Outdoor Adventure USA

Having been inspired by the dutch oven cookery of Toms and Gon2srf at Summerfest, we got ourselves a dutch oven and have been practicing a little at home.

For the first try last weekend I made some corn bread to go along with a pot of chili that Jodi made. Other than the cooking time being a bit longer than called for (about a half hour) it turned out very well - a nice moist cornbread. Here's the recipe we used:

Corn Bread

1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup flour
1 T baking powder
2 T sugar
1 t salt
1/2 cup oil
1 8 oz. can creamed corn
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour into a greased 10" camp oven. Bake with 6 coals under and 14 on top for about 20 minutes. Serve with honey butter.

Yesterday we made a batch of Baked Chicken and Rice that turned out pretty well. The recipe is a simple one and is from the Lodge cookbook that you get with the Dutch Oven. We added some mushrooms to the broth/soup mix as well, you could probably add some other veggies if you wanted. Add a salad (or grilled veggies in our case), some bread and your favorite beverage and you have a nice meal that serves about 4 campers.

Easy Baked Chicken and Rice

1 cup rice
1 Chicken, cut into pieces (we used 4 whole legs instead, and separated the thighs from the legs)
1 package dry Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1 can chicken broth
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Water

Pour uncooked rice into a 10 inch dutch oven. Place cut up chicken parts on top of rice. Sprinkle Lipton Onion Soup Mix on top of chicken. Dilute chicken broth and cream of mushroom soup with 1 can of water. Pour this mixture over the chicken and bake in camp oven at 350 degrees F for at least 1 hour (14 coals on top, 7 on bottom).

Here's a picture of our setup for cooking at home. I just got a big sheet of steel to put everything on.
And the Baked Chicken and Rice before serving.

Very cool. What would you do if you didn't have coals to use, like at a campfire?

ki6kui wrote:Very cool. What would you do if you didn't have coals to use, like at a campfire?

You can use coals from a wood fire. You need to let the wood fire burn down until you have some good coals to work with. That would be the way the old timer's used their dutch ovens. I suspect cooking this way is quite an art.

The advantage of using charcoal is it brings a measure of consistency. If you look in dutch oven cookbooks they almost always give you the number of coals to use for a given recipe. I've been finding there still is some variability. Some of that may come from how you start the coals, and how long you let them burn before you start cooking. In both my attempts so far I've ended up adding some more coals part way through the cooking process.

Anyway, I almost always have charcoal with me when I'm camping because we often grill when we're camping, so it's not as though I'd need to bring something I wouldn't have anyway.

Dave and Jodi-

Excellent report, the pictures made me hungry. Come on, sign up for BorregoFest please?

gon2srf wrote:Dave and Jodi-

Excellent report, the pictures made me hungry. Come on, sign up for BorregoFest please?

Why yes, please do!

Dave,
Excellent - sure looks like you have the hang of it! I doubt anyone could do a better job.

I do the same with a sheet of metal at home exept I put it on top of 2 4x4's to keep it off the patio.

I am a huge fan of the Lift-n-Grill.

http://www.lodgedutchovens.com/products ... grill.html

I use this device almost exclusively now. It reduces my cook time about 10 to 15 minutes. Most dishes take about 45 minutes.

It's especially important in the desert, where it can be...uh...breezy at times. A mild breeze will reduce a family of briquets to ash in no time.

I once went through a bag of briquets on a windy desert evening, trying to cook cornish game hens!

With the Lift-n-Grill, I am able to complete my cooking ontime.

Last time I cooked in the desert, it got so windy my dutch oven blew away!

Of course, if you want to grill burgers and dogs at the beach, this works great for that too.

No, I don't own any stock in Lift-N-Grill! Just sharing what I have found to be a great cooking accessory

That looks cool. I think I saw one at Bass Pro but went right on by since I didn't understand it works for Dutch ovens. I could eliminate the carcoal chimney starter so it wouldn't take up any more space. It gets you up off the ground a bit too. I will check it out in 2 weeks when we go back to Bass Pro for the Thursday night net.

One of my problems right now is that I really should carry a fire pan for a reqular wood fire and a gas barbeque when no carcoal or open fires are allowed. Starting to get to much equipment. I need something that does multi tasks.