After a hard day at work, nothing relaxes me more than cooking a simple
meal and having a glass of wine. You don’t have to make it complicated
to make it good. Simple can be delicious. Open your cupboard where you
keep your pre seasoned cast iron cookware and take out your skillet. Cut up
some veges, coat them with olive oil, garlic or whatever you like and cook
them over medium heat. Tear up some good bread, add a little butter and
enjoy. Not only good, but healthy.

If you don’t like doing  a lot of cleaning up after a good meal,
try one pot cooking. A simple meal with lot of flavor can be
done in one pot. You can brown some chicken in your
cast iron pot with a little oil. Once the chicken is brown, add
some mushroom soup, carrots and celery and put it in the oven.
Cook until chicken is done. Simply take the pot to the table and serve.
Just make sure to put a trivet under the pot so you don’t hurt your
table. Now you only have 1 pot to clean instead of a pot, skillet and
serving dish.

Give the pizza delivery guy a break and make you own pizza at home. Not only will it be hot,
but you can make it your way. Everything you need is at the grocery store. I like to make my
own dough and roll it out, but if you don’t want to do that, you can buy them pre-made. Add
any ingredients you want, sausage, hamburger and vegetables. Once you have the
veges cut up, lay the rolled out dough on you cast iron pizza pan, add the sauce and your
toppings. You can put your cheese under the topping and then sprinkle some more cheese on top.
Cook in the oven at 425 degrees until the edges are a golden brown. Take out of the oven, let stand
a few minutes before cutting up an serving.

If your like us, you love comfort foods and meatloaf is one of
the best there is. Here is a healthy recipe for a turkey meatloaf.

What you will need:
1 1/2 lbs ground turkey, lean – 1 onion finely chopped
4 egg whites  -  3/4 cups old fashioned oats, uncooked
1 cup salsa – 1/4 tsp ground black pepper – 1/2 cup ketchup

Preheat you oven to 350 degrees (cooking time about 1 to 1 hour fifteen minutes)

In a mixing bowl add all ingredients except the ketchup and mix well.
Press the mixture into your cast iron loaf pan and put ketchup on top.
Bake until juice is clear and meat is not pink inside.

If you don’t tell anyone that this is a turkey meatloaf, I’ll bet you
that they won’t know the difference and it is much healthier than beef

I love to cook, but what I do not like is cleaning up all the pots and
pans after I am done. Therefore I try to come up with meals that can
be cooked in one of my cast iron pans. For breakfast, my favorite meal,
I will cook up sausage in the pan with onions and green pepper. When that
is done I will add some potatoes that I have cooked in the microwave and
cut up in small pieces. Once the potatoes are browned, I add 6-8 eggs in
the pan and stir until done. Add a little sour cream on top or your favorite
salsa and you have a great breakfast with only 1 pan to clean.

Nothing starts a Saturday morning out better than fresh hot Blueberry
muffins and they are easy to make.

What you need:
1 egg – 1 Cup milk – 1/4 cup salad oil – 2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar – 3 teaspoons baking powder – 1 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh blueberry’s or 3/4 cup drained frozen blueberry’s

Grease the bottoms of your cast iron muffin pan, heat the oven to 400 degrees
Beat the egg in a bowl and stir in milk and oil. Add remaining ingredients until
flour is moistened. Add blueberry’s and fill cups 2/3 full.
Bake until golden brown about 20 – 25 minutes.
Then enjoy!

Simple Chile Recipe that can be cooked in 1 container.
What you need:
1 pound ground beef, 1 large onion chopped, 1 green pepper chopped
1 pound 12 oz canned tomatoes, 8 oz tomato sauce
2 teaspoons chili powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon cayenne red pepper, 1 can 15.5 oz kidney beans drained.

Cook your ground beef, onion and green pepper in your cast iron dutch oven
until onion is tender and meat is browned. Drain off fat.
Add all ingredients except kidney beans and bring to a boil, then reduce heat
to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 2 hours, then add kidney beans and serve.

For added flavor put a dollop of sour cream on top.

This is a simple and inexpensive recipe that goes great with chicken
or any other type of meat. It takes about 20 to 30y minutes to prepare.

What you need.
1. White rice   2. Broccoli   3. Butter  4. Teriyaki sauce
5. 1 large onion   6. Extra virgin olive oil
Using one of your cast iron cooking pots, add 1 cup rice with 2 cups water.
Cut up Broccoli in bite size pieces and add to rice and water. Bring to boil.
After water starts to boil, put on lid and simmer until rice is tender.
While rice is cooking, chop up onion and add it to a sauce pan with 2 tablespoons
of olive oil. Cook until tender. When rice and broccoli are done, add the onions
to the pot. Stir in butter and teriyaki sauce to taste. It’s that simple. For added
taste you can sprinkle some cheddar cheese on top.

We all just got done with our Thanksgiving dinner and now we have leftovers to
eat as well. One thing we really like to do is to take the leftover mashed potatoes
and make potato cakes for breakfast. Since the potatoes were in the fridge, it
will be easy to make them into a cake. In our bowl, we add cheese and finely diced
green onions to the potato mixture. Then we heat oil on our cast iron flat grill to a
medium temperature. Put on the potato cakes and cook each side until golden
brown. If you like you can add a dollop of sour cream on the top. These go
great with eggs over easy.

Prep time 20 minutes  Cook time 20-25 minutes  Serves 9

Ingredients:
A pat of butter for greasing pan
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fresh black pepper
1 egg
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded 1 1/2 cup corn, fresh or frozen (thawed)

Cooking Directions: Preheat oven to 425, butter a 9 ” cast iron skillet and put in oven to heat.

Whisk flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt, baking soda and black pepper in a large bowl. In a separate bowl whisk egg, sour cream, 1 cup cheese and corn together, add to flour mixture. Pour into pan and sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup cheese over top. Can be served warm or at room temperature