I love cooking on an open fire.  My specialties include breakfast and Paella.  Cast Iron skillets are awesome for this sort of cooking.  When the farmer drives us down to Florida in the late winter, right around Chattanooga there are signs for a Lodge cookware factory store off the interstate.  I have for years made mention of this when we pass the billboard and the farmer, for years, has ignored my mention.  This year I was ready, I even had a chart, actually it was a list, and I was using my fingers instead of a chart, none the less, I had my reasons why we absolutely had to stop.  If worse came to worse, I had it narrowed down to the one thing I needed if I was only allowed one thing.  The one thing was the larger-than-life-too-heavy-to-pick-up skillet.  You know, in case you need to make breakfast for 40, I already went through this with the farmer.

In the back of the Lodge store, there is the scratch and dent stuff.  This is all the cast iron cast offs at about half price.  My theory is you can’t hurt cast iron so how bad can it be?  I got 3 new pieces I added to my cast iron collection and I am still looking for the defects.  They aren’t boxed up all nice and they sort of just throw ‘em at ya  when you check out but me and the farmer don’t mind, we’re tough.  The 3 new pieces I acquired are the loaf pan, skillet, and dutch oven.  The loaf pan is fantastic it makes a perfect looking loaf of bread.  I wish I would have gotten another.

Loaf pan

The dutch oven is very large.  Great for a big roast.

Dutch Oven or Casserole as my Irish cookbook calls it.

The skillet is, like I said, too heavy.  I have not had 40 people over for breakfast yet so I haven’t gotten a chance to really test it out.  If weight indicates anything though it should work just fine.

The Farm Wife