I have season tickets for the Blazers, which I failed to mention last night. Gamedays are tough for dinner as games generally start at 7, and I usually do not get home until about 6, giving me about 45 minutes to make and eat dinner. This season, instead of giving up on having decent dinners on gamedays, I am going to attempt to be prepared. Like a boy scout, I defrosted ground beef and mixed it with garlic, jalapeno, and a little bit of barbecue sauce on Monday evening so that all I had to do last night for dinner was form patties, grill them on the cast iron grill, and throw one on a bun. Quick and oh so tasty.
Since I don't have much to say about this dinner - I mean, it's a burger - I am going to talk about why cast iron cookware is the best cookware in your kitchen. If you don't have at least a 10- or 12-inch skillet, get one.
As much as I love cooking, I do not spend money collecting kitchen gadgets or new cookware. I prefer purchasing handbags and shoes to copper pans and microplane graters. Further, I believe in sticking to the basics. And when it comes to the basics, I believe firmly that a kitchen is not complete without at least one cast iron skillet.
I swear by cast iron cookware. The benefits are numerous. Cast iron is cheap and durable. I bought (or, I should say, my mom bought for me) a Lodge 12-inch skillet in 2003 for something like $20. I bet I will still be cooking with that skillet when I am 90 years old. If any of you read my best friend’s fashion blog, Style by Santina, you know that she is a firm believer of the price per use rule. At this point, the price per use on my cast iron skillet, assuming I have used it once every other day since I purchased it – a very conservative estimate – is about a penny.
Cast iron is second only, and only slightly second, to copper when it comes to heat distribution, and, having cooked with both, I argue that since the other benefits of cast iron outweigh those of copper, I prefer the cast iron. Cast iron can be transferred from the stovetop to the oven and back (see here and here), if seasoned properly it is as non-stick as any other pan, and cooking in cast iron ensures that you get enough iron in your diet, as iron slowly seeps out of the cookware into your food.
Cast iron is ideal for everything from searing to roasting, and if you invest in a grill pan or griddle, you can even add the aesthetic of grill lines, which I have to say, I love.
So, cook with cast iron. You won't regret it.
Bon appetit.
