The Case for Cast Iron Cookware

After my grandparents passed away, I inherited a heavy, black, crusty and well seasoned cast iron skillet from the estate. At the time, I didn't think about it much and it eventually got shuffled to the back of the cabinet where it was never seen.

One day I was cooking and needed an extra frying pan. All of our other frying pans were in use. I reached into the cabinet and pulled out the cast iron skillet. As I was using the skillet, I remembered my grandmother using this very pan. I then realized that it had been around for a very long time. It was solid. Sat flat on the burner and cooked evenly.  I wondered how many non-stick aluminum pans we have ended up discarding over the years because they rocked on the stove and/or were no longer non-stick. Yet this pan remained, still in excellent shape. I began looking at that pan in a different light after that day.

Since that time, the old cast iron skillet has become my favorite frying pan and I have added two other cast iron pieces to the collection, as well. I use the cast iron almost exclusively now. There are five good reasons for my abandoning the non-stick skillets.

1-  Non-stick pans eventually lose their non-stickiness. Where does all that Teflon go? My guess is that we’re eating our fair share of it. Teflon is not in one of the four major food groups and I would prefer not ingesting it.

2- The longer you use a non-stick pan, the worse it gets. The opposite is true with cast iron. The longer you use it, the better it gets – as long as it’s well cared for. Even when it's not well cared for, it is possible to rehab it and make it useful again.

3- Thin, aluminum, non-stick pans warp over time. Eventually, they no longer sit flat on the burner. I hate a pan that rocks on the burner. Cast iron remains flat.

4- Aluminum pans just don’t seem to heat evenly. The part touching the burner is always way hotter than the parts that hang off the side of the burner. This problem is compounded further if the pan is warped. The cast iron skillets conduct heat better throughout the entirety of the pan.

5-  Unlike Teflon coated pans, cast iron cookware can be scraped with metal. This means you don’t have to be picky about which cooking implements you use in the pan. (note: There are some warnings on the Internet that using a metal spatula can lead to damage of the seasoning of the pan. In my experience, a metal spatula, used reasonably, will not damage the seasoning of the pan.)

OK. Cast iron cookware is not without it's drawbacks. It's heavy, it's not perfectly stick-proof making it hard to clean at times, and it can rust if not cared for properly. These drawbacks seem small compared to the drawbacks of a non-stick pan. When presented with an option, I will reach for the cast iron every time. 

The Persimmons Are In!

A small bucket of persimmons

We have a large persimmon tree in our front yard and I can tell it's Fall when the persimmons start falling off of it. This year looks as if it will be a bumper crop! Persimmons just taste like Fall to me and I look forward to all the great goodies we can make with them; persimmon pudding, persimmon bread, I may even try my hand at persimmon wine if we get enough. That might be good.

These are the native species of persimmon, not the big Asian varieties one can buy in the grocery store. They are small, seedy and kind of a pain in the butt to use because of all the large, black seeds they contain. After we gather the fruit, we rinse and dry them, remove the tops and then throw them in our food mill to make a persimmon pulp for use in our recipes later in the year. Most don't look very nice because they are very soft and get a little mangled after falling from 20-30 feet to the ground. I grind them up anyway so it doesn't really matter what they look like.

We used to take the time to pick the seeds out of the food mill and get as much of the pulp as possible, but this year I have decided it is not worth the effort for the little bit of extra pulp we gain. I am just running the persimmons through the mill once with a big screen and discarding what doesn't go though the holes. I then run the pulp from that through a smaller screen to make it just a bit more fine. A medium Tupperware bowlful of persimmons will make enough pulp for a double batch of persimmon pudding (about 2 cups)... Mmmm Mmmmm!

If you would like to learn a little more about persimmons, read this Clemson University Info Paper. Also, here is a great persimmon pudding recipe to try from food.com:

1 cup very ripe hachiya persimmon pulp (Editor's note: Of course you can use the wild species as well)
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup milk
1/4 lb butter or 1/4 lb margarine, melted
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions:

Combine persimmon pulp with sugar.
Beat in eggs. Mix in milk, then butter.
Sift or stir flour with baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg.
Mix with persimmon mixture.
Pour batter into a well greased 9-inch square cake pan.
Bake in a 315-325°F oven for approx 60 minutes or until knife comes out clean.

Do you have a favorite use for persimmons? Leave a comment.

Home Made Yogurt is Good!!!

Just a quick update on the yogurt making from Friday evening....

On Saturday morning the yogurt was done. It had a good, yogurty taste and was a little thicker than it was as plain milk. The next step was to separate the whey from the concoction to make it a little thicker. 

To do that, I lined a screen strainer with cheese cloth and ladled the yogurt in. At first I was concerned that the cheese cloth was a little too thin and the whole mix was going to run right through but after a few minutes, the holes is the cheese cloth clogged and the clear whey started dripping from the bottom of the strainer.

Straining the whey

I let the mix drain for about 90 minutes. After it became an acceptable thickness, I scooped it into a large Tupperware container. It got even thicker after cooling in the refrigerator.

Finished Yogurt... Mmmmmm

This is probably some of the best yogurt I have ever had. I don't know if that is because I made it at home or because it is made with whole milk and is loaded with fat. It is smooth and creamy with a nice sweetness and a great vanilla taste. It was pure luck because I didn't really follow a recipe or measure the ingredients. When I was heating the milk, I added about 3/4 cup of sugar, a little honey and two dashes of real vanilla to the gallon of milk. 

Now I have a tupperware container of yogurt and a pitcher of whey that I saved from the straining process. I found this site that gives 16 ways to use the whey. I'll have to experiment with a few of these as well, but I think the most practical use for us it to give it to the animals. 

That's it for now.... Have a happy Sunday.

Adventures in Microbiology

I am trying two experiments this evening... The first is my experiment to ferment some EM-1 (I'll explain what that is later). The second is making yogurt.

Crockpot Yogurt in the making

I'll start with the yogurt since that's the easiest. Let me start by saying that I like Yoplait yogurt. I'll eat at least one cup a day with my lunch. Unfortunately, the government shutdown has impeded my ability to enjoy yogurt. You might be wondering how that could be. It's really quite simple. Because of the shut-down, our military commissaries closed and I was forced to shop at our local Food Lion grocery store. At the Food Lion, Yoplait yogurt is almost .35¢ more a cup than what we pay at the commissary. Did I mention that I was cheap? Hence, a science project is born, and let's face it, with bacteria, heat and milk, making yogurt is much more science than it is cooking.

I found the project list at the everythinghomewithcarol.com blog at this link. It was pretty straight forward. The supplies for my experiment cost about $4 which will represent a HUGE savings if it actually works. I'll update tomorrow and let you know.

My "new" bottle of EM-1 (if it works).

The second experiment is fermenting some EM-1. For those of you who are not familiar with EM-1, go to this link. I purchased a bottle of EM-1 from teraganix earlier this year for an experiment in Bokashi composting (more on that in a later post, but it is essentially a method of fermenting waste to break it down). Since that time, I've used it for a number of purposes. It's supposed to be good for the septic system so we've tried that. It's supposed to be a good pro-biotic as well. While I have not tried it personally, I have given to the animals and they have not yet died (before anyone calls PETA on me, I did some extensive literature reviews before I started feeding it to the animals). We mix it in the chickens' water and with the four-legged animals' food. I don't know if it makes them any healthier, but I guess it can't hurt.

Anyway... I digress. Today I found myself with the last 1/4 cup of EM-1 in the bottle and I started to wonder if I could culture some more. It's just some bacteria and yeast so how hard can it be, right? After a short Internet search, I found a recipe for fermenting more EM-1 at this link (third post from the bottom), so I decided to give it a shot. It seemed pretty easy... EM-1 starter, molasses and water in an air-tight bottle. We'll see how that one goes. It takes about 7 days to ferment properly at lower temperatures so I'll report back on that in a week or so.

More later....