Potato Donuts

This recipe is an old favorite in our area.  Our recipe card says that our family got it from Ruth Anne Huff, who is a really sweet lady and a retired school cook.  She lived between my aunt and uncle and my great-great-aunt and uncle while I was growing up.  I'm pretty sure, though, that the recipe is also the same one that the Hazel Dell Extension Club used to make as a fundraiser when they would provide the concessions for a local sale.  Either way, it is an oldie but a goodie.

Just a fair warning up front: I wouldn't recommend trying this alone.  I've never made them by myself, and I have no desire to.  When you get to the point where you are cutting out the donuts, frying them, and glazing them, an extra pair of hands or two is most welcome.

Special note for my fellow wood cookstove cooks: Have PLENTY of smaller sticks and split pieces of wood ready.  In both of the wood cookstoves that I have fried donuts on, it takes a LOT of fuel to keep the oil hot enough to fry all of these properly!

Here is what you will need:

2 packages (2 TBLSP.) yeast
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups scalded milk, cooled to just warm
1/2 cup shortening (butter is better)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups mashed potatoes
4 beaten eggs
10-12 cups flour (We use bread flour for improved tenderness.)

Other food ingredients:
Oil or other fat for frying (I'd plan on a half gallon.)
sugar for rolling--OR--powdered sugar, vanilla, and a little butter for glazing

Our recipe did not come with directions, but here is what we do:

1. Scald the milk.  I do this in a heavy bottomed saucepan directly over the firebox.  You know it is scalded when tiny bubbles form around the edge of the pan or a scum forms across the top.  Remove from the fire.



2. While the milk is on the stove, dissolve the yeast in the 1/2 cup of warm water in your largest mixing bowl.  Don't mess around with any little bowl here; I'm not even sure that a half batch would fit in a standard mixer bowl.

3. Usually, I use leftover mashed potatoes that have been refrigerated. Since I don't want the cold potatoes to lower the temperature of the dough and thereby make the rising process longer, I like to put the cold mashed potatoes into the hot milk.  This cools the milk quickly and speeds the whole process along.  If the butter is cold, I put it in the milk too.  Leave this aside for a moment.

4. Sprinkle the 1/2 cup sugar over the yeast and water mixture.

5. Add the salt and stir a little.

6. Stir the milk, potatoes, butter, and beaten eggs into the yeast mixture. Be careful to get any large lumps of potatoes out now because it will be difficult later.



7. Begin stirring in flour.  You are shooting for a dough that is still a little sticky.  It should be less sticky than cinnamon roll dough, but more sticky than bread dough.



8. Cover and let rise until double in bulk.



While the dough is rising the first time, you need to do the following:

a) Prepare a place to roll out and cut the dough.

b) Have at least four of your largest cookie sheets or jelly roll pans ready to hold the rising donuts.

c) Put paper towels on two or three of your largest dinner plates because this is where you'll drain the donuts after frying them.

d) Prepare a place for the donuts to drain once they are glazed, or to continue cooling once they are sugared.  We use our broiler pan for the initial drainage spot and then transfer to a cooling rack that has been placed in yet another of our largest jelly roll pans.  This way, we can easily scrape up any glaze that drips off and recycle it in the glazing bowl.  I've seen pictures of Amish people sliding the donuts onto the handles of wooden spoons to drain, but you'd have to have a whole lot of wooden spoons for this recipe, and it won't work for the holes.

e) Prepare your dipping sugar or your glaze.  We always glaze because I think frosting of any kind makes the world go 'round.  We mix a couple of tablespoons of butter, some vanilla, water, and powdered sugar together to make our glaze.  For a single batch of donuts, you'll need at least two pounds of powdered sugar if you glaze them.

When the dough has risen sufficiently, punch it all down and roll out a fifth to a quarter of it at a time.  Roll it out to no thinner than a half inch.  Cut donuts out.  We have several donut cutters, most of which have removable center pieces that cut the donut holes.  I find that the most effective cutting method is to press down and then twist the cutter.  I know the twist is forbidden in biscuit cutting because it makes a lop-sided biscuit, but I have noticed no such effect on donuts.  Place each donut on a cookie sheet to rise again, leaving space between them for this to happen.



Because we like donut holes better than the regular donuts, I remove the center part of the donut cutter and cut holes out of any of the leftover spaces in the dough.  Once everything that was usable has been cut, knead the scraps together and add them to another hunk of dough to be re-rolled.

Here is where it gets tricky.  In my experience, the first donuts you have cut will be ready to be fried before you are finished rolling and cutting all of the dough.  Thus, while you are still cutting, you need to begin heating up your oil.  Mom used a Fry Daddy for donut making when I was little, but we have used cast-iron pans for the last many years.  My favorite pan to fry in is my cast-iron chicken fryer.  It is deeper than a regular frying pan, which helps reduce splatters--especially helpful on the wood cookstove.



We use canola oil to fry the donuts.  Mom used to use white Crisco.  I would like to try frying them in lard someday, but I haven't been brave enough to do it yet.

For the wood cookstove, I like to remove the front lid over the firebox and put my pan directly over the flames.  On a gas or electric stove, medium-high heat is needed.  I never put a thermometer in the oil to know how hot it is.  Here is how I tell whether the oil is at the right temperature:

• the oil should be just hot enough that it could start smoking at any moment
• I take a tiny drop (ONLY a tiny drop) of water on my fingertip and shake it into the oil.  If it sputters, it is ready.
• I start with a single donut hole.  If it immediately begins to bubble quickly, the oil is the right temperature.

If the oil is too cool, the donuts will eventually cook, but they will be greasy and will take on too much of the oil flavor.  If the oil is too hot, they will cook too quickly on the outside and be doughy on the inside.

Fry the donuts a few at a time until they are nicely browned on either side. Only turn them once!  Turning them multiple times will make them greasier than they need to be.  Don't fill the surface of the oil completely full of donuts because they will rise a little more while they are frying, and they can become very difficult and a bit dangerous to turn if they are too crowded.  The donut holes may not allow you to turn them, or sometimes they will roll over themselves.  If they don't get fried on both sides, it will be all right.  They are small enough to get cooked through if only one side ever sits in the oil.  Truthfully, I think they are better that way.

Remove from the hot oil to drain on the paper-towel-covered plates.  While they are still hot, roll in sugar or glaze.  Cool on the broiler pan or racks.

Hints:

• Using more than the 1 1/2 cups of mashed potatoes makes a better tasting donut
• THESE DO NOT KEEP WELL AT ROOM TEMPERATURE.  By the next day, they will be disgusting.
• However, THEY FREEZE BEAUTIFULLY.  Pack into Ziplock bags or airtight containers.  When you're ready to eat a few, just pop them in the microwave for a few seconds and they will taste as fresh as the hour you made them. 
• Our favorite way to make these is to make a triple batch and invite family over to have a great big "Donut Day."  Everybody goes home with bags of donuts for their freezer.
• You can make twists by twisting a cut donut.
• To make Bismarcks, roll the dough a little thinner and remove the center of the donut cutter to cut a regular circle.  Fry in oil that is a little cooler than what you would for donuts so that you can leave the Bismarck in the oil longer in order to cook the inside thoroughly.  Use a Pampered Chef decorator gun or a pastry bag full of jelly or other filling to inject the filling into the center of the Bismarck after it is cooked and cooled.
• Your house will smell like you've been deep fat frying for several hours after this, and you're going to have to live with it.

Historical note: My great-great-aunt Meme told me that when they had threshers, they always made them donuts for their 3:00 lunch break.  This was after a humongous noon dinner, so you can imagine how much energy those men needed to do their work!

As with any recipe, I'm sure there are as many ways to make these as there are people who do it, but the above is what we've found works best for us.

A Little Cookstove Poetry

I'm sorry that I've neglected this blog so badly.  We've had a long and busy speech season, and I'm just finishing a long-term substitute teaching job at the school where I used to teach full-time.  The wood cookstove has been in daily use since October 11, though, and we have only cooked about three meals with some other method since then.  We've had quite a battle with creosote this winter, and I'm working on a long post about that which I hope will be published before the end of February.

Until then, while I was hunting material for a literary program for speech, I found a poem about wood cookstoves that I want to share with you all today.  The last time I shared a cookstove poem was back in 2012 in a post about teakettles, so  I guess that means it's not too soon for another.

This poem is from the January 1956 Ideals magazine and was written by Adam N. Reiter.

The Old Kitchen Range

It's pleasant to muse in an era of change,

On the time-honored role of the old kitchen range;

That served at the homestead for many a year

Bestowing of comfort and lending to cheer.

I well recollect where the veteran stood,

With the settee nearby and the box for the wood--

And woe to the urchin and bitter his plight,

Who failed to replenish the wood-box at night.

It made of the kitchen a place all aglow,

With homely delight that we oldsters still know.

Its smooth, polished surface resplendently shone,

And the kettle hummed softly a quaint monotone.

Not a thing in the house had the ardent appeal

Of the range, when folks were preparing a meal;

And savory odors surpassed all belief,

And coaxed forth "Old Tabby" who dozed underneath.

And who but remembers the scent, if he try,

Of wood in the oven at evening to dry:

The laughter of children disrobing for night,

And the head of the house with his old pipe alight.

Who cared for the winter, the beat of the rain,

Or the blast of the wind on the shuddering pane?

Not I, and no power could influence me,

To leave my snug place on the kitchen settee.

What tales have been spun!  What dreams of been wove!

In the "circle of charm" by an old kitchen stove:

And I doubt if man could devise for his race,

A thing of more excellence to serve in its place.

I feel like a resounding "amen" needs to be added to that last couplet.  In my humble opinion, man has yet to devise a cooking appliance that out performs a wood cookstove!  

Grandma Marian's "White Salad"

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, we hosted the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner at our house last  Thursday.  I'm sure everyone has a different list of what is considered the traditional Thanksgiving menu, but for my family it is always the same:

Turkey and Gravy

Mashed Potatoes

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Cranberry Sauce

Green Bean Casserole

Escalloped Corn

White Salad

Dinner Rolls

Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream

This is tradition in our family because this is always what my Grandma Marian served on Thanksgiving.  Today, I want to share with you her recipe for "White Salad."  This is my favorite fruit salad, and when Grandma was still cooking, it was hers too.  My mother and aunt were reminiscing about the fact that she used to take it everywhere.  It is delicious, and it was the first leftover to be finished off.  I don't know why I don't make it more often because it's really not difficult either.

Here is what you'll need:

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup distilled vinegar
• Non-dairy whipped topping (thawed) or slightly sweetened whipped cream (about a cup and a half).
• 1 15oz. can of mandarin oranges
• 1 15oz. can of pineapple tidbits
• red and green grapes (at least a cup of each)
• at least 1 cup of miniature marshmallows
• red cherries for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Early in the morning or the night before the meal, you will need to make the first part of the salad dressing.

1. Have your fire hot enough to boil a little bit of water in the bottom of a double boiler.

2. Before putting it over the hot water, lightly beat two eggs in the top part of the double boiler.

3. Beat in the 1/4 cup of sugar and the 1/4 cup of distilled vinegar.

4.  Once thoroughly combined, put the top of the double boiler over the boiling water.

5. Stirring constantly, cook until it has thickened enough that it coats a spoon.

6. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.  Cover, then chill thoroughly in the refrigerator.  (This doesn't take that long because there really isn't that much volume here.)

7. While the dressing is chilling and long before you plan to assemble the salad, wash the grapes and cut them in half.  Place them on paper towels to dry.  Also drain the cans of mandarin oranges and pineapple tidbits.  Let them rest in a colander for quite a while.  You want the fruit to be as dry as possible.

8. Once the cooked part of the dressing is thoroughly chilled, beat the whipped topping or the whipped cream into the custard part.  The directions for the amount of whipped topping literally say "until it looks right" on the recipe that I copied from Grandma.  This was the phrase that she and her mother both used when they tried to tell someone else how they cooked by guess and by golly.

I don't really think you can mess up this part.  If you want to make this salad larger by adding more fruit, you can always add more whipped topping to the custard at this step.  The only thing that will happen is that the sweet and sour flavor of the dressing will tend toward the sweeter side.

In the pictures here, I would say that I added about one and a half cups of whipped topping.

9. Combine the fruits and then fold in the dressing.

10. Add about a cup of miniature marshmallows.  DON'T SKIP THIS STEP in an effort to cut back on the calories.  The value of the marshmallows is not so much in the flavor as it is in their ability to absorb the juices which will be drawn out of the fruit.  Their primary function is to keep the salad from turning watery.

11. If desired, garnish the top of the salad with a red cherry or more.  Refrigerate until serving.

The last picture above didn't get taken until the salad had been passed around the table once.  That's why a chunk of the salad is missing on the right side.

You will note that the salad dressing doesn't appear very white.  That's because my chickens are free range, so their egg yolks are darker than what you would get out of the store.

This is really an excellent fruit salad: tangy, sweet, and colorful.  Bon appetit!

What Does "Back of the Stove" Mean?

200th Post!  200th Post!  200th Post!  200th Post!  200th Post!  200th Post!

Sorry.  I'm excited that this is my 200th blogpost!

A while back, I had a reader suggest to me that I write a blog post explaining the phrase "back of the stove"--as in "Let it simmer on the back of the stove for six hours" or "Cook at the back of the stove until thick."  It is a very common phrase in old recipes and cookbooks and is perhaps a little confusing to today's cooks.

In actuality, this phrase even predates the most common designs for woodburning ranges, so we have to go back in history a little to understand it fully.

When household cookery began to move from open fireplaces to cast iron stoves, the stoves were built with very low fireboxes at the front, which then vented toward the rear of the stove beneath an oven, the bottom of which was even with the level of the cooktop, as in the picture below:

Photo courtesy of farmallclub.org

This stove design then changed to have the oven be tucked under the cooktop, and the firebox was raised to a more comfortable height. Cookstoves then looked like this:

Photo Credit: amberghistory.org

A door is open on the oven in the picture above, but the photos only show one of the two oven doors on each stove since each of these cookstoves was equipped with an oven which could be accessed from either side.

This type of cookstove was usually installed with the firebox side toward the room as in the first picture above.

Thus, the firebox side was literally the front of the stove, and the cooler, rear part was at the back.  The phrase "back of the stove" meant the cooler part of the cooktop.

As with so many things in the human experience, our tools changed before our terminology did.  More recent stove designs put the firebox on the left (only rarely on the right), and the cooler part of the range top is now on the side of the stove instead of the back.

In the pictures below, you can see the firebox on the left side of the Margin Gem, and in the second picture you see a saucepan and our teakettle "on the back of the stove."

Basically, the phrase "back of the stove" means the coolest part of the cooktop even though it is no longer necessarily at the stove's back.  The phrase indicates an area used for slow cooking and keeping things warm while still having direct heat.

I hope that clears things up for everyone who might have been wondering!

Full Thanksgiving Dinner Cooked on the Wood Cookstove

Well, today was Marjorie the Margin Gem's first Thanksgiving.  She has baked pies for Thanksgiving every year since she was installed in 2012, but this was the first year since her installation that we hosted Thanksgiving.

Today was not our family's official Thanksgiving dinner.  That will be tomorrow when we all get together at my parents' home.  This was the year for my brother and sister's families to be with their in-laws. so since our get-together isn't until tomorrow--on a non-official holiday--my brother wanted to have one of those days where we all bring things we've never made before.  (Stay tuned for a post about one of the dishes that I'm making for the first time.)

While tomorrow will be fun and interesting, some of us were a little sad because we wouldn't have any of the traditional foods that we eat on Thanksgiving.  Therefore, Nancy and I hosted the traditional dinner today for just eight of us: Nancy's folks, my folks, my aunt and grandma, and Nancy and me.

Of course, this meant that I had the perfect opportunity to blog cooking a whole Thanksgiving dinner on a wood cookstove.  I have read a description of cooking on a wood cookstove as a "dance" as you move pots and pans around to the appropriate heat levels for where their respective foods are in their cooking process, and you can see from the movement of things in the pictures, that there are lots and lots of movements to this dance.

Last night, I cooked the cranberry sauce and put the bread for the dressing in the warming oven to dry out.

This morning, I got up early and baked the pumpkin pies.  The recipe for pumpkin pie that I used today is from my great-great-grandma, Mabel Ford.  I blogged it several years ago, and you can see it here.

This is a picture of the pumpkin pies when they first went into
the oven.  The firebox is open to prove that I'm cooking over a
wood fire.

The pumpkin pies after they were finished baking.

The next job was to make the fruit salad dressing, but since I'm going to make a separate blog post about that, I'm saving those pictures for later.

Then, I had to assemble the stuffing so that I could get some of it in the bird and put him in the oven.  First, I saute'd some celery and onion in butter.

Celery and onion frying in butter for the dressing.

After I transferred the cooked celery and onions to the bowl of the dried bread, I cut up the turkey's liver and fried it in butter too.  Yes, I know that is a large chunk of butter, but we put melted butter in the dressing anyway, and I've learned that if I fry the liver pieces in a lot of butter, they remain more tender than if they are fried in only a little.  The final dressing product is much better this way.

The turkey liver chopped fine and frying in a lot of butter.  It
will later be added to the dressing.

 Once I had some of the dressing stuffed inside the turkey, it was ready to go into the oven.  I used an oven bag this time, but I didn't think it helped make the turkey any more moist.  You can read my instructions for roasting a turkey in a wood cookstove at this post.

With the turkey in the oven, there was no room for anything else, and I still had lots of things that would need to be baked.  Thus, I had to get one of my stovetop ovens out.  In the picture below, it is heating up over the firebox.  On the open door of the warming oven, you see two pans of dinner rolls rising.  The turkey neck and gizzard are in the saucepan on the far right, cooking for the cats.

Then, it was time for a few more things to begin to cook.  The first pan of dinner rolls is baking in the oven on top of the stove.  The dressing is in a 9"x9" baking pan sitting on a simmering pad under the lid to the roaster. The pot on the left is the mashed potatoes, and the frying pan contains the syrup for sweet potatoes beginning to cook.

In the picture below, the potatoes had moved to the back center of the stovetop, the sweet potatoes had been added to the syrup, a pot of green beans had been added, and the dressing moved to the right because the stovetop is so busy.  The turkey was finished cooking, and was ready to be removed from the oven.

Then, the turkey was moved to the simmering pad on the back of the stove to await serving.  The dressing has been put into the stovetop oven, and the rolls have been put into the stove's oven.

I'm sorry that this next picture is a little blurry.  The dinner rolls that had been baking in the stovetop oven were nearly done when I transferred them to the cookstove oven.  However, they had not browned on top, so I put them on the top shelf of the oven.  The second pan of dinner rolls is beginning to bake on the bottom rack in the back, and the dish of scalloped corn is beginning to cook at the front of the oven.

It is important to note that the second pan of dinner rolls didn't brown very nicely on the bottom, so I later transferred them to the bottom rack of the stovetop oven beneath the dressing, and the bottoms browned perfectly.  I didn't get a picture of the little stovetop oven full of both dressing and rolls, though.

In this next picture, you will see that the green beans were removed from the stovetop and made into green bean casserole.  It is baking in the front of the oven while the scalloped corn continued to cook in the back.  All of the dinner rolls were out of the ovens by this time.

You still can't see the corn, but in this picture, you can see the edge of a round Pyrex pan on the top rack of the oven.  The sweet potatoes had been put into this pan, and marshmallows had been put on top.  The platter for the turkey was resting in the warming oven to take the chill off of it before receiving the bird.

I poured the drippings from the turkey into my Magnalite chicken fryer and made the gravy in that.  The dressing was basically done at this point, so the oven holding it was moved away from the firebox.  You can also see that the green bean casserole has the french fried onions on the top and is browning nicely.

The marshmallows on the top of the sweet potatoes had roasted to a fantastic golden brown and had been removed to the warming oven.

Meal preparations were complete when this last picture was taken.  The sweet potatoes are still in the warming oven along with the mashed potatoes and the gravy boat.  The dressing is staying warm in the stovetop oven, but the door has been opened to stop it from cooking further.  The gravy is finished and has been taken away from the firebox.  The vegetables in the oven are done, and the turkey was on the platter at the table.

Everything turned out quite delicious with the exception of the dressing, and that wasn't the cookstove's fault.  The sage that I put in the dressing was gritty.  How I figured out that the grittiness was from the sage is a long story, but has anyone else ever experienced that?  I bought the sage in a bulk foods store, and I won't be doing that again.

When my father-in-law walked in the kitchen door just before noon, he asked how the stove was working.  I told him that it was working just fine. It was, too, but I have to say that I cooked more Thanksgiving meals on the Qualified Range, and I have to admit that that was an easier stove to cook a large meal on than the Margin Gem.  I think the difference is that the Qualified responded more quickly to adjustments of the drafts and the additions of more firewood.  The Margin Gem responds to these things, but seems sluggish in comparison.  I don't know how to explain it any other way.

We had enough food for more than the eight people who were here, but to cook these same dishes for a larger crowd using only the wood cookstove would have presented some interesting challenges and demanded some different planning.  I'm looking forward to trying that sometime!

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!

Globe Cookstove at Jamie's Coffee Mill and Deli in Mount Ayr, Iowa

When we visit Mt. Ayr, Iowa, one of my favorite places to eat is at Jamie's Coffee Mill and Deli, which is located in the old creamery at 118 West Adams Street.  The food is always delicious, the place is extremely busy, and the decor includes a vintage wood cookstove!

I wish the pictures of this stove did it justice and allowed me to better show you how petite this little baby is.  Her art deco lines and handles indicate that she is a late 1920s/early1930s model.

You can see from the picture that the cooktop is the width of two bus tubs (about 36 inches), and then the water reservoir hangs on the right side.  I have no idea what its internal condition is, and I also don't know if they still have the boot for the back where the stovepipe would have been attached.

The oven thermometer tells me that the stove is a Globe.  I've heard of Globe brand cookstoves before, but this is the first of that brand that I have seen in person.  This prompted me to do a little research.

The Globe Stove and Range Company in Kokomo, Indiana, began in 1902 after the company took over Fisher Steel Ranges.  In just ten short years, the company had expanded to offering eighteen different cooking ranges and six different models of baseburners.  During World War One, "the company manufactured mortar shells rather than stoves and almost went bankrupt," but the company was saved by an investment team and new manager Mark Brown (100 Objects, 2018).  The company reached its peak in 1922 with over 400 workers and expanded to produce electric ranges as well.

During the 1930s, Globe Stove and Range Company merged with American Steel Products to become Globe American Corp., and they began to shift from manufacturing solid fuel cookstoves to gas stoves, pioneering a new steel gas range called the Dutch oven.  Does that sound familiar to you vintage stove enthusiasts?  It ought to because just before WWII, during which the company built steel lifeboats, Globe struck an agreement with the Maytag Corporation and began manufacturing the Maytag Dutch Oven Range, many of which are still in use today.

Eventually, the Globe American Corp. was sold to outside interests and permanently closed down in 1957.

Interesting what you can find with a little digging!

Works Cited

“100 Objects: 13. Globe Stove and Range Co.” Kokomo Tribune, 21 Apr. 

        2018, https://www.kokomotribune.com/news/objects-globe-stove-

        and-range-co/article_eeca7c52-44bc-11e8-b65f-9ba127d1f4fc.html.

Hamilton, Barb and Tom. “Remembering Globe American Co.” Kokomo

        Perspective, 7 Oct. 2010, http://kokomoperspective.com/lifestyles/

        columnists/remembering-globe-american-co/article_d10a4ea6-d18

        b-11df-9cf6-001cc4c03286.html.

Cauliflower Parmesan on the Wood Cookstove

I have come up with a new method of cooking cauliflower that Nancy and I both love.  The recipe is light but flavorful, and it is extremely easy.

First, you need a good hot cooking fire.  Directly over the firebox of the stove, melt a tablespoon of butter in a non-stick pan.  I used my el-cheapo red ceramic frying pan purchased a few years ago from our now-defunct Kmart store.

Once the butter is melted and hot, put as much frozen cauliflower in the pan as you like.  Add a VERY LIGHT sprinkling of seasoned salt.  I would be surprised if in total I added an 1/8 tsp. of Lawry's.

Cook the cauliflower briskly and turn frequently as the florets begin to brown on the bottom.  Continue this process until each piece of cauliflower has browned on several sides.

Once the cauliflower has browned on several sides, sprinkle grated parmesan cheese over it.  I would say that I added no more than a quarter cup over this particular batch, but you can put as much as you want on. Stir the cheese and cauliflower around until all of the cheese has stuck onto the cauliflower.

You can serve immediately, or I have discovered that this holds very well if transferred to a serving dish and placed in the warming oven until the rest of the meal is ready.

With pork chops (which were cooking in the cast iron frying pan with the aluminum lid on it in the pictures above) and macaroni, cauliflower cooked this way made a delicious but simple supper last night.  This was the third time I've made cauliflower this way, and it has been well-received each time.  

Long-time blog readers will remember that I also posted a recipe for oven-roasted cauliflower about six years ago.  The end product of the two recipes is not dissimilar, but this one is much simpler and faster, and can be made with frozen cauliflower.  I hope you enjoy it!