Camping Food Continued-Roasted Chicken

Our last camping trip of the season found me using my brand new "baby" 10 inch Dutch oven 4 out of six nights!

Dutch-oven Roasted Chicken Legs with Spinach Fettucini and Sauteed Zucchini

Why is it everything tastes better when eaten outdoors? This meal or chicken legs roasted in the Dutch oven, with sides of spinach fettucini and sauteed zucchini was extremely simple, yet felt very decadent while camping. Our Costco has begun selling packs of chicken legs packaged in sealed bags of 5 chicken legs each. These little packs were extremely easy to pack in the cooler. The fettucini was a quick cooking kind which took only three minutes once the water started boiling. The zucchini was also easy. I pre-sliced it at home, packaged it in a ziplock baggie and packed it in the cooler.

Once I was ready to cook, I pre-heated my Dutch oven, melted some butter in it and added the chicken legs along with a generous sprinkling of a new seasoning blend I recently bought at a Tastefully simple party. I kept my Dutch oven around 350 degrees by placing about 7-8 coals underneath and 10-12 coals on the lid and left it alone, aside from turning it every once in awhile to ensure even heat, for about 50 minutes. While you're waiting for your chicken to cook, make your side dishes, start a campfire, and enjoy a glass of wine in the great outdoors!

Raw, seasoned chicken just added to the Dutch oven

Chicken cooking in the oven (yes, it is just sitting on the ground!)

Greek Beef Casserole while camping!

Towards the end of summer, I was fortunate enough to attend a demonstration on Dutch oven cooking at a campground where we were staying. I was already familiar with Dutch oven cooking having inherited one from my father-in-law last summer. I bravely made my son's birthday cake in it last summer while camping!

However, attending the demonstration was an eye-opener for me at how easy Dutch oven cooking could be! I had always thought of my Dutch oven as sort of a fun thing to occasionally wow people with while camping and to show off a little. I had seen it as this bulky pot that I could barely lift and that had to sit under my feet in the car for lack of space. When I told the demonstrator that I had inherited a 14 inch deep Dutch oven, his response was, "Whoa, that's 10 quarts of food!" It was his disbelief that I was actually using a pot that big that inspired me to go buy a "baby" 10 inch Dutch oven. This pot completely changed the way I feel about Dutch oven cooking. The techniques I learned made the Dutch oven a joy to use, and with the smaller pot it is completely manageable! For our last camping trip of the season, a six-day trip to Fort Stevens, OR, I used the pot 4 times!

Here is one of the dishes I made, a greek beef dish called Stifado inspired by Beatrice Ojakangas' book, The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever, that I adapted to work in my Dutch oven. Hands down, it was the best dish I've ever made while camping.

Greek Beef Casserole in the Dutch oven by Joie de vivre

Ingredients:

1/4 c. canola oil

2 1/2 lbs. top round beefsteak, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes

3 Tbls. red wine vinegar

1 c. water

1 tsp. rosemary

2 Tbls. tomato puree

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 cinnamon stick

5 whole allspice berries

2 small onions, chopped roughly

4 potatoes (I used white ones) cut into large bite sized pieces

Directions:

1. To make cooking while camping easier, chop your meat at home before placing it in a doubled Ziplock baggie in your ice chest. Also, pre-measure and place the rosemary, salt, pepper, cinnamon, and allspice in a little ziplock baggie prior to your trip.

2. Preheat your Dutch oven by placing it over your chimney starter while your coals are lighting. Make sure to leave space for oxygen to get to your coals and be careful of your arms! Make sure Dutch oven is steady. When the Dutch oven is pre-heated, add the canola oil and the beef. Stir the beef until it is browned.

3. Drain the beef and add all of the remaining ingredients. Place the lid on the Dutch oven and cook at 350 degrees for about an hour and 15 minutes. (*A Note about Dutch Ovens* You can get 350 degrees in a 10 or 12 inch Dutch oven, by placing about 7 coals underneath, and about 10-12 coals on top. Use long handled tongs to move the coals from your chimney starter to the bottom and the top of your Dutch oven. Every 15 minutes or so, turn the pot a quarter of a turn clockwise, and turn your lid a quarter of a turn counterclockwise to ensure even heat distribution. After 45 minutes, you will need to add fresh, hot charcoal briquettes to the bottom and top of the oven to ensure even heat as well.)

4. When dinner is getting close, saute some sliced green, yellow and red peppers.
5. Expect some hungry and nosy neighbors to come calling when you pull the lid off this masterpiece! Enjoy, and if you try this, let me know how it goes for you!

Camping food - Grilled steaks and asparagus

I get asked questions all of the time about how to cook well while one is camping. It seems like most folks out there go the hot dog, potato chip and marshmallow route while camping. Don't get me wrong, we love those traditional camping foods too, but I just wanted to show how easy it is to go a little bit more upscale. With asparagus being in season now, it is easy to wash them, snap off the ends and place them in a plastic baggie with some olive oil and salt before you leave home. Seal up the baggie and place it in your cooler. Do the same for your meat by placing it in a plastic baggie with your favorite marinade. I double bag any meat products to ensure against leakage in my cooler, but it is super simple to do this marinating step at home for wonderful camping food. When you are ready to cook your food at your campsite, get your charcoal going ahead of time, then just take your food out of the baggies and put it right on the grill. Now doesn't this look better than hot dogs and potato chips?

Chocolate, chocolate chip cake in the Dutch oven!

 This past weekend was our last camping hurrah of the season.  It was also my son's 5th birthday party.  Since we were camping only 20 minutes outside of town, he decided to have his party at our campsite and swim, play games, eat, run around, roast marshmallows, and of course, eat birthday cake.  Despising stale cake, I opted instead to try out my father-in-law's dutch oven, and bake the birthday cake at the campsite.  It was a completely risky move that risked disappointing a party boy and guests, but with cooking bravado (and marshmallows in case of failure) I forged ahead.  I am so glad I tried this because it wasn't at all difficult and now it opens up for me a whole new avenue for camp cooking!  I hope this inspires you to try it out yourself.  If anyone else has some good dutch oven recipes, or has a good link to one, please share it, I'm excited to try it again!

Needed:

14 inch dutch oven

Long tongs

Oven mitts

Charcoal

Lighter fluid

Lighter

Chocolate cake mix

1 Package of chocolate chips

Vegetable oil

Eggs

Flour

Baking powder

Sugar

Cocoa powder

Water

Frosting

Sprinkles, etc.

1.  Light your coals on fire.  It will take them 30 minutes to get good and hot. (Pictured above)

2.  Line your dutch oven with heavy duty foil.  This will help the cake slip out and make it very easy to clean your dutch oven.  Do not go over the lip as the lid needs to have good connection to keep the heat in.  Spray the foil with cooking spray.

3.  I have a 14 inch Dutch oven.  Most standard cake mixes will make a cake in a 12 inch dutch oven.  If you have a 14 incher, add to your dry mix, 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, and 2 Tbs. cocoa powder.  Follow the directions on the back of the package adding eggs or oil (or both) as necessary and add an extra 1/2 cup water to the wet ingredients.  This will extend the cake mix to fit into a 14 inch dutch oven.  I brought the extra dry ingredients along in a ziplock baggie.

4.  Mix the wet and dry ingredients and then mix in 1 package of chocolate chips.

5.  Pour the cake batter into the dutch oven and cover.

6.  When the coals are white, use long tongs to arrange 9 of them under the dutch oven.  Place the covered dutch oven on top and arrange 16 coals on top of the dutch oven.  This will keep the temperature around 325 degrees.

7.  Every 10 minutes, using your oven mitt, turn the dutch oven 90 degrees.  Then pick up the lid and rotate that 90 degrees in the other direction.  This will prevent hot spots and promote more even cooking.  Cake will be done somewhere between 30 and 50 minutes.  When you are turning, take a peek at the cake, when it starts looking done, do a toothpick test.  Remove dutch oven from coals when toothpick comes out clean.

8.  When the dutch oven is somewhat cool to handle, place a large plate (or in my case a cutting board) over the top and flip.  The cake should slide right out.  Remove the foil and let cool.  Frost when cool.  Voila!

The flat section of my cake was a little side piece that was not quite done and therefore fell off the cake while it was cooling, but it added to the whole baseball theme.  My son thought it was the greatest to have a baseball cake while camping, it tasted great, I tried something new, and it was easy to boot!

Camping food Part III

As summer is winding down, we are enjoying these last few warm weekends for all they are worth by filling our souls with the joys of camping, and filling our bellies with camping food!  Last week, we took our longest camping adventure yet (3 nights!).  My menu was not as fancy as it had been in the past because frankly I didn't know if I could fit 3 days worth of food in our cooler if I cooked fancy, but I thought you might enjoy the menu and some recipes for ideas for your next camp-out.  

Sunday dinner:  Flank Steak burritos with salsa, sour cream, guacamole and cheese.  Marshmallows.

Monday breakfast:  Cranberry Flax Muffins (we ended up pulling the leftovers out the next two mornings as well), coffee and juice.

Monday lunch:  Hot dogs and chips

Monday dinner:  Salmon cakes, melon, black beans.

Tuesday breakfast:  cereal with rice milk, leftover cranberry flax muffins, coffee and juice.

Tuesday Lunch:  Tuna salad with crackers

Tuesday dinner:  Hamburgers

Wednesday breakfast:  I cheated and bought Jimmy Dean frozen ham hash that you add eggs to and fry it all up.

Wednesday lunch:  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips.

As you see, the fare was more traditional, but we did feel quite fancy with our salmon cakes for Monday's dinner and our flank steak burritos for Sunday's dinner.  Also, the muffins were a homey touch and very quick to prepare when all the boys wanted to go fishing early Monday morning.

Cranberry Flax Muffins  adapted from Taste of Home Muffins and Quick Breads

Yeild 1 1/2 dozen muffins

1 1/2 cups bran flakes cereal

3/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup ground flaxseed

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cup dried cranberries

2 Tbls. whole flaxseed

In a large bowl, combine the first nine ingredients.  Whisk the eggs, buttermilk, honey and oil; stir into dry ingredients until just moistened.  Stir in cranberries.  Coat muffin cups with cooking spray or use paper liners; fill two-thirds full.  Sprinkle with whole flaxseed.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks.  These do not necessarily "look" finished, use a toothpick if unsure.

Beef Flank Burritos by Joie de vivre

1 1/2 lb. beef flank steak

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup water

2 Tbls. molasses

2 tsp. stone ground mustard

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Place soy sauce, water, molasses, mustard and garlic powder in a ziplock bag.  Squeeze to combine, then add steak, remove the air and seal well.  Place in your cooler.  When you are at camp, light your coals and wait until they are ready.  Cook the flank steak approx 5-6 minutes per side.  Cut flank steak into strips.  Layer tortilla with guacamole, sour cream, salsa, cheese and flank steak and roll up.

Salmon cakes  (pictured above)

Ha!  One of our fancier meals and I got it off of the back of the can of salmon!  The can was super cheap (between 1-2 dollars for a 15 oz. can of salmon).  Add bread crumbs, lemon juice, mayonnaise, and onion and fry.  

We still have one last camping hurrah planned for this year so I'll post Camping Part IV before we settle into fall.  Enjoy!

Camping food Part II

Perhaps my penchant for eating good food has gone too far (or maybe, not far enough?).  On my last blog post, I had a friend ask where I bought the freeze-dried salmon.  Blech!  When I say we eat fancy when were camping that means no freeze-dried foods!   (I must confess though that for the second morning of our camping, I did plan a cold cereal day.)  I think the secret to eating well while camping is just advanced preparation and a good storage technique for cold foods.  That being said, our most recent camping adventure sported this menu:

Friday night:  Black bean salad, Grilled Steak tacos with salsa and guacamole.  Roasted marshmallows  (pictured above sans marshmallows, served with a glass of red wine (don't tell the camp host!))

Saturday:  Breakfast:  Egg and cheese sandwiches

   Lunch:  Hot dogs, chips, birthday cupcakes, leftover black bean salad

   Dinner:  Beer marinated pork shish kabobs with zucchini, squash and red onion, crusty bread, White beans with chanterelle mushrooms

Sunday morning:  Cold cereal with rice milk.

My advanced preparation consisted of making the black bean salad, marinating the steak for the tacos, pre-cutting the cheese and wrapping up the eggs for the egg and cheese sandwiches, marinating and cutting the pork and veggies for the shish kabobs and putting all the ingredients together for the white beans with chanterelle mushrooms.  I then packed everything in the cooler starting with Sunday's breakfast items on the bottom and ending with Friday's dinner items on the top.  The beer marinated pork shish kabobs was definitely my favorite meal and the white beans with chanterelle mushrooms smelled as heavenly while cooking as they tasted.  Here are some of the recipes to try on your next camping adventure.

Black bean salad  adapted from Campfire cuisine:  Gourmet recipes for the great outdoors by Robin Donovan

Juice of 3 limes

2 Tbs. honey

1 Tbs. ground cumin

1 Tbs. ground coriander

1 Tbs. dried oregano

2 14.5 oz. cans black beans, drained and rinsed

2 green bell peppers

6 green onions, thinly sliced.

Mix the lime juice, honey, cumin, coriander and oregano in a large ziplock bag until well combined.  Add the beans, diced pepper and onion and toss until well combined.  Close this ziplock and then put this ziplock into another one to get it ready for the ice chest!

Red wine Marinade for steak taken from Campfire Cuisine:  Gourmet recipes for the Great Outdoors by Robin Donovan

Juice of 3 limes

1/2 cup red wine

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 Tbs. dried oregano

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

Mix all ingredients in a large ziplock, drop in the steak, seal the bag making sure to get most of the air out.  Put this bag into another bag to ready steak for the ice chest.

Grilled Steak tacos by Joie de vivre

After your coals have gotten hot, put the steak on the grill and grill on each side for about 7 minutes, remove steak to a plate and loosely cover with foil for a few minutes.  Thinly slice steak, put into a tortilla with guacamole and salsa.  Wrap up and enjoy!

Beer-Marinated Pork and Veggie Kabobs adapted from Campfire Cuisine:  Gourmet recipes for the great outdoors by Robin Donovan

For the marinade:

1 1/2 cups water

1 bottle beer

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 Tbs. dried oregano

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbs. course salt

1 tsp. pepper

Mix all ingredients in a large ziplock bag and mix.

Add to marinade

1 1/2 lb. pork loin cut into 2 inch chunks

Shake bag to combine.  Seal well removing as much air as possible and put this ziplock into another ziplock to ready meat for ice chest.  Once ready to cook kabobs, thread meat chunks onto skewers with cut onion, zucchini, squash, etc that has been drizzled with olive oil.  Put on grill over hot coals!

White beans with Chanterelle Mushrooms taken from Campfire Cuisine:  Gourmet recipes for the Great Outdoors by Robin Donovan

2 14.5 oz. cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

3/4 lb. chanterelles, sliced

1 small red onion, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1 1/2 Tbs. chopped thyme

1/2 tsp. salt.

Olive oil spray

Heavy duty foil.

Mix beans, mushrooms, onion, olive oil, thyme and salt in a ziplock bag.  Seal, removing as much air as possible.  Seal this ziplock into another ziplock to ready beans for the ice chest.  When ready to cook, make a foil packet by taking a long piece of foil, folding it in half, and then crimping the two sides.  Spray the inside of the foil packet with the olive oil spray and put the bean mixture in.  Crimp the remaining side of the foil packet to seal leaving enough room for steam to circulate.  Put the packet over hot coals for 20 minutes.  

My weakness and laziness in camping is definitely breakfast foods (I think it's the lack of coffee so early in the morning) so for my next post, I'm going to be researching and trying some out.  Bonne chance with the camping food and let me know if you try anything!

Eating and Camping

The month of July is such a busy one even though summer is supposed to be the time we slow down.  Even though it is busy with fun things, like swimming and going to the library, it is still busy.  Even our weekends have been busy with camping!  So I've decided to dedicate my July blogs to camping food.  Some people camp by eating cold cereal, stale doughnuts, top ramen noodles, chips and oreo cookies, but I prefer to enjoy the outdoors by eating well.  And I mean WELL!  Fancy well.  I don't totally skip the junk food, my kiddos have discovered the joys of roasting marshmallows and I would never deprive them of this childhood ritual of fire and gooey goodness, but for the most part, I do like to eat fancy.  Here is the menu for our most recent camping adventure.

Day 1:  Dinner:  Orange Herb Salmon, Olive, Orange and Couscous Salad, Fresh snap peas.

Day 2:  Breakfast:  Raisin Bisquits with Orange Honey Butter and Fruit.

      Lunch:  Turkey Cream cheese Roll ups with red onion and cucumbers (we did have chips with this meal!)

     Dinner:  Cheeseburgers, Cole slaw, Marshmallows

Day 3:  Breakfast:  Banana Pecan Pancakes, Fruit, Juice.

The picture on this blog is of the dinner from Day 1.  Doesn't this look better than sub sandwiches or even (shudder) top ramen noodles?  Because we use disposable dishes and utensils while camping, the clean up consisted of one pot, and a spoon.  You can do it, don't settle for bad food!

Orange Herb Salmon taken from Campfire Cuisine:  Gourmet recipes for the Great Outdoors by Robin Donovan

Olive oil spray

4 6oz. salmon fillets

salt and pepper

juice and zest of 1 orange

1 tsp. crushed red pepper

1 Tbls. fennel seeds (crushed if you don't like the occasional crunch in your salmon)

1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick) cut into pieces

Spray 4 squares of aluminum foil with olive oil.  Place 1 salmon fillet on each foil square.  Sprinkle the fish with salt, pepper, orange juice and zest, red pepper, and fennel seeds.  Dot each fillet with butter.  Bring the sides of the foil up around the fish and fold over to seal the package tightly, leaving room for heat and steam to circulate inside.  Cook on a grill over high hieat about 20 minutes until the fish is just cooked through.  Serve immediately.  Serves 4.

*My adaptations:  I just used one big foil packet to cook a large fillet for my family instead of cutting it in four pieces.  Also, to make cooking easy once I get to camp, I do prep in advance.  I put all of the ingredients, except the salmon, in a plastic bag before we left and put it in our cooler.  Once I started to cook, all I needed to do was heat the coals for the barbeque, make and spray the foil packet, put the fish in it, and dump the contents of the plastic bag over the fish before sealing it.  I also brought along a disposable 9 x 13 inch baking pan, inverted it and put it over the foil packet on the grill essentially turning it into a little oven.  That worked really well.  No clean-up involved in this one!

Olive, Orange and Couscous Salad from Campfire Cuisine:  Gourmet recipes for the great outdoors by Robin Donovan

1 cup water

1 tsp. salt

1 cup couscous

zest and chopped segments of 1 orange

1/2 cup chopped, pitted cured olives, such as kalamata

2 green onions finely sliced

2 Tbls. olive oil

juice of 2 lemons

salt and pepper

4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled.

Bring the water, with the salt added, to a boil in a saucepan with a lid on a camp stove.  Remove from the heat:  add the couscous, stir, and cover.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  Fluff with a fork and allow to cool  Mix in the orange segments, olives, green onion, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and feta.  Serve immediately.  Serves 4.

*My adaptations:  To make cooking easier at the campsite, I put the green onions, the olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper in a plastic bag.  Once I started cooking, I put the couscous in the boiling water, letting it sit and fluffing it with a fork, I just needed to dump the contents of that bag into the pot of couscous, open the can of pre-chopped olives (4 0z.) and crumble in the feta.  Clean up consisted of one pot and a serving spoon.

Keep an eye out for other blogs in July to complement the camping theme.  Bon camping!