Dutch Oven recipes for summer and winter

[savingdogs]

I just got an awesome little dutch oven, cast iron, on sale. I would like to make things by campfire and also in or on the woodstove either during a power outage or just to save energy. Obviously in the summer we would be cooking outside.

Anyone have any great recipes or tips for usage for me?

I have the kind of wood stove that you kind of fill up with wood, there isn't much room for this inside, I would think it would need to go on top.

But I remember eating a pineapple upsidedown cake one time in a dutch oven made when we were camping, and man oh man, was that yummy!

 

[Farmfresh]

I'll post one of my favorites for the Dutch oven first.

Slow Roasted Herbed Chicken

1 nice fat chicken (old hens work especially well in this recipe)
1 small onion halved
minced garlic
lemon thyme
sage
marjoram
rosemary
black pepper
celery - chunked
potatoes - chunked
carrots - chunked
butter
water
NO salt until you are ready to serve

Rinse off the chicken and pat it dry. Butter the outside of the chicken thoroughly. Stuff the onion inside of the chickens body cavity. Place it in the Dutch oven. Sprinkle the chicken with the herbs. Add plenty of garlic and pepper. Surround the chicken with the vegetable chunks and add about an inch of water to the bottom of the pan. Add the cast iron lid and put into a 300 degree oven. Let this cook about 2 or 3 hours. At the end of the cooking time remove the lid and put the chicken under the broiler to brown. Salt the chicken.

You will have to serve it out of the Dutch oven. It will be falling off of the bones.

 

[savingdogs]

Thanks, Farmfresh. Do you think this recipe would also work on top of the woodstove? I don't know what the temp would actually be, but my dutch oven has little legs so it would not sit directly on the metal. We found last year that regular pans got too hot sitting directly on it so I chose that one, but it could also go inside the oven.

It is supposed to be "pre seasoned" but I'd like to break it in carefully.

It also says not to use anything scratchy to clean it, but it seems like stuff will get BAKED on, won't it?

 

[Farmfresh]

Should work just fine. Just keep the temps fairly low.

The best thing to season cast iron VERY thoroughly is to fry. Fried chicken, fried fish or best of all bacon!!

Don't ever let it soak in a sink (it will turn into a rust pile that you will have to re-season) or store it with the lid on. Cast iron must breathe. I store my pans upside down and leaning on the lids.

If you have something stick to the pan I put some water in it and heat it up a bit, then scrub it with a plastic mesh scrubber. I wash my pans with hot water - period. Very, very rarely I will use a bit of dish soap. If I do that I rinse well and then after I dry it (I always heat them on a burner a bit to speed dry them), I will wipe it with a bit of olive oil before I put it away.

In the old days Grandma Nettie used to tell me about putting the pans INTO the fireplace and burning all of the stuff completely off then re-seasoning.

Once the pan gets really seasoned, nothing will stick... not eggs, not baked cheese, not apple dumplings. MUCH better than a "non-stick" plastic shedding pan. The only thing my pan sheds is iron, and I need that for my body.

Also the weight and density of the pans means far less scorching food.

 

[Farmfresh]

my dutch oven has little legs so it would not sit directly on the metal.

Technically this type of Dutch oven is called a "spider". They are even more useful because you can cook directly IN a campfire.

 

[savingdogs]

my dutch oven has little legs so it would not sit directly on the metal.

Technically this type of Dutch oven is called a "spider". They are even more useful because you can cook directly IN a campfire.

It looked that way to me, yes, mine is a spider.....and since my woodstove gets extremely hot, I was hoping it would help slow the heating just a tad.

That is interesting you could put one inside and just burn off everything and reseason. That is awfully good to know. I'm notorious for forgetting things on the stove and burning them. And I don't hear timers very well so they don't work for me.....

Bacon, hmmmmmm? maybe I'll have to fry some up in it tomorrow morning.

 

[Dawn419]

Give me a few days to hunt it up but one of our local sales rags has a weekly (or so) bit about dutch oven cooking. Of course I saw your post and got excited and do you think we have one of those papers handy (like we usually do)? Nope, they're out sitting in a 5 gallon bucket of water waiting to be added to the garden.

We're going to mom's today and she always has the paper for us so I'll post the website when we get home!

 

[freemotion]

Most crockpot recipes will work in a Dutch oven. I LOVE mine! I do large roasts and can sometimes fit 3 roosters in there. It is a great way to cook grass-fed meats, long and slow.

As for the too-hot wood stove top, go to TSC or find a local horse shoer and get one or two new horse shoes. Set them on top of the stove to lift the pans a bit off the heat.

 

[freemotion]

Oh, and if needed, I've been known to scrub my cast iron pots with a metal pot scrubber. Just re-season. The best things to season with are lard and tallow. Forget veg oils. They make a thick coating. Animal fat is best. Bacon grease will work, too.

 

[valmom]

I was also going to add- vegetable oils get gummy and really icky when I seasoned with them. I tried it with one pan, and I had to strip it all over again after storage.