(The five quart Lode Dutch oven. The top has no handle, so the top can be used as a skillet. This makes the DO the go-to cookware if you are on the run from Homeland Security).

This is all Ann’s fault. She is a mid-western gal, a Buckeye, for goodness sake, and when she is working the desk we talk about important things- like cast iron cookware. As you know, we are blessed to have gas ranges at Big Pink, and there is absolutely no reason not to be cooking the Old School way. This latest thing started with a discussion of re-conditioning my Erie 14-inch fry pan. I kept it in the oven rather than horse it around the kitchen- it it is a heavy rascal- and I would normally use it as the platform for my foil-pouched slow-cooked locally-produced meals.

I hadn’t cleaned the oven since I bought the old place on the fourth floor, and didn’t think when I ran the cleaning cycle.

That’s right- a decade of seasoning on the Erie went away and it was left a dull brown and un-slick color that looked like the start of rust. Ann left a copy of the New Southern living in my mailbox- she didn’t have time to get to it, and it included some great tips on reconditioning old cast iron cookware. You can still find them at swap meets and the like, and I always have my eye out for heirloom pieces that look like rusty pieces of junk.

Note to self: bore you with the saga of bringing one back on one of the coming frosty mornings.

I have been wrong before. Those who keep me honest remember my giddy exuberance over the “Swiss Diamond” fry pan with glass cover I bought when I was still living in APT 515. It was an impressively slippery pan, but sure enough, the way I cook- not to mention the sometimes caustic nature of what I cook- took care of a surface made of nature’s toughest material in about two years.

Screw it. Iron is forever and I am not going back. You can even use the sharp old spatulas for real intrusive and vigorous fry work- there is nothing to worry about in marring the expensive finish on the designer stuff they pedal.

The little eight-inch Lodge pan is my stand-by: it’s small size enforces a sort of portion control, the heavy lid keeps the moisture in if I am melting cheese on an omelet, or slow cooking some morsels. It is a great thing, and with the Erie, that about covered my needs- provided I was willing to use foil to pouch things for longer cooking in the range.

I knew I needed a dutch over, and next swap meet I was going to look for one. But the Southern Living magazine had about thirty recipes that were pure country dynamite. The one I am going to experiment with is their “Cowboy Steak,” which highlights the advantages of the heavy dutch oven for searing and preparation of things one would normally only do on the grill. Which, by the way, is the other thing that these cast-iron implements can do: put them on the grill.

My mouth was watering, and Ann had hit me right between the running lights. I did some basic research, and thought briefly about the Lodge model with the stubby little legs intended to be used right on an outdoor campfire. That is a little more Old School than I am prepared to do these days, though I will keep my eye out for an old rusty one at the flea market I can re-condition for nothing.

I got the five-quart model shown above on Amazon for $38 bucks. After looking at numerous different ones, I chose this one because of the price, the size and the versatility – the lid does not have a top handle and therefore can do double duty as a skillet.

I use the dutch oven to brown meat, make soups and quickly cook chopped veggies. Because of the 10″ diameter of the skillet, it can get very hot, which is useful when searing steaks. I have a cowboy steak recipe I have been wanting to try, an indoors thing since the communal grill is on the other side of the pool. First dish cooked was slow-cooked short ribs with tomatoes, onions and the last Habanero pepper from Tatiana’s garden.

It has a lot of applications: asparagus (for the beautiful char marks), eggs and you can even make the occasional grilled cheese sandwich. My deal is the slow-cooking- I previously wrapped stuff in foil and cooked overnight in a 14-inch iron skillet. This eliminates the need for foil, lowers my carbon footprint and stops sea-level rise.

hahaha

I also got a copy of the “Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook” advertised as “a treasury of Timeless and Delicious Recipes” for other ideas. Cornbread and a Michigan Cherry Pie like they make in Leelanau are going to be some of them, and I thought about drowning that corn break with the wonderful Habanero chili I made (and froze) last week.

You will be seeing them as I take the recipe for test drives. But the problem this week was that I haven’t had time to get to the store and lay in the stock of ingredients, so the First Cook with the Lodge Dutch oven was going to be whatever was already in the house.

I looked in the freezer. The rising cost of beef is going to make us all eat less of it, or at least cheaper cuts, and I always check out the not-quite-expired freezer section at the Commissary. You never know what you are going to find, and the last time I went by there was a bushel basket of packages of beef short ribs at a quite remarkable price. I mentally thought through what I might do with them- I like the Boar’s Head sauerkraut in the plastic bag, keeps forever, but I was between kraut dishes.

I had a bunch of cherry tomatoes that needed to meet their maker, sweet Vidalia onions, a tub of whole white mushrooms that was not going to last much longer, the last of the Habanero peppers from Natasha’s garden and a 5.5 ounce can of Mr. And Mrs. T’s bloody mary mix- 95 % juice and sea salt. They come in four packs, and I only had three of those extraordinary Bloody Mary’s with the infused Habanero Tito’s vodka the other day.

It looked like a plan for first cooking with the Dutch Oven. I took a deep breath and turned on the over, cranked it to 190 degrees and got ready.

Vic’s Shredded Short Ribs and Veggies

Ingredients:
Commissary Short Ribs, frozen or thawed. Doesn’t matter. The number of ribs determines the proportions for the rest.
Ten or twelve cherry tomatoes almost fresh from the garden
One large sweet Vadalia onion, cut course
One small tub of whole white mushrooms
One (or two for the daring) Habanero peppers
One (or two) 5.5 ounce can of Mr. And Mrs. T’s Bloody Mary Mix
Adobo seasoning
Sea Salt
Fresh ground pepper (last three to taste).

Directions:

Cut up anything that looks like it is cut-uppable
Pour a glass of crisp Old House white. Take internally.
Throw everything in the Lodge Dutch Oven.
Turn on range to 190 degrees
Go away. Finish wine, go to Willow. Whatever.
Come back in twelve hours to shut off and re-start the oven since it will turn itself off twice a day..
Get a good night’s rest.
Serve over lightly buttered Mueller’s egg noodles the next evening with another bottle of wine. Red is a good bet, maybe “12 Hands” with the ponies on the label.

If you happen to see Ann at the front desk, ask her how she liked the tub I took down to demonstrate that I had accepted her challenge. She said it was pretty good, and that his high praise indeed from an authentic Buckeye gal.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303