Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramis-Hearne, a mother and daughter team from Canada, put together a wonderful cookbook with dishes prepared exclusively in a cast iron skillet. Aptly titled The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook, this tome contains plenty of recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus dessert.

The cover of the second edition

Last summer, my son asked me to stay away from nonstick cookware and cook exclusively in our cast iron skillets and Dutch oven. Thankfully, we already had several of these workhorses. I was only using them here and there. All I had to do is re-read how to clean and reseason them

This gave me the idea to look for a cookbook focusing on cast iron skillet recipes. The Lodge Cast Iron store in Pigeon Forge sells a cookbook, which you can also get online, but I found the Kramis cookbook through my Libby app. Of course, the Lodge company is in Tennessee and we are strangely proud of that, although we had nothing to do with it.

I made several recipes while I had the cookbook borrowed on the app. Now that it has expired, I will have to get a copy for myself. Lately, I have been collecting and reading cookbooks from cover to cover. There is a lot to learn, even after cooking for 30 years.

My favorite recipe in this book so far is the Dutch baby – a pancake which can be made either sweet or savory. My husband had never heard of this recipe. This made me feel better, because neither had I. And yes, my son loved the Dutch baby.