boys pretty much understand that eggs come from real animals and not from the grocery store shelf... but we'd like to make sure this important lesson is learned for real.

So we got some chickens 3 days ago. They include 3 Rhode Island Reds, 3 Black Stars (a cross of Black Australorps and Rhode Island Reds), and 2 Buff Orpingtons. Generally speaking, these birds are adapted for cold weather, friendliness, and egg production.

Here's what we know so far:

We have 8 baby chickens, or "chicks"
2 of the chicks are for our neighbors
6 of the chicks are for our family
The chicks we are keeping have names
Their names are: Silvia, Willa, Eliza, Gina, Margo, Rita (as in "margorita", get it?)
The chicks are very cute
They make adorable little chirping sounds
They need to stay warm at 95 degrees F or so
Pine shavings are the best bedding
All of the chicks think our 6-year-old Will is their momma
I need to build a chicken coop, pronto!

We'll keep you updated as we roll through this amazing journey of life, love, and tasty omelettes...

Recipe: Smoked Bison Prime Rib

2011-04-03T15:45:00.009-06:00

Smoked Bison Prime Rib on the Weber kettle

This smoked prime rib recipe uses a Weber kettle. I used bison prime rib, but you can substitute beef if you like, or even cuts of pork or chicken. This recipe serves 8-10 people.

Weber kettle smoking is super easy. You create a charcoal fire just like normal, and then push the coals up against one side of the kettle. This lets you cook your meat for several hours without burning it to a crisp, and also allows you to catch drippings for an eventual pan sauce.

Ingredients

2 bison prime rib cuts (3-4 pounds each)
salt
pepper
oil
granulated garlic
2 tablespoons flour (for gravy)
water (for gravy)

Procedure

The basics of making the smoking fire are very similar to those in my smoked chicken recipe. Here's how it works:

Soak about 4 cups of mesquite wood chips (or chunks) in water for an hour. You can also use hickory, apple, alder, or other smoking woods.

While the wood chips are soaking, make your fire in the grill. I use a Weber kettle, but you can use just about any charcoal grill that has a cover. I recommend using hardwood "lump" charcoal chunks instead of charcoal briquettes (which contain coal dust, and a variety of other kinda nasty stuff). Because your bison roasts are going to spend several hours cooking, you want to limit any potential "off" flavors from chemical additives. Similarly, use a chimney fire starter to kindle the fire rather than lighter fluid to avoid a jet fuel aftertaste. You want a full chimney of hardwood lump charcoal. If you don't have a chimney fire starter, you can use newspaper and little bits of kindling.

Once your coals are hot and the fire is ready, bank the fire to one side of the grill. Add half of your soaked mesquite chips on top of the banked coals. Place a medium cast iron skillet under the main grill surface, to catch drippings (where the charcoal would normally go on the lower "small grill" in a Web kettle). Put the main grill (the surface on which you'd normally place burgers and dogs) in place. Cover the kettle, and let it heat up and begin to smoke (about 5 minutes). Leave the top and bottom vents open to keep the fire going.

While the barbecue is beginning to smoke, liberally salt and pepper your prime rib cuts. I also like to sprinkle a good bit of granulated garlic. Then, oil the cuts all over, and rub things around to cover the meat surface evenly.

Clean and oil your grill surface, and place the prime rib cuts in the kettle. The biggest problem you are likely to have is the surface of the meat getting too dark, so keep it at least 6 inches back from the fire itself. Cover the kettle, and let the smoking begin.

Turn your prime rib every 10 minutes or so. Be sure to flip them over and rotate which sides are closest to the fire. The idea is to brown the outsides evenly, and make sure both roasts are done at the same time.

When you rotate and flip the roasts, give the fire and wood chips a stir to keep an even smoke going. If the smoke volume goes down, add more wood chips (you should continue adding the second half of your chips as you go). You may need to add more lump charcoal to keep the fire burning hot enough. I also find that keeping the lid just slightly ajar gives more air to the fire and helps to keep the heat up.

Once about 45 minutes have passed, begin checking the temperature of your smoked prime rib with an instant read thermometer. You want to gauge the temperature, of course, but you also want to get a handle on how quickly the temperature is rising. This ensures that you don't get caught with your pants down by over-shooting your target meat temperature.

I like my prime rib nice and pink, so I pull it at about 120 degrees F, and rest it so it comes up to about 130 degrees F before slicing. If you like it a bit more well done, pull it at 130 and allow it to come up to 140 degrees F at slicing time. If you like it any more well done than that, I recommend saving your money and buying hot dogs instead.

When the temperature hits 120 degrees F (which will likely take 1 1/2 to 2 hours of total smoking time), pull the smoked prime rib off the grill. Place the roasts on a cutting board, and tent them loosely with aluminum foil for 15 minutes to let the juices redistribute.

While the roasts are resting, prepare a pan gravy using the drippings in your skillet. You want to begin with 2 tablespoons of "liquid gold," which is the rendered fat, juices, and browned bits of smoky goodness that dripped into the skillet under your roasts.

If you've got more than 2 tablespoons, pour off (or suction out with a turkey baster) excess fat. Be sure not to remove any of the brown juice that you've got since this is the key to the gravy's flavor (only remove clear rendered fat). If you don't have enough juice and fat left over, add butter or oil until you do.

Place the skillet on the stovetop over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour (or just about any other flour) to the skillet.

Stir things around with a wooden spatula to form a thick paste, and then add about half a cup of water. Continue adding another half cup of water while stirring it, as the gravy thickens. After adding roughly a cup of water, you should end up with a thin gravy. Once you've got the water quantity dialed in and the thickness of the gravy has stabilized, lower the heat to a gentle simmer. Simmer the gravy for another 10 minutes to cook the flour. If the gravy gets over-thick as it continues to cook, add small bits of water carefully.

Taste your gravy. You'll probably need to season the gravy with salt and pepper.

As your gravy simmers, slice the smoked prime rib into roughly 1/2-inch thick slices. When everything's ready, serve it all together with your favorite mashed potatoes.

Recipe: Pasta Carbonara With Peas

2011-03-29T22:28:00.006-06:00

Pasta Carbonara prepared over an open fire

For you purists out there, this recipe is NOT an official pasta carbonara dish. I didn't add egg yolks.

When writing up this recipe I looked up pasta carbonara for clarification... and according to my friends over at Wikipedia: "...all agree that cheese, egg yolks, cured fatty pork, and black pepper are basic."

Instead of egg yolks, I made a quick pan white sauce... and I wasn't sorry. This recipe turned out so utterly tasty, and was so easy (even over an open fire), that it's tough to justify changing it. You could easily substitute 3 egg yolks for the milk, flour, and butter if it's important to you.

To be clear: I have nothing against adding egg yolks. I even had eggs with me when I created this recipe. But I opted not to use them.

You see, we were camped in the Valley of Fire in Nevada, and true to form, I was cooking over an open fire. I decided that a variation of white sauce would be more stable than the whole partially-coagulated egg yolk trick.

Before we get started... if you happen to find yourself north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15, I highly recommend camping out in the Valley of Fire. It's a hidden gem that's only 20 minutes from I-15, but is a little slice of red rock heaven. It calls to mind what Ed Abbey's Arches National Park of the 1960's must have been like before Industrial Tourism got to it.

Here's a picture:

Nevada's Valley of Fire State Park

Now, back to the recipe.

Ingredients

4 ounces chopped bacon
1 medium onion, sliced
2 1/2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour (I use Bob's Red Mill gluten free)
2 1/2 cups milk
1 cup peas (frozen is fine)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper (or to taste)
Salt to taste
14 ounces fettuccine (I use Tinkyada gluten free)

Procedure

Boil water for your pasta. The pasta water should be well-salted (it should taste like a too-salty soup).

Once you've added your pasta to the boiling water, begin making the sauce by heating a large cast iron skillet on medium heat (or over a really low fire if cooking over open flame).

Once the pan is hot (just beginning to smoke) Add the chopped bacon, and saute for 5 minutes stirring every minute or so.

After 5 minutes, add the sliced onion. Cook the onion for another 5-7 minutes until well-caramelized, again stirring often to avoid burning.

When the onions are golden brown, add the black pepper, and then add the butter.

Melt the butter, and then add the flour and stir things around to combine. Next, add the milk and again stir everything around to create a thick white sauce. Add the peas. Taste your sauce! You almost certainly need to add some salt.

Add the cooked pasta and stir everything around to coat the noodles.

Take a fork, twirl up some pasta with sauce and other goodies, and taste your pasta before serving it! You very likely need to add pepper and salt.

Once you've adjusted the seasonings, serve your pasta immediately. It goes great with a beautiful sunset served over red-rock desert, crisp sandstone arches, and a healthy serving of silence.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-17T12:56:00.001-06:00

May your mirepoix be festive, and whatever you make with it be tasty!

Recipe: Ranch-Style Cole Slaw

2011-03-08T20:26:00.001-07:00

According to Wikipedia, ranch dressing was first served by Steve and Gayle Henson in 1954, at their newly opened dude ranch near Santa Barbara, CA. Amazingly, the place was actually called the Hidden Valley Ranch. Steve had apparently developed his ranch dressing recipe in Alaska.

Coincidentally, I learned to make cole slaw in Alaska. Despite popular perceptions, Alaska gets plenty warm in the summer (warmer every year, actually, but don't get me started). At the adventure lodge where I worked, we served a lunch of chili, corn bread, and cole slaw to several hundred people each week. The cole slaw we made was flavored with a touch of citrus, and some powdered ranch dressing mix. The ranch flavoring added something subtle and amazing to the cole slaw... and I don't think I ever served it without several people asking for the recipe (as well as the corn bread and chili recipes!).

But I never liked using the ranch dressing packets. It seemed kind of cheesy and unauthentic. Since I'm always on the lookout for ways to avoid processed foods and hidden gluten-filled ingredients, I began looking into what, exactly, made up the uniquely addicting flavor of ranch dressing.

While there are lots of opinions (and few authorities) on the matter, my research and tastebuds led me to three key seasonings that are essential to ranch flavor:

basil
garlic
black pepper

For ranch-style cole slaw, I find that a little citrus flavor makes for a wonderful tang, and including carrots along with your cabbage provides some sweetness to complement the requisite salt.

This recipe serves 6.

Ingredients

1/2 red cabbage (or 1/4 green cabbage and 1/4 red cabbage)
2 medium carrots, grated
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 cup mayo
1 1/2 tablespoon orange juice (or apple or cranberry)
1/3 teaspoon table salt
2 large basil leaves, sliced thin (chiffonade).
juice from a small lemon wedge

Procedure

Slice up your cabbage. Peel the outside leaves off, and then cut the cabbage head in half from the top down. Cut each half into another half (making quarters), again by slicing from the top of the cabbage head down through the stem.

Once you have quarters, it's a simple matter to remove the stem from each section. Turn quarters so the rounded outside surface is facing you, and slice the cabbage thinly into 1/8 inch strips.

NOTE: If you're not multiplying this recipe, stick the unused cabbage quarters into a Ziploc, and store them in the fridge for up to two weeks. If you are multiplying this recipe and need at least two heads of cabbage to do so, I recommend using both red and green cabbage for more visual interest.

Peel and grate your carrots. You can use a regular old hand grater, or a food processor if you're making a bunch.

Toss your cabbage and carrots together, and add in the mayonnaise, pepper, garlic, orange juice, and salt. Mix thoroughly, and then chiffonade your basil and add it with a squirt of lemon juice. Mix things around.

Taste your cole slaw to make sure all is well. It should burst with flavor, and make your mouth water for more. If it doesn't, add small bits of lemon juice, salt, and orange juice until it does.

Serve immediately!

Recipe: Deep Fried Turkey

2011-02-20T08:57:00.001-07:00

This recipe offers step-by-step instructions for deep-frying a turkey. It features important safety lessons, helpful tips, and lame humor.

Essential equipment includes:

A high-output gas burner, at least 40,000 BTU
A tall stock pot that allows at least 6 inches of clearance between the surface of the oil and the top of the pot once the turkey is submerged
A high-temperature "candy" thermometer (should read up to 550 degrees F)
A low-temperature instant-read meat thermometer
Good oven mitts
Beer
A rack to hold the turkey (and to help easily lift it out of the oil for temperature checks)
A hook to lift the rack
Scotch

Let's face it. Deep-frying a turkey is just plain awesome. If the pilgrims had figured this one out, we'd all still be wearing stupid hats and buckled shoes.

Kids revere it. Fire departments fear it. And women find it irresistibly sexy.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Not all of the preceding statements are true.

I deep-fry my turkey at a somewhat lower temperature than is recommended by many so-called experts. I find that this keeps the skin from getting overly dark, and keeps the meat nice and tender. My oil temperature ranges between 275 degrees F and 300 degrees F.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Deep-fry your turkey outside! Not in the house. Not in the garage. Not even under a covered portico unless you've got a good 10 feet of clearance overhead.

For my deep-frying, I use a single-burner propane stove. It's a Camp Chef 60,000 BTU model. These days you can also buy all-in-one turkey frying kits that include a burner, the pot, a thermometer, a rack, and sometimes even a timer to turn the thing off if it's left unattended for too long. A structure fire is a very real possibility when you've got a pot of boiling oil sitting on top of 60,000 BTU's of open flame.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Women do not find sudden homelessness due to structure fire irresistibly sexy.

While proper preparation and diligent stewardship decrease the likelihood that you'll burn your house down, you cannot account for X-factors like:

high winds
faulty thermometers
clumsy neighbors
beer
earthquakes
scotch
the infamous "neck hole volcano" effect (shown at right)

The only real drawback of deep-frying your turkey (other than the risk of structure fire) is that you lose out on a roasting pan full of browned bits, drippings, and "liquid gold" from which to make gravy. Never fear. I've put together a recipe for gravy when deep-frying a turkey.

Back to deep-frying the turkey... Constant attention to oil temperature and meat temperature is crucial. This means you've got to plan ahead so you can pretty much hang out with your turkey the whole time it's deep frying. Far from being a negative, this is actually the point. Leave the screaming kids, kitchen clutter, and annoying relatives behind, and prepare to focus on the turkey (and beer, and scotch).

IMPORTANT NOTE: Whatever you do, do NOT place a frozen turkey into hot oil! If you forget to thaw the turkey, order from Boston Market instead.

A 12-14 pound turkey generally takes about 45 minutes to deep fry once the oil is hot. The oil takes about 15-30 minutes to come up to heat (about 300 degrees F). Here's how it all works:

Ingredients

One 12-14 pound turkey
Water and salt for brining (see below)
25 pounds or so of oil (I use peanut oil)

Procedure

Brining and Seasoning
Brine the turkey for 24 hours (give or take) in a brine consisting of 1 cup kosher salt (or 1/2 cup table salt) to 1 gallon of water. You'll likely need a few gallons of brine. Remove the packaging from your turkey, take out the bag of giblets from inside the cavity, and then rinse the bird in cold water before tossing it into the brine. Save the giblets! You'll need them for gravy.

If you don't have 24 hours to spare before deep frying, double the salt in your brine and brine the turkey for 4 hours. If you don't have time to brine at all, simply salt and pepper the turkey heavily, inside and out, before deep-frying it. Kosher salt makes it easier to get an even spread and helps prevent over-salting, but otherwise table salt is fine.

Heating the Oil
Place your gas (propane, usually) burner out in the open, on a non-flammable surface, at least 4 feet from any combustible walls and 10 feet from any combustible ceilings. No matter how careful you are, the oil will drip, splatter, and spill... so don't deep fry a turkey over any surface on which some oil stains would be unsightly.

Light the burner, and add oil to the pot. Many kits have a fill-line to help guide. Generally speaking, you want your pot about half-full of oil before the turkey goes in. The turkey will displace a lot of oil, raising the oil level by 6 inches or more. Remember, you MUST have at least 6 inches of clearance between the top of the oil and the top of the pot once the turkey is submerged in the oil. Otherwise your set-up WILL catch on fire once things get rolling.

Crack open a beer.

It will take 15-30 minutes to bring the oil up to 300 degrees F. Measure your oil temperature often, and get a sense for how fast the temperature is rising.

Once the oil is hot, remove your turkey from the brine, pat it dry with paper towels, and place it on a deep-frying rack, neck-hole up. Gently lower the turkey into the oil. You'll get an initial "crazy period" where the oil bubbles a lot. This is caused by the cold water on the surface of the turkey boiling off. It will settle down somewhat, but a deep frying turkey will boil pretty vigorously the whole time.

Crack open another beer.

After a few minutes, measure the oil temperature and adjust your burner flame accordingly. You just added a whole mess of cold turkey flesh... so you may need to turn up the heat to maintain an oil temperature of at least 275 degrees F.

After 15 minutes, remove the turkey from the oil, and measure the internal temperature of the thickest part of the turkey breast and thigh with an instant-read meat thermometer. Your turkey is surrounded by 300-degree oil... and it goes from raw and quivering to over-cooked in a matter of minutes. Begin measuring the meat temperature early on so you get a sense of how fast the temperature of the meat is rising. This will help you predict when the turkey is probably done (which you'll confirm with more measurements, of course).

Have a nip of scotch.

Continue taking measurements of oil temperature and meat temperature every 5 minutes or so. Keep the oil as close to 300 degrees F as you can without going over.

For the meat, you're looking for 165 degrees F. The rate at which the meat temperature rises will start to increase... so be careful. If can take 10 minutes for the turkey to rise 10 degrees F in the early going. But towards the end, it may take only 1 minute for 10 degrees of temperature rise.

When the thickest part of the breast and thigh have reached 165 degrees F, pull the turkey and place it on a cutting board to rest for 15 minutes. Cover the turkey with aluminum foil while it rests. Turn off the burner, and wait for your oil to cool to about room temperature before you do anything with it (I typically store it in its original container, and keep it frozen for future use).

Carve up your turkey, and then serve with some outstanding mashed potatoes or other side dishes.

Recipe: Gravy for Deep Fried Turkey

2011-02-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

Deep frying a turkey has precious few downsides. In fact, I can think of only two:

1) You can easily burn your house down.
2) You don't end up with a roasting pan full of browned bits from which to make an outstanding gravy.

I'll be dealing with the more serious of these two issues. Here's how to make a darn fine gravy from the giblets that come with your turkey:

Ingredients

Turkey giblets, with neck
Half a medium onion, chopped finely
1/2 stick of butter (4 tablespoons)
4 tablespoons flour (gluten free, if you like)
2 cups chicken or turkey broth
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon dry white wine
Pinch of rubbed sage

Procedure

First, roast the turkey neck in a medium cast iron skillet at 350 degrees F for an hour. Hold the other giblets back for now. However, if you happen to have any extra chicken or turkey parts on hand (say, a frozen carcass that you intended to make a soup out of), throw those in as well.

After an hour of roasting, pull the skillet from the oven. Put it on the stove top over medium-low heat. Push the turkey neck (and any other assorted parts) off to the side, and then add the butter and finely chopped onion to the skillet. Caramelize the onions for 7-8 minutes until golden brown, stirring frequently. Add flour, and combine the flour with the rendered fat to form a smooth paste. Then add the broth, white wine, and sage.

Stir things around until you've got a stable gravy. If you get lumps or clumping along the bottom of the skillet, add liquid (a tiny bit at a time). Once the gravy has stabilized, lower the heat to low, and add the rest of the (uncooked) giblets, and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the neck and various other giblets, and then season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with your favorite mashed potatoes and your deep fried turkey.

Recipe: Meatballs for your Spaghetti (gluten free)

2011-01-05T20:43:00.006-07:00

Meatballs immersed in some Outstanding Marinara Sauce

Meatballs are on the defensive here in America.

First off, meatballs are made of meat. This leaves them vulnerable to attack from those who would seek to lower our cholesterol, reduce our saturated fat, and keep more fluffy creatures roaming the earth.

Second, meatballs require a bit of forethought and preparation. This is a tough proposition in today's TV-dinner culture. Far simpler to add ground beef to pasta sauce.

Finally, meatballs still suffer from the ignominy inflicted by the 1979 film Meatballs, starring Bill Murray.

I believe strongly that serving a good meatball to your guest is a statement about your character. Perhaps more importantly, it speaks loudly about the value on your relationship with that person. Nothing says "You're one of my favorite people on earth!" like a good meatball.

If you're concerned about red meat's health effects (as I am), I suggest you use bison, grass-fed beef, or ground turkey.

If you're concerned about the extra forethought and preparation involved in making meatballs, I suggest you hang up the cell phone, log out of Facebook, and slow it down for an extra half-hour.

If you haven't seen Meatballs, consider yourself lucky.

Those of you who read this blog often know that I'm always harping on you to taste your food as you're cooking it...

"Season to taste."

"Taste before serving."

"Taste that food before you inflict it on your guests!"

...and so on.

In this case, you've got a big bowl of raw meat and eggs. Better to measure those seasonings and stick to the recipe.

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds ground bison, beef, or turkey
3/4 cup gluten free bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
dash of onion powder
dash of garlic powder
dash of truffle oil (if you have it)

Procedure

I make my gluten free bread crumbs from two slices of Udi's gluten free sandwich bread, toasted, cooled, and then pulverized in a food processor.

Once you've got your bread crumbs, mix all of the ingredients together with your hands. To avoid bruising the meat (which makes it less tender), try not to over-mix or squeeze too hard. But be sure to get everything thoroughly combined.

Make meatballs with your hands. I usually make meatballs that are about 2 1/2-inches in diameter.

Heat a medium cast iron skillet on medium-low heat, and add a thin coating of oil. Once the skillet is hot (after 5 minutes or so), gently lay in the meatballs to begin frying.

Fry the meatballs for about 15 minutes, turning them every 1-2 minutes to avoid burning. Use an instant-read meat thermometer to gauge doneness. Meatballs should hit 145 degrees F when they are done.

Add your meatballs to an outstanding marinara sauce, and serve over pasta immediately. You can also freeze these meatballs in a Ziploc for later use.

Recipe: Quick Beans and Rice

2010-12-28T20:35:00.004-07:00

Beans and rice with caramelized onions

Beans and rice are a staple of Latin America and the Caribbean, and have been feeding the people of the western hemisphere for nearly five centuries. While beans are native to the Americas, it wasn't until Europeans and Africans brought rice to the colonies in the 1500's that this combo could be created.

This recipe is quick, easy, and really tasty. The secret is to caramelize some onions, which creates sweet and savory notes that combine with salt to build an intense flavor profile. While I usually serve these beans as a side dish, they are worthy of a main course. Rice is of course a starch at heart, but packs vitamin B and protein as well. Beans are full of protein, iron, and many other minerals. Together, they provide all of the essential amino acids.

I used pinto beans here, but red beans, black beans, and even black-eyed peas are all fair game.

In addition to robust flavor, excellent nutrition, and a rich history... beans and rice are some of the least-expensive ingredients you can find. Que Bueno!

Ingredients

1/4 medium onion, sliced
2 cups cooked white rice
1 cup Derek's (almost) Famous Pinto Beans (or any other pre-cooked, seasoned beans)
red pepper flakes to taste
salt to taste
oil

Procedure
Heat a medium cast iron skillet on medium heat until hot—about five minutes. Add a thin coating of oil, and then toss in the sliced onions and a dash of red pepper flakes. Caramelize the onions for 5-7 minutes until they're beginning to turn golden brown. Be sure to stir or toss the onions regularly to avoid burning.

Once the onions are turning golden, add the cooked rice and beans, salt to taste, and warm everything for 2-3 minutes until the beans and rice are hot. Taste the dish to make sure you added enough salt!

Note: If you have the time, it's kinda nice to let the rice fry for a few extra minutes to remove some moisture and kick up the texture of the dish.

Serve immediately. Beans and rice are perfect next to scrambled eggs for breakfast, stuffed inside quesadillas for lunch, or served as a side dish with enchiladas for dinner.

Recipe: Flaming Bananas Foster (Video)

2010-12-21T19:48:00.002-07:00

Bananas Foster comes to us from the great city of New Orleans, Louisiana. While the Big Easy is one of the oldest and most historically colorful cities in the United States, it wasn't until the 1950's that the fine folks at Brennan's Restaurant concocted this culinary gem.

Bananas Foster is one of my favorite quick desserts. It is utterly delicious, packs entertainment punch with the flambé segment, and is one of the few really simple gluten free desserts.

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

2 bananas, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
2 tablespoons butter
dash cinnamon
1-2 tablespoons rum or brandy

Procedure

Heat a medium cast iron skillet on medium heat. After 5 minutes or so once the skillet is just beginning to smoke almost imperceptibly, add the butter. A few seconds later once the butter has mostly melted, toss in the bananas.

Sauté the bananas for about 5 minutes, stirring or tossing every 2 minutes or so. You want to avoid burning, but you also want to allow the banana slices to develop a deep caramelization on each side.

Once the bananas are sufficiently caramelized, toss in the rum or brandy, and immediately ignite the contents of the skillet with a match or lighter. You'll get a nice 18 inch-high flame... and while the flame is highest, toss in a few dashes of cinnamon for some sparkle (and flavor).

While flambé is exciting (especially if you burn your house down), there's more to it than fun. The high temperatures involved help finish off the caramelization reaction, and add more flavor to the dish. As noted in the video, the chicks also dig it.

The flame will quickly die down... and once it is out, serve your bananas foster over vanilla ice cream immediately.

Recipe: Outstanding Mashed Potatoes

2010-11-27T16:42:00.002-07:00

Mashed potatoes done right

Mashed potatoes are the perfect complement to roasted chicken or turkey (provided of course that there's gravy). But don't leave your mashed potatoes to chance.

The difference between a good meal and a great meal often comes down to whether the side dishes got as much attention as the main course. This recipe ensures that your mashed potatoes will stand on their own without gravy. Add gravy, and you leave the realm of the side dish and enter the realm of the sublime...

The three most common problems with mashed potatoes are:

1) Under-cooking the potatoes
2) Under-seasoning the potatoes
3) Under-mashing the potatoes

This recipe tackles these issues head-on, in order.

Ingredients

3 pounds russet potatoes (about 6-8 potatoes)
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
3/4 tablespoon coarse kosher salt (or a little less than 1/2 tablespoon of table salt)
1 cup milk

Procedure
Peel your potatoes, and then cut them roughly into 2-inch thick sections. Place the potato sections into a large stainless steel pot, and fill the pot with water until the potatoes are fully covered. Place the potatoes over high heat to boil.

Once they come up to a boil, you may need to turn down the heat a tad so they don't boil over. Boil the potatoes until they are soft, which will likely take about 45 minutes (depending on exactly how thick you cut them). When a fork goes easily into the center of the thickest potato section (and before they begin to fall apart) they're done.

Add caption

Drain the potatoes of water using a colander, and consider reserving the potato water for use in gravy. Place the potatoes back in the pot you boiled them in (removed from heat), and add the stick of butter.

Once the butter has melted, add the seasonings and milk. Mash the potatoes for a good 3-4 minutes until smooth.

While the above seasoning guidelines do a pretty good job on 3 pounds of potatoes, if you used more than 3 pounds... you'll need more of everything.

Always taste your food before you serve it!

Article: Microwave Popcorn... the Cat's out of the Bag

2010-11-13T09:48:00.001-07:00

A few years back, a phenomenon known as "Popcorn Lung" began making headlines. A flavoring chemical called diacetyl (used to simulate the taste of butter) was causing workers who manufacture microwave popcorn and butter flavorings to get a rare and serious disease called bronchiolitis obliterans (as in, "your lungs have been obliterated").

In one case, a two-bags-a-day microwave popcorn consumer also contracted popcorn lung. In response to the bad press, many manufacturers began removing diacetyl from microwave popcorn.

Now, a new (but strangely familiar) threat has surfaced. PFOA (or perflourooctanoic acid) is a known carcinogen that is used in the manufacture of Teflon and other non-stick cookware. As it turns out, it is also used in fast food wrappers, paper plates, and microwave popcorn bags. This cancer-causing chemical used in food packaging appears to be making its way into the food itself.

In addition to causing cancer, there's mounting evidence that PFOA and other PFC's (perflourinated compounds) may be leading to fertility problems.

Heard enough? Me too.

Wondering what to do about it? You can start by making your popcorn in a good old fashioned dutch oven. It's healthier, free of synthetic chemicals, and tastes a whole lot better.

I have recipes for making popcorn in an enameled dutch oven as well as in a regular dutch oven, and just posted a video recipe for dutch oven popcorn to help people who are new to dutch oven popcorn-making.

Go ahead... take charge of your family's health today. And don't forget to stop by the blog and leave a comment if you have any questions. Thanks!

Recipe: Dutch Oven Popcorn (Video)

2010-11-09T07:33:00.002-07:00

While I've covered dutch oven popcorn using bare cast iron and enameled cast iron, folks have asked to see the finer points of the method by video. So here you go!

Recipe: Eggplant Parmesan (Gluten Free)

2010-10-26T20:19:00.007-06:00

Eggplant Parmesan in a Cast Iron Skillet

Eggplant is a strange vegetable (actually, it's a fruit). It's related to tomatoes—which are part of the (deadly) nightshade family. Each eggplant contains the nicotine of about 1/30th of a cigarette. Eggplants are native to India, and seem to have made their way to western Europe sometime in the 1500's, along with tomatoes and the Renaissance.

Eggplants seem unnaturally lightweight for their size—which is part of what makes them such a versatile main ingredient. Unlike outwardly similar vegetables like cucumbers, squashes, and zucchinis, eggplants are not saturated with water. This airiness allows eggplants to soak up lots of oil during cooking, which is part of why they seem so meaty and rich.

This is a one-skillet recipe, and takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes start to finish. I use gluten free bread to make my breadcrumbs, but you can use regular bread/crumbs if you don't mind the wheat. I don't peel the eggplants since I enjoy the skin, but you can peel them if you prefer. I'd recommend not using extra virgin olive oil since it can burn and add bitterness. Stick with regular olive oil (or even canola in a pinch).

Ingredients

1 large eggplant
3 slices Udi's gluten free sandwich bread, thoroughly toasted and cooled
1/3 cup gluten free flour
salt
black pepper
granulated garlic
onion powder
oregano
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup whole milk
1 egg
olive oil
A batch of my Outstanding Marinara Sauce

Procedure

Slice the eggplant into 1-inch thick slices. Sprinkle each slice with kosher salt on both sides (just a light sprinkle, less than 1/8 teaspoon per slice). Let the eggplant slices sit for 30 minutes. This helps draw out some of the bitter flavors from the eggplant, and removes further water.

You can make the marinara sauce while you're waiting. You can also toast the bread in preparation for making your breadcrumbs.

Once you've toasted the bread, let it cool to room temperature. Cooling the bread to room temperature after toasting is an important step, as it allows more moisture to escape from the bread (leaving you with crumbs rather than mush after a trip through the food processor).

Once cool, pulverize the toasted bread slices in a food processor. Once the bread has reached a fairly crumby texture, add 1/2 cup of the parmesan cheese and give it a few more pulses until they are proper crumbs.

Dump the breadcrumbs and parmesan into a mixing bowl, and add a pinch of dried oregano and the flour. Then add salt, pepper, onion powder, and granulated garlic to taste. And I really do mean "to taste."

Taste the breading and re-season as necessary. The breading should taste good—not unlike how a well-flavored Italian herb and parmesan cracker might taste if you ate the crumbs. When in doubt, add more salt.

To make the dipping wash, beat one egg, and add to it 1/4 cup whole milk. Mix well.

Pre-heat your oven on 325 degrees F.

Heat a large cast iron skillet on medium heat, and wait 4-5 minutes for it to come up to heat.

When it's just starting to send up wisps of smoke, add a solid coating of olive oil, and begin breading the eggplant.

To bread the eggplant, pat the slices dry with a paper towel to soak up the water that was drawn out by the salt. Then dip eggplant slices in the egg wash—being sure to get full coverage.

Bread the slices thoroughly on all sides. Don't be afraid to use your fingers to get as much breading on each slice as possible.

Cook the eggplant slices until nicely browned, and then flip them over and brown the other side. This might take 3-4 minutes per side.

Once the eggplant slices are browned on each side, put a generous dollop of Outstanding Marinara Sauce on top of each slice. Sprinkle each slice of eggplant with a respectable pile of parmesan cheese.

Place the skillet in the oven, and bake on 325 degrees F for 25-30 minutes.

Remove your eggplant parmesan from the oven to let cool for a few minutes, and serve!

I like to serve this dish right in the skillet for a nice presentation. Be sure to warn your guests of how hot the pan is.

This dish goes well with rice pilaf and caesar salad.

Recipe: Pasta Autunnale

2010-10-23T09:32:00.002-06:00

The last of the garden's summer bounty... over pasta.

Everyone's heard of pasta primavera. With asparagus, broccoli, peas, and other early-season vegetables, pasta primavera is a culinary celebration of spring.

I had to Google the Italian word for "autumn" to name this dish. As you might imagine, this dish is a close cousin of pasta primavera... but made with fall vegetables instead.

Any day now the frost is going to sweep down out of the Rockies and end the gardening season. But for now, we've got yellow squash, chard, cherry tomatoes, onions, garlic, green beans, and thyme (I bought the mushrooms from the store). I used yellow squash in this recipe, but you could substitute zucchini if you happen to have a few hundred extras (like most gardeners I know).

Ingredients

6 oz cremini or baby bella mushrooms, sliced
1 large yellow summer squash, sliced roughly 1/2 inch thick
1/2 medium onion, chopped fine
4 large cloves garlic, pressed
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
10 green beans, chopped into small pieces
1 small bunch of chard, chopped very rough
1 pound of linguine pasta (I use Tinkyada brand gluten free)
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 sprig fresh thyme, chopped (about 1/4 teaspoon loosely packed)
1/4 cup dry white wine (e.g. Chardonnay)
1/3 cup veggie broth (or chicken, if you don't mind the meat)

Procedure
Boil the pasta is well-salted water (the water should taste like a too-salty soup). NOTE: I did not include the pasta water salt in the above ingredients list. Once pasta is al dente, remove from heat, drain, toss with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and set aside covered.

As the pasta is nearing doneness, heat a large stainless steel saute pan on medium to medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and then toss in the squash, mushrooms, chard, onion, and green beans. After about 3 minutes, add the butter and lower the heat to just under medium. Add the salt and pepper.

Saute the veggies, tossing or stirring frequently. Try to develop a bit of browning on the squash and onion caramelization.

After about 10 minutes, toss in the tomatoes and thyme. After another 3 minutes, taste the veggies to make sure they're pretty soft.

Prepare to add the pressed garlic. Do this by clearing a spot in the center of the pan, adding a splash of olive oil, and then putting in the garlic.

Stir the garlic around in its little clearing for about 1 minute, and as it begins to stick to the bottom (but well before it burns), deglaze the center of the pan with the white wine and scrape up any stuck garlic. Toss in the pasta, add the broth, and toss everything together to mix it.

Simmer for 1-2 minutes to evaporate some of the liquid.

Serve immediately topped with Parmesan cheese. I didn't have any, but some chopped fresh parsley on top would have been nice.

Article: PFOA and PFOS linked to High Cholesterol in Children

2010-10-16T10:02:00.004-06:00

The Ohio River Valley, where Teflon has been manufactured for decades

In a recent study that examined over 12,000 children ages 1 to 18, high levels of PFOA (perflourooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluoro-octanesulfonate) were associated with high levels of LDL (or "bad") cholesterol.

This study was conducted in the Ohio River Valley as part of a class action lawsuit against DuPont, the makers of Teflon. DuPont's manufacture of Teflon-containing products, including non-stick cookware, has polluted the area's ground water with PFOA and PFOS.

While DuPont and other manufacturers have agreed to phase out the use of PFOA in their manufacturing processes by 2015, little is known about the safety of the new chemicals that will replace PFOA. I don't believe that the money allocated for the review of chemical alternatives to PFOA is sufficient.

In the face of continued political pressure to reduce the EPA's ability to perform its functions—thereby putting corporations in charge of public health—the conservative approach is to seek alternatives to Teflon cookware in your home.

It is likely in this case that the manufacture of Teflon-containing products was responsible for the elevated blood serum levels of PFOA in these children (as opposed to the use of Teflon-containing cookware). However, because PFOA off-gasses from non-stick cookware under normal use, I recommend you throw out your Teflon and other non-stick cookware in favor of cast iron cookware and stainless steel cookware.

Article: CNN's "Toxic America" Series Recommends Cast Iron Cookware

2010-10-15T13:55:00.001-06:00

A Teflon pan releases PFOA into your food at medium-high heat

CNN has been running a series on chemicals that are known or suspected carcinogens that happen to be in the bloodstreams of nearly all Americans—including babies that haven't been born.

One of the articles in the series covers 5 toxic household chemicals, and offers guidance on avoiding them.

One of these toxic chemicals is PFOA, or perflourooctanoic acid. PFOA is a chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon and other non-stick cookware.

According to the CNN report, "PFOA causes cancer and developmental problems in laboratory animals." The CNN report goes on to note that the EPA has determined that research on PFOA is "suggestive of carcinogenicity but not sufficient to assess human carcinogenic potential."

In other words, the EPA is pretty sure PFOA is bad stuff, but because it would be unethical to run an experiment on humans to prove it, they can't say for sure.

CNN's recommendation:

"You can reduce potential exposure by using stainless steel or cast iron cookware. If you use nonstick cookware, do not overheat, which releases toxic gas."

I heartily agree with CNN. But I'm biased.

Or am I?

I don't sell anything on this website. My only bias comes from the fact that I have two small children and a wife that I love very much, and I'd like to keep the carcinogens in their bloodstreams to a minimum.

On the subject of bias...

DuPont, the manufacturer of Teflon, has agreed to reduce the presence of PFOA in their products by 95%. This is an abrupt about-face for DuPont, who for the past 30 years has steadfastly denied any dangers associated with PFOA or Teflon. It turns out DuPont was lying, and in 2006 the EPA fined DuPont $16.5 million for the cover up. NOTE: $16.5 million represents roughly 1/50th of 1% of DuPont's profits during those years.

Given the 3-decade lag between when DuPont knew about the dangers of PFOA and when they began removing it from their products, I don't trust that whatever chemical they decide to use instead of PFOA will be safe.

And I'm not waiting 30 years to find out.

If that sounds sensible to you, I encourage you to check out my collection of recipes using cast iron and stainless steel cookware. Enjoy!

Recipe: Outstanding Marinara Sauce

2010-10-14T15:46:00.002-06:00

Marinara sauce is a pretty simple affair of tomatoes, onions, garlic, and olive oil.

Contrary to some accounts, it is not named for the men of the sea (mariners) based on its ingredient list. While fish (most commonly in the form of anchovies) feature prominently in some marinara recipes, the name apparently derives from the old Italian grandmothers of Naples who served this delectable sauce to their sons and husbands upon their safe return from the sea.

Of course, tomatoes didn't exist in Italy until mariners brought them from the new world... so perhaps there's more to the story of how this sauce got its name.

Full disclosure: this recipe is adapted from the Cook's Illustrated "Best Quick Tomato Sauce" recipe from the May / June 2009 Issue.

I didn't change much.

As is true with many a great recipe, this recipe's brilliance stems from its expert pairing of sweet, salty, acidic, and bitter flavors—along with a proper dose of savory (also called Umami).

Unsurprisingly, the saltiness and sweetness come from... salt and sugar. The acid comes from the tomatoes. The bitterness comes from the seared garlic, olive oil, and oregano. The savory flavor comes from butter and the fond developed during caramelization.

This recipe is cooked in stainless steel as opposed to cast iron.

I bring it to you for the following reasons:

Stainless steel is safe cookware, and affords the cook the development of a robust fond (browned bits of goodness that stick to the pan) for later deglazing.
This recipe is really easy to make, and the flavor far surpasses anything you will ever get from a jar. Seriously.
This marinara sauce is featured in several other recipes on this blog, and thus it would seem a disservice not to provide it.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup grated onion
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano (or 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano)
3 medium garlic cloves, pressed (about 3 tablespoons)
1 - 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 - 14 ounce can tomato sauce
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
salt, to taste

Procedure
Heat a medium stainless steel saute pan on medium heat. While the pan is coming up to heat, grate the onion using a coarse grater (your garden variety grater, the one with roughly 1/4 inch holes). A third of a cup is about a third a medium onion.

When the pan is warm, toss in the butter, and then immediately add the grated onion. Stir things around frequently to avoid burning. You'll caramelize the onions for 5-7 minutes, until they reach a golden brown. Because the onion is in such small pieces it can burn quickly, so stay nearby during this part!

Once the onion is well-caramelized, clear a spot in the center of the pan and drop in a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Immediately add the pressed garlic and black pepper. Stir the garlic and black pepper around for 30 seconds or so, and then add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, sugar, and oregano.

Simmer for no more than 10 minutes, during which time you should salt it to taste. You'll probably add between 1/4 teaspoon and 1/2 teaspoon of table salt (more if it's kosher salt). How much salt you add depends on how much salt is in the canned tomatoes, and of course your preferences. If in doubt about whether you've added enough salt, add (a little) more and taste again.

Just before serving (or using the marinara in another recipe), add that last tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to freshen up the taste.

Quick Tip: Use Plastic Mesh Produce Bags for Cast Iron Clean Up

2010-10-13T10:05:00.000-06:00

Cook's Illustrated magazine Quick Tip on cast iron cleaning

Many months ago, I sent a note to Cook's Illustrated magazine about using plastic mesh bags for cast iron cleaning. They published it in their "Quick Tips" section in the November / December issue.

Using these plastic bags (that would otherwise be thrown away) is a great way to remove heavy grease or other crud that you don't want sullying your normal cast iron scrubber pad.

You can throw away the plastic mesh bag after use, or even use it again if it isn't too soiled.

Recipe: Dutch Oven Chili

2010-10-10T15:36:00.018-06:00

Dutch oven chili simmering on the stove

This is an easy-to-make chili that'll make you feel like a cast iron pro. You can use your cast iron dutch oven, or an enameled dutch oven if that's what you have on hand (bare cast iron is preferable since it allows for the development of fond, which improves flavor).

This chili accommodates a variety of meats and beans, but more importantly it's very tasty.

Related Recipes:

This recipe serves 8-10.

The two most most common problems with chili are:

General lack of flavor
Too-watery consistency

This recipe solves both problems.

Ingredients

2 lbs ground bison, beef, or turkey
4 cups cooked beans (kidney, pinto, red, etc.)
1 medium onion, chopped
4 stalks of celery, chopped
3 cans (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon flour (I used gluten free, but wheat flour is fine, too)
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
1-2 tablespoons kosher salt, and to taste
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 bay leaves

Procedure
Heat your cast iron dutch oven on medium heat, and add 1 tablespoon of oil to the pan. When the oil is hot and shimmering, toss in your onions and celery.

Aromatics and ground bison

One of the keys to developing flavor for chili is to pair sweetness with salt. The sweetness comes from caramelizing your onions before adding liquids. Because the onions and celery will continue to cook as the meat browns, I like to give them a 5-6 minute head start.

Stir the aromatics around as they cook to avoid scorching, and then add the ground meat. Brown the meat, stirring every minute or two. This will take around 10 minutes.

Once the meat is browned, add another tablespoon of oil, 1 tablespoon of kosher salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, and the flour, chili powder, and granulated garlic (NOTE: I use kosher salt because it's what I have in a bowl next to my stove. If you're using table salt, cut quantities in half).

Always taste your chili and re-season as necessary

Cook the spices (in the meat and aromatics) for about a minute to release their oils, and then add the beans, diced tomatoes, and bay leaves. Stir things around once more, and then simmer on low heat for 30 minutes to 3 hours—depending on how hungry you are. Stir it every 10 minutes or so while is simmers to avoid burning.

The longer it simmers, the better. As your chili simmers, taste it! You want the beans to soak up as much flavor as they can, since this makes each bite of chili more balanced once it hits the spoon. As the beans soak up flavor from the surrounding liquid, you'll want to add more salt and seasonings.

If the chili doesn't delight your palate with flavor upon tasting, add salt until it does. If you prefer more heat, add black pepper (NOTE: pepper takes some time to release into the dish, so wait 20 minutes after adding pepper to taste for heat). If you'd like a little smoke, add a smokey hot sauce like Uncle Brutha's (which, of course, will add heat, too).

As mentioned above, you'd be silly not to serve this chili with some cast iron skillet corn bread. We like to put it over noodles or rice, and it's best served with fresh chopped onions and grated cheese.

Clean up

Scrub your dutch oven clean with a non-abrasive cleaning pad and hot water. If you don't want to dirty your sponge, or if your sponge is full of soap, you can use a plastic mesh produce bag (like for onions or citrus) and throw it away when you're finished.

Once clean, dry your dutch oven with heat on the stovetop or in the oven (on 250 degrees F). Once it is dry, oil the dutch oven all over and let it cool. Cast iron should always be put away shiny with oil!

Read more on the care of cast iron cookware.

Recipe: Camp Dutch Oven Buffalo Pot Roast

2010-08-16T21:39:00.002-06:00

Camp dutch oven buffalo pot roast over an open fire

When I go camping, I refuse to relegate my tastebuds to hot dogs and mac & cheese. I may be sleeping on the ground, but that doesn't mean I should eat dirt.

As it turns out, fresh air, cool breeze, and sunlit mountainside are some of the best seasonings available. But instead of resting on these outdoor culinary laurels, this recipe takes full advantage.

As with all of my camp dutch oven recipes, this recipe was made over an actual campfire (as opposed to using charcoal briquettes).

To boot: this is the easiest camp dutch oven recipe I know of, and results in a dish that could be served in the finest restaurants anywhere. I'm serious.

Needless to say, cooking an entire pot roast assumes that you've got at least a handful of folks to cook for. This recipe serves 4-6.

Fair warning: this recipe kicks it up a notch or three, and may well earn you lifelong camping partners. I leave it to you to decide if that's a good thing.

Feel free to use beef pot roast instead of buffalo (also called bison).

Ingredients

1 2-lb. buffalo (or beef) pot roast
4 medium potatoes
2 medium onions
3 large carrots
1 bunch celery
salt
pepper
granulated garlic
oil
1 1/2 cups water

Procedure

To get started, make sure your fire ring is ready for dutch oven cooking.

As shown at right, I typically dig out a cooking area next to where the fire will eventually be, and start an initial fire there.

Once I have a nice pile of coals, I move the fire over about two feet, and start cooking in the spot formerly occupied by the fire.

Additional notes on cooking over a real camp fire:

You want a nice bed of coals for cooking, not a bunch of flaming logs and sticks.
The best way to get a nice bed of coals is to build a raging fire composed of flaming logs and sticks... and then wait 20 minutes (see image at right).
The idea behind building a fire in one spot and then moving it to another is to warm the ground where you're going to cook to help even out temperature fluctuations.
You want to keep your campfire burning nearby so as to produce a steady supply of hot coals for heat replenishment.
Once you are cooking, your dutch oven should be far enough from the flames to avoid scorching the food on the side facing the fire. With proper dutch oven rotation, a foot of distance between the fire and the near edge of the dutch oven should do it.
You can check out a little more campfire dutch oven cooking theory in my apple crisp recipe.

Let's see, where were we... Ah yes, while your campfire is burning into nice coals:

Roughly chop the veggies and potatoes, and set them aside. Season the buffalo pot roast generously with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic.

When the campfire has settled down, clear out a cooking spot of all coals, and then add back in a layer of sparse coals, roughly equivalent to 15 or 20 inch-square coals.

For you math geeks: that's 15 to 20 cubic inches of hot coals, spread thin to an area equal to Pi (3.1415) multiplied by the square of the radius of the bottom of your dutch oven.

For everyone else: just spread about an inch-thick layer of hot coals into a spot that's about as big around as your dutch oven.

Place your well-oiled (shiny) dutch oven over the coals, and let it heat up for 3-5 minutes. When the dutch oven is hot (just beginning to smoke), add a few tablespoons of oil, and then toss in the pot roast to sear.

Sear the pot roast on all sides, turning it every 1-2 minutes to avoid burning (total searing time 5-7 minutes). Leave the lid on whenever possible. When the pot roast is browned on as many sides as are feasible, add the vegetables and potatoes. Stir things around for another few minutes, and then add 1 1/2 cups water.

Cover the dutch oven with the lid, and pile another 15-20 cubic inches of hot coals on top. If there are hot rocks in the vicinity, I will often pile those on as well since they give a nice even heat.

Cook the roast for 3-4 hours, replenishing coals below and above every 45 minutes or so. Always err on the side of too little heat as opposed to too much. If, upon checking your dutch oven, nothing is bubbling and everything seems to be getting colder, go ahead and add coals. Chances are, there's too much heat. Never be afraid to remove your dutch oven from all heat (pick it up by the wire bail and set it on the ground), and then add heat back slowly as needed.

Be sure to taste the liquid as things progress. If it isn't amazingly flavorful, add some salt.

When the roast is done, serve it up with the surrounding vegetables and potatoes. Pot roast can hold for many hours as long as it is kept warm.

Recipe: Chicken with Mushrooms (gluten free)

2010-07-24T15:40:00.005-06:00

Chicken with mushrooms served with rice and a salad

I had a job in the great north woods working as a cook for a spell. I liked it a whole lot. It was there that I learned this recipe from my boss Mitchell. I've been tinkering with it ever since.

At the lodge at Alaska Wildland Adventures we called it "Chicken Champignon," which is French for "mushroom chicken." Whatever you call it, this is a very tasty recipe.

Sliced mushrooms sauteing in cast iron

This recipe takes about an hour all-told, and you can do much of the work up-front and hold the final baking until just before dinner.

It involves breading and sauteing chicken breasts, and then covering them with a mushroom white sauce to bake in the oven.

They get another coat of sauce before serving to make things extra-delicious. This meal is great with a green salad and a rice pilaf.

This is a gluten-free rendition, but you can simply use wheat flour if you don't mind the gluten.

Ingredients

8 chicken breasts, pounded to uniform thickness
oil

For the dredging mixture

1 cup flour (Bob's Red Mill gluten free)
1/4 teaspoon salt (table)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic

For the sauce

1.5 x recipe of Gluten Free Basic White Sauce (about 1 3/4 cups white sauce)
1 pint (16 oz) sour cream
1/4 cup white wine
1 pound mushrooms, sliced to 1/4 inch thickness
4 tablespoons butter
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)
granulated garlic (to taste)

Procedure

You can do several parts of this recipe at once: sauteing the mushrooms, making the white sauce, and sauteing the breaded chicken. Then it all goes together in the oven.

Begin by making the white sauce according to my very clear, sensible, and lucid directions.

Gently saute the breaded chicken breasts

While the white sauce is developing, pound out the chicken breasts. This is an optional step, but it makes for a more tender dish.

The idea is to even out the thickness of the breast so that the thick parts are cooked to a safe temperature before the thin parts are as tough as rubber. The thickest part of each breast should be between 1 inch and 3/4 of an inch thick.

To saute the mushrooms, heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat, and then toss the 4 tablespoons of butter into it.

Once the butter has melted, add the sliced mushrooms and saute them until they are soft and delicious (pull one out from time to time to try 'em). This will take about 20 minutes. Remove the skillet from heat and let the mushrooms rest until the sauce is ready.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

To cook the chicken, heat two medium cast iron skillets on medium heat. As the skillets are warming, combine all ingredients for the dredging mixture and mix thoroughly. Once the skillets have heated for 5-7 minutes, add oil to about 1/8 inch thick in each pan. Dredge your chicken breasts, and place them in the skillet to saute. You'll cook them for only a few minutes per side—just enough to attach the breading. They'll finish cooking in the oven.

When you've got a stable white sauce, add to it the white wine, sour cream, and sauteed mushrooms. Taste it. It should taste fairly bland. Begin adding salt, pepper, and granulated garlic until it tastes outstanding. You'll add more salt than pepper or garlic.

Place the sauteed chicken into a 9 x 13 inch casserole pan (or anything else that's big enough and oven-proof, including a large cast iron skillet). Pour about half the sauce over the breasts, and then place them in the oven to cook.

They will probably cook for 15-20 minutes, but to be sure measure them with an instant-read thermometer. The thickest part of any breast should register at 165 degrees F.

When the breasts are cooked, remove them from the oven and serve immediately with a fresh coating of mushroom sauce over them.

Recipe: Camp Dutch Oven Apple Crisp (Gluten Free)

2010-06-01T21:17:00.003-06:00

Apple crisp in the camp dutch oven, prepared over an open fire

I do all of my camp dutch oven cooking and baking over a campfire (as opposed to using charcoal briquettes). While the open fire method is a bit trickier and recipes are scarce, it's easy once you get the hang of it. And using a "real" fire is immensely more satisfying than dragging along the bag of Kingsford every time you hit the woods.

This recipe builds on my learning experience from the Utah slickrock where I burned my apple crisp to a crisp... and provides lots of tips and tricks for open fire dutch oven cooking.

This recipe serves 8, and takes about an hour to make. It is provided here in gluten free form, but you can simply substitute wheat flour and non-GF oats if you don't mind the gluten. You can also make this recipe at home in a 350 degree F oven.

Tart apples are your huckleberry. I used honeycrisp apples for this recipe, which were just fine. Granny smith apples would have been ideal, but the store was out of them.

Ingredients

8 apples, peeled and sliced
3/4 cup sugar
Juice from 1 lemon
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/2 cup GF flour
1/2 cup GF rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
cinnamon

Procedure

Campfire baking with a dutch oven involves applying heat from two directions (the bottom and the top) and rotating the base and lid to even out any hot spots. This dual heating, when done properly, simulates the even heat of a real oven.

Interesting historical note: "dutch" doesn't mean the thing came from Holland... it's a holdover from when "dutch" meant "ghetto".

The most common trouble area with campfire dutch oven cooking is applying too much bottom heat—which can burn things up in a hurry. To ensure sufficient but low bottom heat, I clear a spot of fire and place my dutch oven in this formerly-fiery spot. There are no coals or fire underneath the dutch oven, but the earth/rocks in that spot are usually plenty toasty. If you find your bottom heat lacking, you can always add a few coals underneath.

When you move your fire off to the side to make room for the dutch oven, you'll want to leave enough of it burning nearby to supply fresh lid coals during baking. You may need to enlarge your fire circle to have enough room. This is much easier to do before you light the fire!

So... once your fire circle is prepped, light a campfire, and throw enough wood on it to develop a large pile of coals. While your fire is turning wood into hot coals, prepare your crisp.

To prepare the crisp, begin by peeling your apples. Once peeled, slice the apples roughly 1/4 inch thick—ending up with pieces no bigger than 1 1/2 inches in any dimension. Discard apple cores, seeds, stems, annoying little stickers, worms, etc.

Make sure your camp dutch oven starts shiny (coated with oil). Toss your sliced apples into it. Add 1/2 cup of sugar, the juice squeezed from a fresh lemon, and a dash or two of cinnamon. Stir things around to combine, and then taste one of your apple slices. It should taste plenty sweet, nice and tart, and have a hint of cinnamon. Adjust ingredients as necessary to make these raw apples taste good.

Slice up 1/2 stick of butter (4 tablespoons) into manageable pats, and add these to the apples. Stir around to combine/spread out the butter.

Separately, combine the flour, oats, the rest of the sugar (roughly 1/4 cup), another dash or two of cinnamon, and salt to taste (yes, I want you to pick up some of this dry flour/oat mixture and eat it). It should taste sweet, salty, and good. If you aren't tempted to keep nibbling on the flour/oat mixture, you probably need to add more sugar or more salt. Perhaps both.

Sprinkle your flour/oat mixture on top of your apples, and then add the remaining stick of butter (8 tablespoons) on top of the crisp. Once again, slice the butter into pats so you can spread them around evenly.

Clear a patch of fire, and move the fire far enough away as to provide at least 6 inches of clearance between the fire and the nearest side of the dutch oven. Place the dutch oven on the cleared spot, and then pile glowing coals on top of the lid about 3 inches high.

It's important to check in on your crisp frequently, especially in the beginning when the first data points about how hot your fire really is are trickling in. To check your crisp, lift the lid off (coals and all), and place it on a clean surface (so you don't end up with dirt or ashes in your crisp after replacing the lid). Visually inspect the crisp for any signs of burning, and try to get your nose down there to smell for any burning-apple-type odors. I usually also reach in there with a wooden spoon to dig to the bottom to make sure nothing's burning. This will result in some of the top crisp layer mixing with the bottom apple layer... but a little mixing is far preferable to a burnt-to-a-crisp apple crisp.

When you're satisfied that nothing is burning (yet), rotate the base of the dutch oven by 90 degrees, and then place the lid back on top. When you place the lid back on top, rotate it by 90 degrees in relation to the base. The idea here is to even out the heat from top and bottom in relation to the food inside the dutch oven. Just make sure you rotate in the same direction... and don't worry too much about it as long as everything looks and smells fine inside.

Your crisp should bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Keep checking it every 5-10 minutes (depending on how quickly it seems to be cooking), and always be on the lookout for burning. It can happen quickly. Keep rotating base and lid every time you check, and replace lid coals as needed to keep the top heat strong.

After 35 minutes or so, grab an apple piece out and taste it. Keep doing this from here on out... and once your test apple pieces are coming out sufficiently soft, pull the crisp from the fire, remove lid coals, and serve after 5 minutes of cool-down. Crisps are pretty robust, so if you aren't yet ready for dessert, keep a few lid coals on top and set it next to the fire to stay warm. Rotate it every 5-10 minutes to provide even heat.

Crisps are ideal with ice cream (I know, but I really did see one of those crazy plastic-ball-camp-ice-cream-maker contraptions work a few months back). You can add liquid cream, too. Strangely, a mild cheese is also quite nice, and in this recipe we added a few dollops of goat cheese (chevre) on top. Divine.

Recipe: Refried Pinto Beans

2010-05-16T08:54:00.003-06:00

These beans (shown here with spanish rice) are perfect for enchiladas, bean and cheese quesadillas, tacos, bean dip, and more.

This recipe takes about 25 minutes, so it makes sense to double or triple it so you have extra for other meals.

I keep bags of frozen pinto beans ready for this sort of thing, but you could also use canned (pre-cooked) pinto beans. In that case you'll want to strain the liquid out of the beans before you use them. You'll also want to season this recipe more heavily with salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, and perhaps a splash of your favorite smoky hot sauce.

Adding caramelized onions to refried beans brings in some sweetness to round out the otherwise salty/savory flavor, and fresh garlic gives the spices more dimension.

It's important to add the fresh garlic after the onions and beans are done, since if the garlic cooks too long it will burn and turn bitter. I add chicken broth to shut down the garlic's cooking, and to lift flavors off the skillet. The broth also helps meld flavors, and for some dishes (like enchiladas or bean dip), a filling with a bit more liquid may be desired.

Ingredients

4 cups Derek's (almost) Famous Pinto Beans
3 cloves fresh garlic, pressed or minced fine
1 small onion, sliced
3 tablespoons oil
3/4 cup chicken (or vegetable) broth
salt
pepper
spices

Procedure

Begin by caramelizing the onions in 2 tablespoons of oil. To do this, heat a large cast iron skillet on medium-low heat until hot (the oil should shimmer and get visbly thinner when you add it).

Toss in the onions. I typically leave my onions sliced, but you can chop them as small as you like. You can read more on caramelized onion theory and practice.

Once the onions are starting to turn golden (i.e. caramelizing), add the beans. Heat the beans until they are hot while stirring every minute or two to prevent burning. Once the beans are hot, clear a spot in the middle of the skillet, and put a tablespoon of oil in the center of it.

Toss your minced garlic into this spot, and stir it around with a wooden spoon to keep it from burning. Be sure to scrape up any garlic that sticks to the skillet (again, to prevent burning).

After 30 seconds or so when the garlic is just cooked, add the broth to shut down the garlic cooking and to lift flavors off the skillet.

Stir things around to meld flavors, adjust seasoning as necessary, and serve!

Recipe: Smoked Chicken (Weber Kettle method)

2010-05-06T07:46:00.002-06:00

Unfortunately, this recipe is a conversation killer.

Sometimes a pause in idle banter serves to prime the pump for the stimulating bursts of interlocution to follow.

Sometimes a recipe is so good that people don't care if they've been struck mute as long as there are seconds.

I've served this chicken perhaps a dozen times now, and every time, once folks tuck into the meal, the dinner table conversation fades away into a murmur of chomping and grunting for at least 15 minutes. The silence is then broken by anything from "Wow, that's good" to "Holy shitballs! This is the best Goddamned chicken I've ever had!"

I strongly recommend serving this chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. For this reason (among others), I finish the chicken in the oven—which allows you to collect chicken juices for gravy.

For this recipe I used two chickens that had been cut in half to speed things along. Whole chickens are fine, too.

Ideally, the chicken is brined for 24 hours prior to smoking. But you can also get around that by using a shorter brine, or by salting the chicken heavily prior to cooking (more on that below).

Ingredients

whole or half chickens
salt for brine
wood chips for smoking
gluten free all purpose flour for gravy
1 cup water for gravy
salt and pepper

Procedure
Preparing the Chicken

Remove the packaging from your chicken, take out the bag of giblets from inside the cavity, and then rinse the bird in cold water before tossing it into the brine. Brine the chicken for 24 hours (give or take) in a brine consisting of 1 cup kosher salt (or 1/2 cup table salt) to 1 gallon of water. I whack my chickens in half with a cleaver because it speeds the cooking time, but whole chickens are perfectly acceptable.

If you don't have 24 hours to spare before smoking, double the salt and brine the bird for 4 hours. If you don't have time to brine at all, simply salt and pepper the chicken heavily, inside and out, before smoking it. Kosher salt makes it easier to get an even spread and helps prevent over-salting, but otherwise table salt is fine.

Preparing the Fire

To smoke the chicken, start by soaking a "two-handed grab" (about 4 cups) of mesquite wood chips in water for an hour. You can find smoking wood chips at most grocery stores. You can also use actual hunks of wood whacked into chips or splinters. I prefer mesquite wood chips, but you can use hickory, apple, alder, or any other common smoking wood.

While the wood chips are soaking in water, light the smoking fire in a Weber kettle (or other grill that you can cover to trap the smoke). I use hardwood charcoal chunks instead of charcoal briquettes to keep coal dust and God-knows-what-else out of my chicken, but regular old briquettes will do in a pinch. Use a chimney fire starter to kindle the fire—you don't want lighter fluid making your chicken taste like an oil refinery.

Once the fire is ready (which will probably take something like 20 minutes), bank all of the coals against one side of your grill. Add half of your soaked mesquite chips on top of the banked coals, and then put the grill (the surface on which you'd normally place burgers and dogs) in place. Cover the kettle.

Give the grill 5 minutes to heat up—at which point smoke should be pouring from the vents. Place your brined chicken on the grill, close to, but not over top of the fire. Cover the kettle once again, and begin smoking the chicken.

Turn the chicken every 10 minutes or so, and move the chicken around to ensure that each piece spends equal time on hot areas of the grill (closer to the banked fire), and cold areas (farther from the banked fire and along the edges). Also try to change the orientation of the chickens to that first one end and then the other faces the fire. All of this manouvering helps keep each bird at roughly the same temperature (so they're all done together) and avoids burning on the side facing the fire.

Once 45 minutes have passed, begin checking the temperature of your smoked chicken with an instant read thermometer. When the temperature hits 140 degrees F (which may take an hour or longer of total smoking time), pull the smoked chicken, and pile it into an enameled cast iron dutch oven. (note: enameled dutch ovens tend to be larger, but you can also use a bare cast iron dutch oven if you have enough room).

Place the chicken into a 350 degree F oven, and cook until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F. Pull the chicken out, and place it on a cutting board under aluminum foil to rest. The final temperature in the coldest part of the bird should reach 165 degrees F. It will continue coming up to temperature during the first part of the rest. While the chicken rests, make gravy with the drippings that are now in the dutch oven.

Making the Gravy
You want to begin with 2 tablespoons of "liquid gold," which is the rendered fat, juices, and browned bits of smoky goodness left in the dutch oven once you've removed the chicken.

If you've got more than 2 tablespoons, pour off (or suction out with a turkey baster) excess fat. Be sure not to remove any of the brown juice that you've got since this is the key to the gravy's flavor (only remove clear rendered fat). If you don't have enough juice and fat left over, add butter or oil until you do.

Place the dutch oven on the stovetop once you've removed the chicken. Turn the heat on medium. Add 2 tablespoons of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour (or just about any other flour) to the dutch oven.

Stir things around with a wooden spatula to form a thick paste, and then add about half a cup of water. Use the spatula to scrape any fond (browned bits) off the bottom of the dutch oven. Continue adding another half cup of water as the gravy thickens. After adding roughly a cup of water, you should end up with a thin gravy. Once you've got the water quantity dialed in and the thickness of the gravy has stabilized, lower the heat to a gentle simmer. Simmer the gravy for another 10 minutes to cook the flour. If the gravy gets over-thick as it continues to cook, add more water carefully.

Taste it. You'll probably need to season the gravy with salt and pepper.

As your gravy simmers, carve up the chicken, and serve it all together with your favorite mashed potatoes.

Recipe: The Definitive Margarita

2010-04-27T07:01:00.008-06:00

This video recipe provides step-by-step instructions for creating the finest margarita you're likely to ever taste. Enjoy!

Ingredients

3/4 of a blender ice cubes
1/2 of a blender tequila
1-2 inches of triple sec
1/2 can limeade concentrate
juice from 3-4 fresh limes
Coarse kosher salt

Procedure
Put it all in the blender, in order, and blend for 15-20 seconds. Serve immediately in salted margarita glasses.

Recipe: Alpine Macaroni (Camp Dutch Oven Method)

2010-04-24T08:22:00.003-06:00

I first became acquainted with Alpine Spaghetti on a Boundary Waters canoe trip at Camp Widjiwagan when I was 13. It was a simple dish of noodles, parmesan, and oregano, but was quick to prepare and warmed us up after a rainy day of paddling on the lakes.

25 years later, I found myself car-camping in Rocky Mountain National Park with the boys (ages 2 and 5). With the sun setting and thunder booming through the valley, I was once again in search of something quick, substantial, and kid-friendly.

I had high hopes for a full night of sleep from the boys. To increase the odds of that (by ensuring no one would wake up hungry at 5am) I added ground beef to my dish. I also tossed in some finely chopped onion—adding sweetness to complement the salty / savory nature of the dish.

The result was a really tasty meal that both kids devoured. Another plus is that the dish required very little oversight while the tent got pitched and the tarp got hung (just in time for a downpour, as it turned out).

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef, buffalo, or turkey
1 pound pasta (I used Tinkyada Gluten Free)
1/4 onion, chopped medium fine
3 tablespoons butter
oil
salt
pepper

Procedure
Begin by boiling your pasta in well-salted water. The water should taste like a too-salty soup before you add your pasta (remember, most of this salt stays in the water after the pasta has moved on to bigger and better things). I boiled pasta on the old trusty MSR Whisperlite... but you could of course do it in a well-seasoned camp dutch oven over the fire.

If using separate pots, while you're boiling the pasta, heat the camp dutch oven over your fire and cook the meat (more on that in a sec). If you are using the camp dutch oven for the whole shebang; boil your pasta water, cook your pasta, drain it, mix the pasta with oil to prevent sticking, and then set it aside to wait (preferably covered and in a warm place). Wipe or rinse out the dutch oven, and proceed to cooking the meat.

To cook the meat, start with a hot, shiny camp dutch oven. We were at a USFS campground, so I let the fire die down and then flopped the grill over it and put the dutch oven right on top of the grill. You could also clear a spot to the side of your campfire, and then lay down some wood coals over which you place your dutch oven. You can adjust heat by adding or removing coals... but you want your meat and onion to brown evenly and slowly, not burn. When in doubt, lower the heat. When the dutch oven is hot, add a splash of oil, the ground meat, and the chopped onion.

I find that the smaller the onion pieces are, the more kid-friendly the meal is... so mine were chopped to about the size of tic-tacs.

Stir the ground meat and onion around for 10-20 minutes until cooked through. While you are stirring, add salt, pepper, and granulated garlic to taste (yes, this means you should taste it as you go to make sure you get it right!).

When the meat is cooked through, dump in your cooked, drained pasta, and add the butter. Mix things around for a minute or two to melt the butter, and then do a final taste test to adjust seasonings.

Serve immediately!

Variations: I considered adding peas to score brownie points with the wife on the vegetable front.. but forgot them at home. They would have been a nice addition. Parmesan would have been great as well. You could certainly add herbs or other seasonings... oregano and thyme come to mind.

Recipe: Cast Iron Croutons

2010-04-17T08:49:00.004-06:00

Cast iron croutons made with whole garlic cloves and olive oil

Cast iron croutons are really simple, and are light-years beyond anything you can buy in a box (especially in the gluten free world). You can of course make this recipe with regular wheat bread, and it'll be even more tasty.

The key to this recipe is the cast iron skillet, which provides even heat and a non-stick surface. This makes it possible to create croutons that are crunchy on the outside, but still slightly soft in the middle. Another important factor in this recipe is cooling your croutons on an un-covered plate, which allows moisture to escape.

Croutons are simple: bread, garlic, oil, salt, and pepper

While you can use any gluten free bread for this recipe, if you use Udi's Gluten Free sandwich bread, you'll thank yourself. Unlike most gluten free sandwich bread (which tends to resemble over-dry cardboard-filled fruitcake), Udi's would probably fool most wheat-eaters in a sandwich, and fools nearly everyone as croutons.

Ingredients

2 slices of sandwich bread
3 peeled garlic cloves
salt
pepper
1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Procedure
Heat a medium cast iron skillet on medium heat for 5-7 minutes to warm it up. While the skillet is warming, cut sandwich bread into crouton-sized pieces. When the skillet is warm, add enough oil to coat the pan well (it will absorb into the bread, which helps develop the crustiness). You may need to add more oil if too much gets absorbed. Toss in the whole (peeled) garlic cloves, and then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.

Cook the croutons while turning them over every 2 minutes or so to avoid burning. Taste a few croutons as you're going along and adjust seasoning as necessary. When both sides are nice and brown, pull the croutons out of the skillet and let them rest for 5 minutes on a dry paper towel.

Toss croutons on your caesar salad, and eat!

Feel free to add other ingredients like oregano, onion, Parmesan cheese, etc. to take the flavor in a new direction.

Recipe: Pan-Seared Steak

2010-04-01T21:22:00.000-06:00

It's hard to imagine an easier way to cook steak than in a cast iron skillet. Fortunately, it's also one of the tastiest ways to cook a steak. The hot cast iron results in a nice browning on the steak, searing in whatever seasoning you may have applied. I'm a bit of a purist with steak, and stick to just salt and pepper. You do whatever you like.

Ingredients

2 ribeye steaks (bison or beef)
kosher salt
pepper
oil
butter

Procedure

Salt and pepper your steaks generously. Heat a medium cast iron skillet on medium-high heat until just smoking. Add a drizzle of oil, and then a fat pat of butter, and slap the steaks down to cook.

Once they've browned a bit (after maybe 4 minutes?), flip 'em over. Continue flipping every 3-4 minutes until done. You may need to adjust the heat downward as you go if you're cooking to medium or beyond.

Because I like my steaks cooked to a perfect rare, I used an instant-read meat thermometer. If you're winging it or basing it on cooking time... be sure to account for steak thickness, stove temperature variance, and planetary alignment.

Remember: You can always put an under-cooked steak back on the heat. Pretty tough to un-cook a steak.

Recipe: Cast Iron Skillet Roasted Chicken

2010-03-14T19:01:00.005-06:00

Cast iron skillet roasted chicken, fresh from the oven

Cast iron and roast chicken were meant for each other. Roasting your chicken in a cast iron skillet lets you make an amazing gravy right in the skillet while the chicken rests before carving. This recipe uses high heat to crisp the skin and speed up the cooking time.

In our family, we roast a bird at least twice a month. It's classy enough to serve to guests, but quick enough for a weeknight family meal. The leftovers are quick to disappear, and are also easily incorporated into lots of other dishes.

I'm a big fan of brining the chicken before roasting, but if you've got a raw chicken ready to go, just salt and pepper it liberally (more on this below).

Ingredients

For the roasted chicken:

1 3-4 lb. whole chicken (two are pictured above, of course)
oil
salt
pepper

For the gravy:

2 tablespoons gluten free all-purpose flour (or wheat flour)
1 cup water
salt
pepper
1 tablespoon dry white wine

Procedure
Making the Chicken
Remove packaging from your chicken, take out the bag of giblets from inside the cavity, and then rinse the bird in cold water. Brine the chicken for 24 hours (give or take) in a brine consisting of 1 cup kosher salt (or 1/2 cup table salt) to 1 gallon of water. You can also use beer for the liquid instead of water, or mix water and beer. Don't be afraid to add herbs and spices to the brine if you like. Choices might include thyme, bay leaves, black pepper, or even chili powder.

If you don't have 24 hours to spare before roasting, double the salt and brine the bird for 4 hours. If you don't have time to brine at all, simply salt and pepper the bird heavily, inside and out, before roasting. IN this scenario, you'll use a solid 5 teaspoons of kosher salt and 2 teaspoons of black pepper for a 3-4 lb. chicken. Kosher salt makes it easier to get an even spread and helps prevent over-salting. If using traditional (more finely-ground) table salt, reduce quantities by half.

Half an hour before your ready to roast the chicken, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Remove the chicken from the brine, and pat it dry with paper towels. Oil a large cast iron skillet lightly, salt and pepper the chicken inside and out (lightly if you brined it, heavily per the above if you didn't), and place it in the cast iron skillet breast side down.

Roast the chicken for 45-75 minutes—until the center of the thickest part of the breast registers 160 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer. Check the thigh as well to make sure it has come up to at least 160 degrees F. Baste the bird while it is roasting every 5-10 minutes with a brush or turkey baster. The final temperature of the meat should be 165 degrees F. It will continue cooking up to this temperature after you remove it from the oven.

Important notes about using an instant-read meat thermometer:

Begin checking the temperature of your chicken well before it could possibly be done (at about 35 minutes of cooking time in this recipe). Oven temperatures and the starting temperature of the chicken will vary from kitchen to kitchen—and you will get surprised by an over-achieving oven once in a while.
The point of using a meat thermometer is to nail the temperature perfectly. If you don't know the rate at which the meat temperature is rising, you won't be able to nail it perfectly. The only way to obtain the rate at which the temperature is rising is to take multiple readings over time. Check the temperature every 5-10 minutes, depending on how fast the temperature is rising, and how close to the end point you are.
Stay away from the bones when checking temperature, and be sure to move the thermometer deeper and shallower in the hole you've made to ensure you are measuring the lowest temperature. Don't be afraid to try a few spots to find the lowest temperature.

Pull the chicken from the oven when it's ready, and place it on a cutting board. Tent it with aluminum foil and let it sit for 15 minutes while you make the gravy.

Making the Gravy
You want to begin with 2 tablespoons of "liquid gold," which is the rendered fat, juices, and browned bits of goodness left in the skillet once you've removed the chicken (see photo at right).

If you've got more than 2 tablespoons, pour off (or suction out with a turkey baster) excess fat. Be sure not to remove any of the brown juice that you've got since this is the key to the gravy's flavor (only remove clear rendered fat). The clear fat will float on top, and the brown juice or "liquid gold" will sit at the bottom. If you don't have enough juice and fat left over, add butter or oil until you've got 2 tablespoons.

Place the cast iron skillet with drippings on the stovetop. Turn the heat on medium Add 2 tablespoons of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour (or just about any other flour) to the skillet.

Stir things around with a wooden spatula to form a thick paste, and then add about half of the water. Use the spatula to scrape any fond (browned bits) off the bottom of the skillet. Continue adding water as the gravy thickens. After adding about a cup of water, you have a thin gravy.

If the gravy gets over-thick as it continues to cook, add more water carefully. Once you've got the water quantity dialed in and the thickness of the gravy has stabilized, lower the heat to a gentle simmer.

Taste it.

You'll probaly need to season the gravy with salt and pepper. Once you have the seasoning worked out, add a splash of white wine (about a tablespoon) to give it a more refined flavor.

As your gravy simmers, carve up the chicken, and serve it all together with your favorite mashed potatoes.

Recipe: Cast Iron Skillet French Toast

2010-02-26T20:22:00.003-07:00

French toast fresh from the skillet with butter and syrup

Cast iron French toast is the bomb. But there's a secret ingredient that takes it from good to great.

In my younger, gluten-filled days, the best French toast came from (surprise!) French bread. If you have the intestinal means, I would strongly recommend sticking with that program.

For gluten free French toast, there are several hundred terrible options, and a few good ones. I recommend going with Udi's gluten free whole grain sandwich bread.

Here's that secret ingredient: Sherry (the liquor, not the girl).

Ingredients
(makes enough for 4-6 slices of French bread)

1/2 cup milk (whole milk is better)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon dry sherry
dash of cinnimon
dash of nutmeg
dash of ground cloves
pinch of salt
sliced bread
butter

Procedure

Mix the milk, egg, sherry, and spices/salt together, making sure the eggs are beaten well.

Always start with a shiny (well-oiled) cast iron skillet. Heat a large cast iron skillet (or griddle) on medium-low heat until hot (a drop of water should dance on the surface and evaporate within 2 seconds). This will probably take 8-10 minutes. Be patient.

If you're OK with gluten, the best choice by far is French bread sliced into 1 1/2 inch thick slices. If you're going gluten free, Udi's sandwich bread is an outstanding choice. Either way, dredge your bread though the liquid, turning it over a few times to ensure even coverage and some good interior soaking. No one likes dry French bread... so err on the side of a longer soak and more wetness—especially with thicker bread.

Add a pat or two of butter to your hot cast iron skillet, and swish it around for even coverage. Lay your dredged bread slices into the hot skillet. Cook for 1-2 minutes (until browned on the bottom) and then flip the bread slices over. Cook for another 2-3 minutes (again, until nicely browned). If you think the inside is too moist, you can cook the slices for another 30 seconds to a minute on each side.

If you're keeping the French bread in a warming oven before serving, consider reducing the cooking time. Re-butter the skillet each time you add fresh bread slices.

If your pan is too hot and the bread seems to be burning before the insides are done, remove the French bread from the pan, and remove the pan from the heat. Once things have cooled down, get the pan back on the heat and the French bread back in the pan... and continue.

Serve as soon as possible with a large pat of butter and warm maple syrup.

Recipe: Eggs, Sunny Side Up

2010-02-14T10:20:00.003-07:00

Eggs sunny side up in a cast iron skillet

Frying eggs in a cast iron skillet is easy and healthy.

Most folks I know trust nothing but a Teflon pan for cooking eggs. For this reason, eggs are the leading cause of cancer-causing-chemicals-being-ingested-along-with-your-food in America.

Doesn't your sweetheart deserve better?

Here's the fix:

Ingredients

2 Eggs
1 pat of butter

Process

Always start with a shiny (well-oiled) cast iron skillet. Heat a small cast iron skillet on medium heat for 4-5 minutes. It should be hot enough to quickly foam the butter (this is the water boiling off), but not so hot that the butter browns or the pan smokes. A good test is to toss a drop of water in the skillet. If it crackles and pops as it evaporates, the pan is ready.

Once the skillet is hot, toss in your pat of butter, and swish it around to melt it. Then crack the eggs into the pan, and cover with a tight lid. Turn the heat down to medium-low. The steam inside the pan is the key to getting the top of the yolks hot before the bottom of the yolks cook or the whites burn.

Cook for 3-6 minutes... until the whites are cooked, and the yolks are hot. The exact timing will require a bit of experimentation based on your stove, pan thickness, and your tastes.

You will generally want to pull them just as the thin layer of egg white that covers the yolk is beginning to cook (turning white). All of this depends on your preference, of course.

Practice really does make perfect.

If you prefer your cast iron fried eggs over-easy, over-medium, or some other style, feel free to flip the eggs. In this case, you don't need to cover them.

Serve immediately.

Recipe: Buffalo Stroganoff (gluten free)

2010-02-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

The quickest way to ruin an otherwise outstanding stroganoff is to end up with tough or dried out meat. To avoid sub-par stroganoff, use a tender cut of meat like prime rib, ribeye, tenderloin, or top sirloin. For truly sensational buffalo (or beef) stroganoff, you'll want to season, roast, and cool your cut of meat prior to beginning the stroganoff.

For this recipe, I had leftover roasted buffalo prime rib from the night before, which I sliced and added to the stroganoff a few minutes before serving. This kept the meat tender and intensely flavorful, since it had been thoroughly infused with my roasting crust. As a bonus, the meat was a beautiful shade of medium-rare pink at serving time. I'm quite sure General Pavel would have approved.

The only ingredient I didn't have for this meal was sour cream—which is the most common way of getting that oh-so-essential tang into your stroganoff. I did have buttermilk, and surmised that by making my white sauce with buttermilk I could achieve the proper tang. It worked out great... but you could easily use regular milk plus sour cream as well.

I served this over gluten free penne noodles, but you can serve over just about any pasta you like. When boiling your pasta, the water should be well-salted (it should taste like a somewhat too-salty soup).

Ingredients

2 cups gluten free white sauce made with buttermilk OR 1 cup gluten free white sauce plus 1 cup sour cream
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
3-4 tablespoons butter
1 pound roasted buffalo prime rib
3 cloves crushed fresh garlic
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup red wine
1/4 cup soy sauce or tamari
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
salt
pepper
chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Procedure
This recipe begins with pre-roasted and already cooled beef or buffalo.

To begin sauteing the mushrooms, heat a large cast iron skillet on medium heat. While the skillet is warming, cut mushrooms into (roughly) 1/4 inch slices. Once the pan is warm toss in the butter to melt it, and add the mushrooms. Saute gently for 5 minutes, and then add the onion. Continue sauteing the mushrooms until they are soft and have given up most of their moisture (perhaps 15-20 minutes total). Add more butter (if need be) to keep the skillet moist, and turn the heat down if the mushrooms begin to brown.

While the mushrooms and onions are sauteing, make your white sauce according to my gluten free basic white sauce recipe (you can also just use wheat flour to make the white sauce if it isn't a concern). For the white sauce, use buttermilk in place of regular milk.

When the mushrooms are finished sauteing, clear a place in the middle of the skillet (and again, add more butter if the pan is a little dry), and add the crushed garlic. Cook the garlic for 30-60 seconds, scraping the pan if necessary (with a wooden spatula) to avoid browning or sticking.

Add the white sauce to the skillet (and sour cream if using it) to stop the garlic from cooking. Add the red wine, soy sauce (or tamari), and dijon mustard.

Mix everything around to combine, and taste the stroganoff for seasoning. You will very likely need to add salt and black pepper. Remember, you'll be serving this over pasta, so the stroganoff itself should literally burst with flavor.

Once the pasta is ready and plated, and all other side dishes are cooked and on the table, add the sliced meat to the hot stroganoff. Mix around for 2-3 minutes until the meat is hot—but still pink. Taste it to make sure you don't have any cold spots, and to make any final seasoning adjustments.

Serve immediately over the pasta, and garnish with a little chopped fresh parsley for good measure.

Recipe: Camp Dutch Oven French Fries

2010-02-06T10:22:00.002-07:00

French fries are nutritious, healthy, gluten-free, and insanely tasty if cooked properly. In a word, French fries can be exceptional. Exceptional French fries are not embarrased to share a plate with filet mignon, chateaubriand, ribeye steaks, and even the snootiest burgers. But exceptional French fries don't just spring out of thin air. Especially when you're camping.

While exceptional oven-roasted French fries are pretty straight forward, when you're cooking over an open fire out in the woods, it's a different story. I had worked out a skillet fried version of campfire French fries last spring, but when I received my new camp dutch oven for Christmas this year, I thought I had better experiment some more. The beauty of the camp dutch oven is that it allows for true roasting and baking, since you can pile hot coals on top of the lid.

Here's how to achieve exceptional roasted French fries over an open fire:

Ingredients

2-3 large russet potatoes (for an 8-quart dutch oven)
oil
kosher salt
Canadian steak seasoning

Procedure

Git you a campfire started. In this particular case, Will Cash and I were up at Rocky Mountain National Park. It was January. We were at 8,000 feet. It was about 10 degrees.

Will, sensibly, began by clearing snow out of the fire ring. He then set up and lit the fire, and fed it for a half hour until we had a nice big bed of coals.

While your fire is being prepared (ideally, by your five-year-old), cut the potatoes into skin-on "steak fries". Add a good coating of oil to the camp dutch oven (an eighth of an inch or so), and toss in the potatoes. Season the raw fries generously with kosher salt and Canadian steak seasoning (or just pepper and granulated garlic).

If you have the luxury of a U.S. Forest Service campfire ring-plus-grill contraption, you can probably place your camp dutch oven right on top of the grill. Adjust heat as necessary by ading or removing coals from under the grill. Start with less heat than you think you need! You should have no open flame, and your bed of coals should be pretty sparse.

If you don't have a fire ring with a grill, simply clear out an area of coals on one side of your fire, and then replace a few coals in the cleared out area. Because the ground near the fire will also have heated up, and the fire will be in close proximity, you don't need many coals under the dutch oven.

Place the lid on the dutch oven with the writing facing you (mine says "Lodge" and "12" since it is a 12-inch in diameter Lodge dutch oven). Pile as many coals on top of the dutch oven lid as you can fit, and cook the French fries for 7 minutes or so.

Lift the lid to check on the fries, and stir them around a bit to make sure they aren't burning on the bottom. Rotate the base of the dutch oven about 90 degrees, and place the lid down with the writing facing you (since you rotated the base, keeping the lid facing you will have the effect of rotating the lid relative to the food inside). Check on the French fries every 7-8 minutes, and each time you do, stir the fries around, rotate the base of the dutch oven 90 degrees, and replace the lid with the text facing you.

Camp dutch oven roasted French fries will take 20-30 minutes to cook. Because of the thermal mass of the camp dutch oven, you can hold your fries for 10-20 minutes in summer, or 5 minutes in winter, while you finish cooking the rest of the meal. That said, these fries are best when served nearly immediately... so once they are browning nicely and nearing completion, you can start grilling your burgers so everything is ready to serve at the same time.

If your French fries are cooking too quickly (often the bottom of the dutch oven gets too hot), pull the dutch oven off the fire, and re-arrange your coals as necessary to reduce the heat. In this too-much-heat scenario, be sure to stir the fries around more frequently to avoid burning.

Serve with tomato ketchup (and a burger) immediately! Eat quickly so your food doesn't freeze.

Recipe: The Definitive Hot Toddy

2010-02-04T21:04:00.001-07:00

I know this recipe has nothing to do with cast iron... but friends and family ask for my hot toddy recipe often enough that I thought I'd post it here for easy reference.

This medicinal drink is the perfect thing if you have a cough, sore throat, the flu, a cold, or general malaise. It will cure most sore throat issues directly. And rest assured that if it doesn't, you won't care!

Ingredients

3 tablespoons (give or take) of honey
4 ounces brandy, rum, or whiskey
juice from 1/2 half fresh lemon
cloves
cinnamon
nutmeg

Procedure

Add honey to a glass—about an inch of it in your standard rock glass. Then add the brandy on top—about an additional inch and a half. Add a few whole cloves, a dash of nutmeg, and a cinnamon stick.

Heat the glass in the microwave for about 45 to 60 seconds. Watch the glass closely! It will boil over very quickly once it heats up. When the liquid has just started to boil, pull it out, juice the half-lemon into your hot toddy, and drink it immediately. You have to drink around the whole cloves anyhow, so don't worry about the lemon seeds.

The healing power of this hot toddy comes from it being just barely on the drinkable side of hot. Re-heat if necessary to keep it hot.

If you don't have access to a microwave, you can simply heat the honey, brandy, and spices on the stovetop, and then add them to the glass... and proceed with adding the lemon.

WARNING: This recipe will absolutely impair your ability to operate machinery. It may also make dumb ideas seem like good ones. Time for bed now.

Recipe: Pancakes

2010-01-31T09:46:00.004-07:00

If you're looking to ditch the wheat, check out my gluten free pancake recipe.

There are two secrets to perfect cast iron griddle pancakes: 1) keep the heat low, and 2) make sure the griddle surface is shiny with oil every time you pour the batter.

I spent a few winters in Alaska about 60 miles from the nearest grocery store. We ate pancakes for 2-3 meals a day. They're cheap, tasty, and you can experiment with endless additions and variations.

This is a straight-up no chaser pancake recipe that very closely parallels most other from-scratch recipes I've seen. If you're after large pancakes, you can make the batter a little thinner so they spread on the griddle.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt (not kosher)
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1 egg
1 1/4 cups milk

Procedure

Heat a cast iron griddle (or skillet) on low to medium-low heat. While the griddle is warming (it will take 7-10 minutes to heat up), mix your dry ingredients together thoroughly in a mixing bowl. Once they are mixed, make a well in the center of the dry ingredients to hold the wet ones. Set the dry ingredients aside.

In another bowl, beat the egg, and then add the milk. Melt the butter in a small dish or saucepan.

Always start your cast iron cooking with a shiny pan. To make your cast iron griddle shiny, drop 15 or 20 drops of oil onto it, and then wipe the surface with a paper towel to spread the oil evenly. You'll know when the griddle is hot enough for pancakes when a drop of water tossed on the surface crackles and evaporates immediately.

As the griddle comes up to heat, go ahead and combine your ingredients by first pouring the milk and eggs into the dry ingredients, and then pouring in the melted butter. Mix everything to combine, but don't over-mix. A few lumps are fine.

Drop spoonfuls of batter onto the oiled griddle to make your pancakes. Give them enough room to they don't stick to each other. They'll probably cook 2-3 minutes on the first side. You can always check the undersides for color, and they will usually start to send bubbles to the surface when they are ready to flip.

Flip pancakes, and cook for another 1-2 minutes on the griddle. Cooking time will depend on thickness. Re-oil the griddle before each new batch. If your griddle or skillet gets too hot, pull it off the heat (and also turn down your burner), and give it a few minutes to cool down before proceeding. Never pour water into hot cast iron... but you can set it outside (if it's cold) to bring the heat down more quickly.

If you're cooking for a crowd, hold the pancakes in the oven at 200 degrees F (or less, if you can). Place the pancakes directly on the oven rack—not in a dish (or they'll get soggy). In this case, you can pull them off the griddle a little earlier since the first few rounds will continue to cook some in the oven.

Serve with warm syrup and butter.

Recipe: Cast Iron Skillet Corn Bread

2010-01-26T21:16:00.003-07:00

Cast iron skillet corn bread ready for serving.

Corn bread made in a cast iron skillet is a fine side dish to just about any meal. It goes especially well with dutch oven chili, red beans and rice, and blackened fish. This combination of New World maize and Old World cast iron cookware dates back to at least the 1600's in North America.

True to its pilgrim roots, this from-scratch recipe features only the basics: corn meal, flour, butter, salt, baking powder, brown sugar, milk, and an egg. It's really easy, and gets you from hungry to eating corn bread in about 22 minutes.

The key to outstanding cast iron corn bread is to start things off on the stovetop. Pouring your batter into an already-hot cast iron skillet adds body to each slice in the form of a toothsome bottom crust. It also introduces a nice nutty flavor since the butter added to the hot skillet browns a bit before the cold batter brings the temperature down. This method also eliminates any sticking that could occur if you added cornbread batter to a cold cast iron skillet.

I like to cut my corn bread into slices right there in the skillet, and serve it in place. Keeping it in the skillet makes a nice presentation, and keeps the corn bread warm until it's time for seconds (and there will be seconds!).

Ingredients

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour (also works dandy with gluten free all-purpose flour)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon table salt (or 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 cup whole milk (2% and skim are also acceptable)
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter (half a stick)
1 tablespoon butter (for the hot skillet)

Process

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. While the oven is warming, combine all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Make yourself a little well in the middle to hold the wet ingredients (shown above, at right).

Heat a medium cast iron skillet on the stove at medium high heat. While the pan is heating, melt your butter in a separate dish, and combine the beaten egg with the milk. Once the cast iron skillet is just starting to smoke, pour the milk and egg mixture into the well in the dry ingredients, and then add the melted butter last. Mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon until just combined.

Add a tablespoon-sized pat of butter to the hot cast iron skillet (it'll be rolling smoke at this point), and swish it around for even coverage. A little browning of the butter is ideal, but you don't want it to burn. Pour in the corn bread batter, and then transfer the skillet to the oven to finish.

Bake until a knife or toothpick comes out clean, or about 16-18 minutes.

Slice the cornbread like a pie right in the skillet, and serve hot with butter and honey.

Recipe: Grilled Cheese with Avocado

2010-01-24T14:17:00.001-07:00

Grilled cheese sandwiches are a mainstay of our family's lunch menu. They're quick, tasty, and always a crowd-pleaser with the kids and their friends.

There are two essential maxims that must be followed to achieve Cast Iron Skillet Grilled Cheese Sandwich Nirvana (CISGCSN):

Use lots of (real) butter
Keep the heat low so the cheese melts before the bread burns

Ingredients

2 slices of bread
A few slices of your favorite cheese
2 hefty pats of butter
Half an avocado, sliced

Procedure
Always start your cast iron cooking with a shiny pan. If your pan is dull, put 8-10 drops of oil into it and rub it around with a paper towel.

Heat a small cast iron skillet on medium-low heat, and throw the first pat of butter into the pan. As soon as the butter has melted, swish it around, and then put your first slice of bread into the pan. Place your slices of cheese on the bread slice, and then add the slices of avocado.

Add the second slice of bread on top, and place the second hefty pat of butter in the middle of it. As soon as you have the slightest bit of browning on the bottom (first) slice, flip the sandwich over.

Grill the sandwich until all of the cheese is thoroughly melted. Be sure to flip the sandwich every minute or two to avoid burning.

Serve immediately (with a pickle).

Recipe: Camp Dutch Oven Enchiladas

2010-01-23T10:08:00.003-07:00

The camp dutch oven is a beautiful piece of equipment for car camping, raft trips and even canoe trips (with short portages). Enchiladas are nearly always a crowd pleaser if done right, and they're quick-cooking and not too hard to prepare. If you don't have a dutch oven, there's a recipe for skillet enchiladas, too.

The secret to excellent enchiladas is excellent enchilada filling. You can use just about anything to fill your enchiladas... just make sure you taste it before you start filling the tortillas. Your enchilada filling should be tasty enough that you'd want to eat a bowl of it.

This recipe uses Derek's (almost) Famous Seasoned Pinto Beans, but you can substitute 2 (15 ounce) cans of drained and rinsed pinto, black, or other beans. You can also use 2 pounds of ground meat such as beef, turkey, or buffalo—or a mixture of beans and ground meat.

Caramelized onions are a great way to add flavor and complexity to your enchilada filling. The sweetness of the onion tends to balance out and extend the generally salty taste of the filling. Diced tomatoes wouldn't be out of place. Nor would caramelized peppers or other veggies. Rice is a fine enchilada filling. I've even used squash and Swiss chard. I've included the seasonings I use in my pinto beans in this recipe to provide guidance in case you're using canned beans or other ingredients.

Don't forge to taste your filling.

For this recipe, you want to end up with about 3 cups of total filling (roughly 1/3 cup per tortilla). If you somehow end up with too much filling, even better! Just freeze it (assuming you're near a freezer) flattened in a Ziploc bag.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of cooked (nice and soft) pinto beans
1 small onion, chopped or sliced
2 slices of bacon
salt
black pepper
granulated garlic
chili powder
cumin
10 corn tortillas
Canola oil
1 can (about 2 cups) enchilada sauce
1 pound grated jack cheese

Procedure
If you're new to camp dutch oven cooking, there are many great resources online, including Dutch Oven Cooking 101 from the Missouri Department of Conservation.

For the Filling

Heat your camp dutch oven over medium heat, which can be obtained with either 8 (burning) charcoal briquettes placed underneath, or a pile of wood charcoal (from a "real" fire) that's about 50% more volume than 8 briquettes would be. The reason for the extra volume when using real wood charcoal is that briquettes contain additives like coal dust, sodium nitrate, borax, parrafin, and other petroleum products—which make them burn hotter and longer than wood.

To begin, slice the bacon into small pieces (maybe a quarter inch wide) and toss it into the heated dutch oven. Saute the bacon until it's halfway-cooked and has rendered some liquid fat. Add in your chopped or sliced onion. Keep an eye on your heat, and add or remove coals as necessary to speed things up or to prevent burning. Once the onions have turned translucent and are beginning to brown, and the bacon is pretty well cooked, add beans, meat or any other filling ingredients.

Cook any meats through, and then season to taste with chili powder, cumin, garlic, salt, and pepper. Remember, the flavor of this filling is in large part the flavor of your enchiladas, so taste the filling, and don't skimp on seasoning! Set the filling mixture aside in a place that it'll stay warm—like covered in another cooking pot and surrounded by a sleeping bag.

For the Tortillas
Wipe out the dutch oven with a cloth, or rinse with a little water to get the big chunks out. Add an eighth of an inch of oil, and let it heat up. You may need to add more wood charcoal (or replace dying briquettes with fresh ones) under the dutch oven to keep the heat up. Once the oil is hot (but not smoking), lay each tortilla in the oil for about 30 seconds per side. Some calm bubbling is what you are after here, but not browning or crisping. Gently fry all of the tortillas. Wipe out any excessive oil left in the dutch oven and remove from heat.

Assembling the Enchiladas

Pour about half of your enchilada sauce into the bottom of the dutch oven. Take each tortilla, lay in a good bit of cheese, add filling mixture, roll it up, and place it in the sauced dutch oven seam side down. Use about 3/4 of your cheese for filling, and reserve the rest to put on top.

Pack the enchiladas in until the dutch oven is full, and then cover with remaining sauce. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top, cover, and then bake at 325 degrees F (or so) for 35 minutes (or so).

To get 325 degrees in a 12-inch camp dutch oven, use 8 charcoal briquettes underneath and 16 on top.

Again, if using a wood fire, place the dutch oven over a pile of mature coals that has about 50% more volume than 8 briquettes would, and pile coals on the lid to equal about 16 briquettes plus 50%. Check the dutch oven every 5-10 minutes to make sure your enchiladas aren't burning (usually observable by rigorous sauce-bubbling in one or more spots).

Rotate the dutch oven 90 degrees every 7-8 minutes, and at the same time rotate the lid 90 degrees in the other direction. The idea here is to even out hot spots below and above your food. Slower cooking is better, so don't be afraid to remove the dutch oven from heat if you suspect burning.

When the enchiladas are hot after 30 or 40 minutes... you're ready to eat!

Article: Ignite Boulder 7 Video - the official one

2010-01-18T21:09:00.006-07:00

The wonderful people at Ignite Boulder have posted the "official" videos from Ignite Boulder 7 (with much better sound quality than the silly iPhone video of my presentation that I posted earlier).

So here's the high-quality version of "Cast iron Cookware: Why Your Great-Grandma Schools Your Ass on Sustainability.

Hey, and don't be afraid to rate it! Thanks.

Oh, and by the way, to understand in context my seemingly off-color comment about sexual relations with poultry... you have to see Peter McGraw's Preso: "From Wrong to Funny".

Recipe: Derek's (almost) Famous Pinto Beans - Crock Pot Method

2010-01-15T20:54:00.002-07:00

We eat a lot of beans in our house. And no, that doesn't mean we bust ass all the time! Properly soaked pinto beans shouldn't give you any more gas than other foods.

These beans are used in tons of other recipes, so make a bunch and freeze 'em for later. This recipe can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, or even sextupled. Seriously.

If you don't happen to have any Dr. Deke's Cast Iron Smoked Spice Mixture on hand (i.e., if you have a life), just season the cooking water to taste with salt, red and black pepper, cumin, granulated garlic, and chili powder. Add enough salt so it tastes like a too-salty soup.

Remember, there's a lot of pinto bean flesh that needs flavoring... so the flavor of the water should be bold.

Check it:

Ingredients

24 oz (3 cups) dry pinto beans
3 tablespoons kosher salt
3 Tablespoons Dr. Deke's Cast Iron Smoked Spice Mixture
72 oz water (for cooking, does not include water used for soaking the beans)

Procedure
Brine dry pinto beans overnight in 72 oz. of water with 3 tablespoons kosher salt (or 1 1/2 tablespoons table salt). Discard water and rinse beans. Add all ingredients (including a fresh 72 oz. of water) to the crock pot, and cook on low for 10-12 hours. Drain if necessary.

Makes enough for a 9 X 13 inch casserole pan of enchiladas. Unless we are using them right away, we usually freeze the pinto beans (flat) in a gallon Ziploc. This method allows you to easily break off chunks for use at any time (without having to thaw the whole bag).

Great for enchiladas, fajitas, tacos, bean quesadillas, chili, and more.

Recipe: Dr. Deke's Cast Iron Smoked Spice Mixture

2010-01-15T17:55:00.002-07:00

We use this spice mixture to flavor pinto beans primarily, but it's great as an addition to just about any Mexican or Southwestern dish. It's smoky, flavorful, and has a nice, well-balanced heat. The secret to that balanced heat is the black pepper.

The smoking portion of the recipe tends to freak some people out, but here are two thoughts to ease your worried mind:

Once you try Weber kettle smoking, you may never go back to the culinary life you knew before. It can be habit-forming. I have yet to find a meat or vegetable that isn't outstanding when smoked. This mixture is really easy to smoke... so it's a great place to start your addiction.
If you don't have access to a Weber kettle or other smoking apparatus (or just happen to have a life), you can simply add a dose of smoked hot sauce to whatever recipe you're cooking, and scale back on the black pepper in the spice mixture. Should you choose this path, I can't recommend my favorite smoked hot sauce highly enough: Uncle Brutha's. He's got two varieties. They are both the nectar of the gods.

The mixture goes something like this:

3 parts chili powder
3 parts kosher salt (or 1 ½ parts table salt)
1 part cumin
1 part garlic powder
1 part ground black pepper
1 smidge each of ground celery seed and crushed red pepper

To smoke the mixture, start by soaking some mesquite wood chips in water for a good hour. These days, you can find smoking woods chips at most grocery stores. Of course, you can also use actual hunks of wood whacked into chips or splinters. I prefer mesquite wood chips, but you can use hickory, apple, alder, or any other common smoking wood.

While the wood chips are soaking in water, light the smoking fire in a Weber kettle (or other grill that you can cover to trap the smoke). I use hardwood charcoal chunks over charcoal briquettes to keep coal dust and God-knows-what-else out of my spice mixture, but regular old briquettes will do in a pinch. Use a chimney fire starter to kindle the fire—you don't want lighter fluid making your spice mixture taste like an oil refinery.

While your wood chips are soaking and your fire is heating up, you've got the 30 seconds you need to prep the smoking mixture. Mix all ingredients together in a medium cast iron skillet, and stir things around thoroughly.

Once the fire is ready (which will probably take something like 20 minutes), bank all of the coals against one side of your grill. Add your soaked mesquite (shown at right in the glass bowl) on top of the banked coals, and then put the cooking surface (the round grill on which you'd normally place burgers and dogs) in place.

Set the cast iron skillet (full of smoking mixture) on the far side of the grill (away from the fire), and re-cover the grill. Smoke the mixture for 2-3 hours—mixing every half hour or so to achieve an even smoke. Keep the heat low (using the vents), and turn the skillet 180 degrees with each mix to make sure the side facing the fire doesn't get too hot.

Obviously, a longer smoke leads to a smokier flavor... and a shorter one will result in a milder mix.

The key to this whole recipe is: Don't worry too much about it. Keep the heat low so you don't burn the mix... and pull it out if you think it might be burning. You can always let the fire cool and toss it back in after things calm down.

The basic smoking technique in this recipe is the same one you can use to make awesome smoked chicken, smoked prime rib, smoked salmon, and even smoked pizza. Guess I need to write up those recipes...

Equipment: Camp Dutch Oven - 8 Quart

2010-01-10T15:56:00.008-07:00

A well-seasoned camp dutch oven ready for action

Description and Uses
You can recognize a camp dutch oven by its legs—which keep it from directly contacting (and potentially crushing) any coals placed beneath it for cooking. Note: "Dutch" doesn't mean the thing came from Holland... it's a holdover from when "dutch" meant "ghetto".

Most camp dutch ovens have a lip that surrounds the top of the lid. This lip holds in place any coals placed on top of the dutch oven for baking. Legend has it that Paul Revere invented the lipped dutch oven lid.

Most camp dutch oven lids are designed for use as a griddle by flipping it upside down. Its slightly concave surface means everything slides to the center... but it works well for cooking eggs, bacon, pancakes, and more.

A camp dutch oven is used for outdoor cooking. Most authorities and cookbooks follow the charcoal briquette method. This means you ignite charcoal briquettes like you'd use in your household barbeque, and then strategically place them under and on top of the camp dutch oven to achieve the right temperature for whatever it is you are cooking.

You can also cook using a regular old campfire, and place wood coals on top for baking (shown at right). If using real wood charcoal, increase volume of coals from any recipe by about 50% over the volume of called-for briquettes. The reason for the extra volume when using real wood charcoal is that briquettes contain additives like coal dust, sodium nitrate, borax, parrafin, and other petroleum products—which makes them burn hotter and longer than wood. You can also place your dutch oven into a spot recently cleared of fire to add bottom heat.

Some folks hang their dutch oven from a tripod for campfire cooking (which allows you to control heat by raising and lowering the dutch oven). Others nestle their camp dutch ovens among the coals of a settled fire (also shown at right), or build supports using rocks. You can, of course, place the camp dutch oven directly on a metal grate over a campfire.

You can also use your camp dutch oven as a slow cooker / crock pot. To do this, dig a hole in the ground that's about 6 inches deeper than your dutch oven, and light a fire in the hole. Once the fire has burned to coals, remove half of those coals, leaving a base of about 3 inches at the bottom of the hole. Place the dutch oven (full of food) on top of the bottom layer of coals, and then pile the remaining coals on top (perhaps another 3 inches). Pile a few inches of dirt on top of the top layer of coals, and then cover it all with wet burlap to prevent sparks. Dig it back up in 10 hours. The effect approximates a slow cooker set on "low".

Specifications
Inside bottom diameter: 9 1/2 inches
Outside top diameter: 12 1/2 inches
Depth: 5 inches

Care and Maintenance
In general, follow standard care instructions for bare cast iron. Of course, if you're camping, you may not have access to a sink, stove top, or oven. The basics are: 1) wash dirt, ashes, and food from the camp dutch oven with hot water and a non-abrasive (plastic bristles) scrubber, 2) dry with heat (in the sun, or over the fire), and then 3) oil the dutch oven inside and out so it's nice and shiny.

Always start your cooking with a shiny dutch oven to keep it nonstick.

Recipe: Gluten Free Fettucini Alfredo with Shrimp

2010-01-03T14:12:00.012-07:00

Let me just say that old Alfredo had his "A game" on when he invented his famous Fettucini. NOTE: This rendition is gluten free, but you can just use regular semolina pasta and all-purpose flour if you don't mind the wheat. In either case, the results are outstanding. I'm just sayin'.

Fettucini Alfredo hails from Rome, and seems to have first appeared on the scene in 1914.

It all began with a dude named Alfredo di Lelio who was running a restaurant called Alfredo alla Scrofa.

In an attempt to provide sustenance to his pregnant wife, Alfredo di Lelio had the brain flash of adding more butter to an existing traditional Italian recipe known as fettucini al burro (fettucini with butter). It seems that fettucini al burro only added butter twice during preparation, and this just wasn't cutting it for di Lelio's wife. Alfredo wisely added a third round of butter and made his wife (and much of the Western world) very happy.

In its original Italian incarnation, Alfredo sauce was made of just butter and Parmesan cheese. Most Americans, however, (myself included) are used to Alfredo sauce being a velvety white concoction that is based on a cream sauce or white sauce. I've always made Fettucini Alfredo using a white sauce (and my wife has liked it quite a lot, especially when pregnant). So this recipe is American-style...

Ingredients

3 Cups basic white sauce (see my recipe for gluten free basic white sauce)
2 Cups grated Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
Olive oil
1/4 Cup dry white wine (like Chardonnay)
A pound or so of large raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined (sizes 11-15 or 16-20 per pound are best)
A pound or so of gluten free fettucini pasta (Use Tinkyada brand, everything else tastes like cardboard)
1/2 Cup finely chopped onion
1/4 Cup minced or crushed garlic
Juice from 1/2 lemon

Procedure

Make the basic white sauce, and then begin incorporating the grated Parmesan cheese into it slowly—one small handful at a time. The white sauce should be near boiling (but not actually boiling) while you incorporate the cheese. Make sure all cheese has melted before you add the next handful. Don't rush this step... if you do you'll get congealed Parmesan blobs instead of a thick, creamy sauce. As long as the white sauce is nice and hot, you can keep slowly adding Parmesan. This step may take 20 minutes or more. Parmesan is the primary flavor source of this dish, so don't skimp!

While you are incorporating the Parmesan into the white sauce, boil water for pasta. Be sure to salt the pasta water generously. The water should taste like a too-salty soup when you dip your finger into it. The pasta won't have time to soak up seasoning from the Alfredo sauce prior to serving, so it is important to get salt into the pasta during boiling

Once the white sauce is flavorful and cheesy, add salt and pepper to taste (the salt will boost and brighten the flavor from the Parmesan cheese). Also add a tiny dash of nutmeg to the sauce at this time. Nutmeg adds a touch of refinement to an Alfredo sauce, similar to how wine adds refinement to many other sauces and dishes. Something about the nutmeg's gentle spice helps round out the creamy Parmesan flavor of Fettucini Alfredo. Trust me.

Once the pasta is done, drain it and then oil it lightly to prevent sticking. Put it back in the pot you boiled it in to keep warm until you're ready for it.

Now, before you embark on the "shrimp finale" of this dish, make sure the table is set, all other side dishes are finished and ready to serve, and your guests have been rounded up from out on the parapet. Get your shrimp, chopped onion, crushed garlic, and white wine ready. Juice the half-lemon into a small bowl so it's ready, too.

Shrimp go from raw to overcooked and rubbery very quickly. You have a bit more leeway with larger shrimp, but even so you'll need to be careful and move quickly. As with most cooked seafood, you'll be pulling the shrimp when they are still slightly under-cooked on the inside. By the time they get into the dish and onto people's plates, the shrimp will be cooked perfectly.

The shrimp finale goes like this:

Pour the Alfredo sauce into your fettucini, and stir things around a bit to combine thoroughly. If for some reason things are out of balance and you are short on sauce, add milk or cream, and more salt to stretch it a bit. Make sure the pasta and sauce are hot enough to serve. If you're using a serving dish, you may want to warm it up so it doesn't cool the finished pasta down.

In a large stainless steel saute pan, heat olive oil on medium heat. You want about 1/8 inch of oil in the bottom of the pan. Let the pan heat until the oil is shimmering and watery, which will probably take 5-7 minutes.

Once the pan has come up to heat (note: you're now about 3 minutes from serving the dish), add the shrimp, garlic, and onion. Heat the shrimp on one side until they are pink, which will take between 45 seconds and 1 minute. Flip each shrimp individually, and move them around to ensure even heating (the shrimp in the center of the pan will cook more quickly than those at the edges).

While you're in there with the tongs, don't be afraid to move the onions and garlic around to ensure even cooking. Give the shrimp another minute at most, then pull them out of the pan with tongs, and set aside in a glass bowl covered with foil. You may still see patches of grey, uncooked flesh on the sides of the shrimp... that's fine. The shrimp should spend (total) about 2 minutes in the pan cooking, and no more than 3 minutes.

Stir around the onions and garlic for another 30 seconds or so to finish them off. Hopefully at this point you have some nice browning on the bottom of the pan, and the onions and garlic are starting to caramelize.

Deglaze the hot pan by adding the white wine and lemon juice to it, and scrape any remaining browned bits off the bottom of the pan (use a wooden scraper, not metal!). The deglazing should take no more than 30 seconds, otherwise your deglazing liquid will evaporate (if this happens, just hit the pan again with more white wine, and then pull it from the heat). Pour the deglazing liquid (with onions and garlic) as well as the shrimp (and any accumulated juice) into the pasta. Stir things around and serve immediately.

If you like, garnish by sprinkling fresh chopped Italian parsely, thyme, or basil on top. You could also toss on more grated Parmesan cheese.

Viva Alfredo di Lelio!