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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Dutch oven or Crock Pot?

Some people cook almost exclusively in a crock pot, and can't imagine cooking in anything else.

But did you know that the cast iron pot, WAS the original crock pot? In the old days, people "slow cooked" all day in their dutch ovens, on low heat. Anything that can be cooked in a crock pot, can be cooked in a cast iron pot on low heat.

There's a very handy conversion chart here.

Although I cook almost exclusively in cast iron, I do have crock pots, and occasionally I use them, such as for boiling peanuts, cooking dried beans, and scratch tomato sauce.

My rule of thumb is, if I'm cooking during the day and will be at the house, I'll use the cast iron. If it needs to cook overnight, or I can't be there all day, I'll use the crock pot, even though I do prefer food cooked in cast iron.

So the stock I'm making, I did start out in a cast iron pot, but I want to try simmering all night, so it's in the crock pot now.



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