On Saturday I offered a free cooking demonstration at the beautiful new Le Creuset retail store in posh Cherry Creek North in Denver. Thank you so much, Le Creuset, for bringing me into your store… and for literally changing the course of my life with a little cast iron French (Dutch) oven. Keep your eyes open for the next Glorious One-Pot Meals event at this location!
Reader question: I have just gotten the cookbook and have cooked one recipe with orzo but it all stuck together is there any way to stop this from happening? Also I have a ceramic dutch oven does it have to be cast iron? Thanks. ~ Karen W., Pittsburgh
Thanks for writing, Karen! I’m sorry to hear that your first attempt at a Glorious One-Pot Meal cooked the orzo unsuccessfully, and I’m sure the reason is because you were not using a cast iron Dutch oven.
Cast iron has unique heat conduction properties that allow it to absorb, distribute, and retain heat differently than any other material. While you can make passable versions of Glorious One-Pot Meal recipes in stainless steel, ceramic, or glass Dutch ovens, only cast iron will work correctly with recipes that include dry goods, such as rice, quinoa, or orzo.
When you’re including a pasta like orzo in a Glorious One-Pot Meal, it also can be helpful to add a teaspoon of olive oil to the pasta water to keep the noodles from sticking together.
You might enjoy watching some video demonstrations of Glorious One-Pot Meals here.
Reader question: I just bought your cookbook after reading about it in Momentum Magazine. My Le Crueset pot is 6.75 qt.so how much should I increase the ingredients? 4 times?? and the cooking time?? you only list a 5.5-6 qt pot on page 12. Thank you. ~Janet from Lima, OH
Hi Janet! Thanks for writing and your interest in Glorious One-Pot Meals.
The general rule of thumb is that you need one quart of Dutch oven for every person you plan to feed. So, the recipes are written for a 2-quart Dutch oven and feed 2 people. Generally, we’d say that a 6-quart Dutch oven would feed 6 people and you’d triple the recipe and increase the cooking time by around 20 minutes.
Because your pot is closer to 7 quarts, you could feasibly increase the recipes by 3.5 times, so that instead of 2 chicken breasts, for example, you’d use 7, and increase the cooking time by closer to 25-30 minutes.
In reality, I usually find that most people eat a little less than 1 quart of cooked food, and a 3.5-quart Dutch oven, for example, easily feeds 4-5 people. A fully-loaded 6.75-quart Dutch oven would likely feed 9 people. As my pots get larger, too, I might increase the amount of protein and use more fish, for instance, while using less rice than if I were strictly tripling the recipe. One of the great things about the Glorious One-Pot Meals cooking method is that you can make the meal the way you want to make it without compromising the finished product.
Please realize that as pots get larger than 5.5-quarts and the volume of food in the pot increases as such, it becomes even more important to ensure the oven is fully preheated to 450 F before putting the full pot in, and to follow your nose to know when the meal is ready. I use a stand-alone oven thermometer to validate my oven temperature.
Remember, too, that you can still cook a Glorious One-Pot Meals recipe for 2 in a larger-than-2-quart cast iron Dutch oven.
Happy cooking! ~Elizabeth
Not much compares to the culinary joy of picking fresh herbs to add to your kitchen creations. Wherever I land, there are a few staple herbs I like to grow in garden plots or pots every summer. Here’s my list of staple herbs to grow for culinary creativity.
1. Parsley. Parsley is great to grow in a garden patch because it’s a hardy perennial that doesn’t need much sun or attention to keep coming back every year.
2. Sage. In Colorado and other semi-arid climes, sage will blossom into a bush that sustains fragrant leaves through the winter.
3. Rosemary. Every summer I kill another potted rosemary plant, probably by over-watering, but while it lasts we make good use of the needles in savory Glorious One-Pot Meals and olive-oil rubbed oven roasted potatoes.
4. Basil. I grow basil in pots around my flagstone patio and harvest leaves for everything from marinara sauce to Italian-style tuna with olive oil, basil and capers.
5. Mint. For some reason, as much as I want mint to spread and go wild in my yard, it simply refuses to cooperate, so I grow mint in pots, too. I love a cold glass of Sun-Tea poured over mint leaves, and often use mint in rice pilaf-type dishes.
6. Oregano and/or Marjoram. I usually pick one or the other and while oregano is the more familiar, I find marjoram to be the more versatile herb.
7. Chives. The chives I planted seven summers ago still reappear year after year for me to snip to give a little zing to any dish, hot or cold.
8. Cilantro. Okay, I don’t actually grow cilantro because I can’t stand it, but it’s easy to grow and a lot of people would probably like to have it in their kitchen garden.
Reader question: You say that your one pot meals are ready, when you smell the aroma then you have a 3 minute warning. I lost my sense of smell about 4 years ago. So how can I tell when it is ready? ~ Kathy M., Chesterton, IN
Great question, Kathy. There are many like you who’ve lost their sense of smell through head injury, seizures, poisoning, etc., but you can still make perfect Glorious One-Pot Meals.
You’re right that I emphasize the wafting aroma as the best way to tell when your Glorious One-Pot Meal is fully cooked and ready, but there is another way, too. In the 2009 version of the GOPM cookbook, on page 12, there is a Recipe Adustment Chart that tells you exactly how much cooking time you need for various size Glorious One-Pot Meals. For instance, the standard amount of time needed to cook a GOPM in a 2-quart cast iron Dutch oven is 45 minutes. A 3 1/2-quart pot will typically be ready after 53 minutes in a 450 F oven.
Have you tried this Glorious One-Pot Meals recipe for Feta Shrimp? Delicious and so easy! Make it gluten-free by substituting quinoa for the couscous.
