Cast iron, the cookware of gods and cowboys!

I have a lot of cast iron cookware and use it all the time. Unfortunately not everyone cooks with cast iron because they don't know how to use it right or they are creeped out by the fact you can't wash it with soap. I love cast iron because it cooks evenly and you can get a cast iron pan way hotter than a normal on so you can get a great sear on meat! Also, and bacteria that may be on it from your last dish you cooked in it will die as soon as you eat u the skillet. It's also a budget friendly set of cookware, you can find deals on them all the time. Even the name brand Lodge ones are inexpensive, my biggest skillet cost me a little over $35 and since I take care of it, i will be able to pass it down to my children and they can pass it to theirs (if they take care of it). Some people have cast iron skillets that are pushing 80+ years old because they have been taken care of and passed down from generation to generation.

So I thought I would give a few tips on how to season and care for your cast iron so it will last.

First things first NEVER wash your cast iron with soap! Soap will do nothing but wash away the flavor and seasoning in the pan. Second even if you buy one that says "pre- seasoned", season it yourself! Third you can never have too many cast iron pans, I currently have 5:
12" skillet
6" skillet
8" chicken fryer skillet
10" square gill pan
6" segmented corn bread skillet

I use all but the last 2 (they are new) all the time!

So there is one way to season a cast iron pan but there are a few things to season it with. I personally use shortening but some people use bacon grease, lard, or vegetable oil (i don't recommend veg. oil because it smokes). No matter what you use seasoning is still done the same way.

First pre-heat your oven to 400.

Then you wipe shortening (or your grease of choice) all over the pan inside and out.

Then you pop them into the oven for 60 or so minutes. That's all there s too it!

As for cleaning your cast iron, I normally do it right after we have finished eating. Just drain everything out of the skillet weather it be oil from frying or just meat drippings. Then I put it under VERY hot water and take a stiff brush and gently scrub and chunks left from cooking then I rinse it really well with hot water. Make sure you dry it IMMEDIATELY because if not it will rust! Then before you put it away you want to coat it with a thin layer of shortening again inside and out. Make sure if you store them nested to put paper towels or something between them. I personally have mine hung on the wall in my dining room the make for great useful decor in a country themed kitchen or dining room.

So it's been a while...

Well let me start off by saying Happy New Year! I haven't blogged in so long partly because of the Holidays and part because I have been lazy lol. So I'm baaaack! Not much has changed I do have a new obsession though it's a little thing called Pintrest! I was a little late to the party with that one but I have sure made up for it! I have been pinning my little heart away new recipes, crafts, garden ideas, kids stuff for the kids I don't have, and boy oh boy is my husband in trouble with my "Dream Home" pin board! If we ever build a house I know what my dream kitchen, pantry, craft room, bathroom and laundry room look like, as far as I'm concerned those are the only rooms you need in a house anyway! As for Pintrest though it inspired me to make a monthly menu for our dinners as a family. Boy did I underestimate how frustrating that would be, trying not to make chicken 2 nights in a row and trying to find 30 different meals that I could carry over ingredients with so I'm not wasting as much as we normally do. Ugh. Me and my ideas! Well it only took like a week and I have a rough draft written up for February (with a few days missing) my only rules going into this project were:

1. I will not be cooking dinner for 30 days in a row. My brain and cookware need breaks!
2. The 2nd Monday of each month will be a Traditions night. (MMMM all you care to eat fried chicken, it's the best chicken in the whole world!)
3. Every other Wednesday will be a meatless meal. (Considering I'm not a veggie person this one wasn't thought through long enough)
4. Every other Thursday is a meal we can get from a Drive-thru. (I need French Fries to live.)
5. Every other Friday will be a fish dish.
6. Try not to repeat dishes.

I thought that would be simple! HA! I was soooo wrong. So far my "meatless" meals consist of carbs and cheese. We would be better off with meat! lol So as of right now my menu is as follows (note how many recipes come from Pintrest):

1. Crock Pot Honey Balsamic pulled pork with onion straws <Pintrest
2. Take-out
3. Tequila Lime crusted Tilapia and french fries
4. Crock Pot Ranch Pork Chops with Parmesan Mashed Potatoes <Pintrest
5. SUPER BOWL (I'm making mini food to snack on) <Pintrest
6. TRADITIONS!!!!
7. Steak with Whiskey Cream Sauce and Smashed potatoes with Garlic Aioli
8. Penne with Roasted Asparagus and Balsamic Butter Sauce <Pintrest
9. Breakfast for Dinner (anything goes!)
10. Taco Ring <Pintrest
11. Crusted Chicken with Pasta and Garlic Bread
12. Cider Braised Beef with Mashed Potatoes and Cider Gravy
13. Potato Cakes made with leftover Beef^
14. Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken with Brown Rice <Pintrest
15. Over Fried Buttermilk Chicken with Cauliflower pancakes
16. Take Out
17. Crusted Fish with Mashed Potatoes
18. Spicy Whiskey BBQ Sliders with Onion Straws and Rings
19. Pasta
20. Chinese Take Out
21. ?????
22. Mac and Cheese Cauliflower Bake <Pintrest
23. ?????
24. Homemade Burgers and Fries
25. ?????
26. ?????
27. Double Bacon Cheese Burgers with Maple Worcestershire Onions and Onion Rings
28. MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! ?????
29. ?????

So there it is...the reason I have a bald spot from pulling my hair out! Anything recipes I use from Pintrest I will have a link at the bottom of the post so you can find the original recipe, I don't want to take any credit for something I didn't come up with. :)

Peanut Butter Buckeyes

These are so so so good! They come out very creamy too, I gave one to the hubby and you know what it looks like when you give your dog peanut butter? Well that's what he looked like!

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 pound confectioners' sugar

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 package of milk or dark chocolate candy melts

1- Combine the melted butter or margarine, confectioners' sugar, peanut butter and the vanilla together and mix well. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. Roll into 1" balls and place on waxed paper.

2-  Melt your candy melts as directed on package or use a Wilton chocolate melter. Use a toothpick to dip balls into the melted chocolate, leaving a small uncovered area so balls resemble buckeyes. Place balls on waxed paper. Use fingers to blend in toothpick holes. Leave sit until chocolate is firm.

These also store well in a Ziploc.

Red Velvet Truffles

Little ones would love to help roll these into balls!


Prep time: 1 hour 25 minutes
Start to finish: 3 hours (these were very time consuming)
Servings: 80+
Temp: 350

Ingredients:

1 box German Chocolate cake mix
Water, vegetable oil and eggs called for on cake mix box
1 bottle (1 oz) red food color
1 tbsp unsweetened baking cocoa
1 cup of cream cheese frosting (1lb store bought container)
3 bags of white or green candy melts (I find A.C Moore has the best deals on these during the holidays)
Sprinkles

1- Heat oven to 350. Spray a 13x9" cake pan with baking spray (I used the stuff with flour. In a large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil, eggs, food coloring and cocoa with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour into pan.

2- Bake 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan on cooling rack.

3- Lay out wax paper on a table (I used my dining room table because you will need a lot of space). Cut cake into 9 squares and remove from pan and crumble into a large bowl; stir in frosting. Roll mixture into 1 1/4" balls and place on wax paper.

4- Melt candy melts as directed
**I suggest investing in a Wilton chocolate melter, they are like $20 at A.C Moore and you can use you 50% off coupon that you get in the A.C Moore ad in the Sunday paper on it. The also sell them at Walmart. They are a time saver! You just pour in your candy melts set it to melt and stir occasionally then when they are completely melted yo set it to warm and it will keep it smooth and not burn it all day long, it just takes really hot water to rinse it out so you can switch between candy melt colors!
Dip each cake ball into melted coating, tapping off excess and taking care not to get crumbs in the coating. Return to wax paper and decorate with your choice of sprinkles before coating sets. Let them set and dry for a few hours before storing them.

These store well in a Ziploc too!

Chocolate Snowballs aka: Reindeer Poop

These cookies were supposed to be dusted with powdered sugar but the hubby thought it would be better without so now I have cookies that don't look like snowballs but they do look like something else. So we have renamed this cookie to Rudolf Poop....you will see why.....

See what I mean?

Now just an FYI this year since I made over 12 different kinds of cookies I did take a little help from the store in a few recipes, like this one calls for a pre packaged cookie mix but whats nice about that is, it makes it go a little faster and by the time you are done with the recipe you would never know it started out as a pre packaged cookie mix!

Prep time: 1 hour
Start to Finish: 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings: 60
Temp: 375

Ingredients:

1 pouch (1lb 1.5oz) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
Egg and butter called for on cookie mix package
1/4 cup AP flour
1/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds (I could only find slivered and just had to chop them up myself)
1 tsp. almond extract
60 Hershey Kisses, unwrapped of course :) (Next time I think I will use Almond Hershey Kisses)
3/4 cup powdered sugar

1- Heat oven to 375. In a large bowl, stir cookie mix, egg, butter, flour, cocoa, almonds and extract with an electric mixer until soft dough forms.

2- Shape dough into 60 (3/4") balls; wrap each ball around 1 Hershey Kiss. Place on a lined cookie sheet 2" apart.

3- Bake 8-10 minutes. immediately remove from cookie sheet onto cooling racks. Cool slightly, about 5 minutes. Roll cookies in powdered sugar. Cool completely, about 15 minutes. Roll in powdered sugar again. You can also leave them plain without powdered sugar. I would suggest trying 1 cookie before rolling in sugar just to see if they are sweet enough for you.

These were also yummy and store well in a Ziploc bag.

Christmas Ball Cookies

These were very good almost like a shortbread cookie.

Prep time: 50 Minutes
Start to finish: 1 Hour 50 Minutes
Servings: 24
Temp: 350

Ingredients: (cookie)

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. almond extract
2 cups AP flour
Red, Green and White sanding sugar (make sure to get sugar that isn't mixed I made that mistake and that is why mine aren't a solid color)

1- In a large bowl, beat  butter,  powdered sugar and the salt with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes or until creamy. Beat in almond extract. on low speed beat in flour just until combined. Cover; and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2- Heat oven to 350. line cookie sheets with parchment. Shape dough in 48 (3/4") balls. Roll 16 balls in each color of the sanding sugar, coating completely. On cookie sheets, place balls 1" apart.

3- bake 15 minutes or until set and bottoms are light golden brown. Remove from cookie sheets and on to cooling racks. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Ingredients: (frosting)

1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 tbsp milk

In a small bowl, beat butter, powdered sugar, almond extract and milk with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth.

*For each sandwich cookie; spread about 1/2 tsp (I had lots leftover so you can be a little more generous) of frosting on bottom of 1 cookie; top with a second cookie of the same color bottom side down to form a ball.

These turned out so yummy and so adorable! They store very well in a Ziploc bag.

Christmas Cookie Time!

Well it's that time of year again! I love the holidays because of food, family, and the spirit of giving! Thanksgiving really kicks it off, you cook all day then eat and fall into a food coma and in my family your food coma energizes you for Black Friday shopping! We made a pretty good haul this year! We got a Cuisinart Keurig with the hot water button! James also got a RC helicopter to harass the dogs with but Sebastian has gotten pretty good at snatching it out of mid air! We also got a very good deal for a gift for my uncle I wont say what it is just in case he reads this. Then after Black Friday we start to haul out and put up all the Christmas decor as well as plan out our cookie baking strategy. We make a list check it twice and go grocery shopping. This year I shopped pretty smart I made a list of all the baking staples I.E flour, sugar, eggs, butter, brown sugar and went through every recipe and wrote under each one how much each recipe called for and other misc. stuff went at the bottom of the list and I have to say I bought enough to make all of my recipes without buying way to much, like I normally do. I only have like 3 must have items for cookie baking and that's parchment paper, wax paper and a 1" ice cream scoop. Parchment paper and wax paper and must have because it just makes your life and clean up 100% easier. An ice cream scoop because it helps you make uniform sized cookies, especially when most of your recipes call for your dough to be rolled into balls first, like most of mine did, the scoop helps a lot! I hope you try and enjoy a few or all of my Christmas cookies!!

Happy Baking!