I just love our Le Creuset Braiser. It is our go-to pan for so many things – from risotto to chicken and biscuits to swiss steak, baked pastas, and so much more. This particular pan is over 25 years old. It was Victor’s before we merged kitchens. I got Le Creuset and Calphalon. He got a Kitchenaid. It was a good deal for both of us…

Wednesday night it was a simple chicken and biscuits. Chicken stew topped with biscuits and into the oven for 20 minutes. Pretty basic and pretty easy. The biggest thing to remember when making something topped with biscuits is to make sure the stew or whatever is really hot before putting on the biscuits and putting in the oven. If the filling is cold, the biscuits will not cook on the bottom and will be raw dough even as the top is overdone.

And last night Victor made a great baked rigatoni! Same pot, different ethnicity.

A really great meat sauce mixed with cooked rigatoni, big dollops of ricotta, grana padano, and fontina cheeses. Baked in the oven for about 30 minutes. The epitome of perfection.

Oh, yum.

These are great winter dishes – there’s plenty for dinner as well as lunch the next day. It’s the pan that keeps on giving.

And it really is a great pan. Food really does taste better when it comes out of a sturdy, no-nonsense pan. The le Creuset is great – it’s the perfect stove or oven-to-table pan. And while it wasn’t cheap, it’s already 25 years old with more than 25 more years of life. We will never have to get another.

Not bad, at all…