Roasted Pepitas

Ok, so just a quick post today. I have a tendency to notice bruises every now and then that I believe indicate a bit of an iron deficiency. Last week, I was feeling it. In my process of looking up iron rich foods, I discovered pepitas are high in iron. So I stocked up on raw pepitas.

 Separately, I had purchased a tiny new cast iron skillet at a garage sale a few months ago. It's almost the size of my hand.

Put the two together.

Yummy! Cooked over a medium heat and stirred occasionally until they started cracking.  These were a bit addicting just on their own. I also ate them on a salad and in a bit of a trail mix. And I thought I would never find a use for that tiny thing. Perfect!

Pancakes & Garage Sales

This was my first attempt to make pancakes without a recipe.  It was decent but landed more in the fail column than in the win column.  I wanted them to come out a bit on the thicker side so I was afraid to add too much liquid and in the end they turned out half an inch thick.  Definitely were not bad though.

I wanted to show you how I cook my pancakes on my garage sales finds.

This is my beautiful cast iron skillet (I love it so much I should give it a name.  I think I'll call it Vera.  Firefly, anyone?).  As I have mentioned before, I got this baby at a garage sale for $1!  Find of the century for me.  I had been wanting one for so long and even looked to buy one new but they were about $20 - $30.  For something that I wasn't 100% sure I would ever need, I didn't think it was worth the price so I continued to look at garage sales until one day the garage sale gods smiled down on me.  Now, while I love Vera and she makes great pancakes, she only makes one at a time.  And me, I'm a multi-tasker.  I don't do one thing at once hardly ever.  Luckily I made another garage sale find that fixed this problem.

When I first started coming over to my boyfriend's house, I noticed one day that his mom had a cast iron griddle that sat upon two burners.  I thought this was one of the most genius inventions ever and immediately wanted one.  Could I find one?  Of course not.  I looked for months and then one random day, this showed up at a garage sale.  It only sits across one burner but it lets me cook two pancakes at a time which means, combined with Vera, I can make THREE pancakes at once!  Score!

What are your thoughts on cast iron?  I personally think it is the most amazing, incredible equipment I have ever used.