Camping Recipes for Your Dutch Oven
Love to camp and cook outdoors? There’s nothing as satisfying as making camp and cooking your meal over a campfire. The food just tastes better, and the atmosphere can’t be beat. Every year families pack up and head for their favorite camping destination. Some may go as fancy as an RV while others prefer a simple family tent. Either way you choose, camping is a wonderful family activity.
Even though you may be ‘roughing’ it in the great outdoors this summer, you don’t have to settle for plain old hot dogs cooked on a stick you find in the woods nearby. There is a fantastic utensil that’s been around forever called the ‘Dutch Oven’, and with it the cooking possibilities are endless, as are the delicious recipes.
There are very many sizes and options available for Dutch Ovens, but for the most part, with one you can bake, stew, roast, fry, boil etc. There are basically two dutch oven types of cooking, either cooking with it or cooking something inside of it. Absolutely amazing biscuits can be baked in a Dutch Oven; imagine how great they would be outdoors with fresh campfire coffee and bacon frying in your cast iron skillet.
Here are some tried and truly wonderful camping recipes using a cast iron Dutch Oven.
Corned Beef & Cabbage
2 lb Well trimmed corned beef boneless brisket or round
1 sm Head green cabbage, cut into 6 Wedges
6 md Carrots cut into quarters
1 sm Onion, quartered
1 Clove garlic, crushed
Pour enough cold water on corned beef in Dutch Oven to just cover. Add onion and garlic. Heat to boiling, reduce head. Cover and simmer until beef is tender, about 2 hours. Remove beef to warm platter, keep warm. Skim fat from broth. Add cabbage and carrots, heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered 15 min.
Dutch Oven Biscuits
2 c Flour
1/2 ts Salt
3 ts Baking powder
4 tb Solid shortening
1 c Milk (or dilute canned milk)
Blend flour, salt, baking powder and mash in shortening with a fork until crumbly. Add milk and stir until the dough sags down into trough left by spoon as it moves around the bowl. Turn dough out on a floured surface, knead for 30 seconds, pat out gently until it is 1/2 inch thick. Cut with a round cutter or pinch off pieces of dough and form by hand. Put biscuits into a greased Dutch Oven, cover, and bury in bright coals for 5 or 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Campfire Meatloaf
1 1/2 lb Ground beef
3/4 c Quick oats
1 Eggs
1/4 ts Dry mustard
1/4 c Bell pepper
1 pk Onion soup mix
3/4 ts Salt
Mix all ingredients and put in casserole pan. Place in dutch oven. Bake 1 hour, covered.
When you’re making your plans to head out for your family camping trip this year, make sure to include your Dutch Oven and some of these great tasting camping recipes. You’ll treasure the experience and your family will too!
For more delicious quick and easy dinner ideas and easy crock pot recipes please visit ‘Quick and Easy Dinner Recipes’ http://quickandeasydinnerrecipes.blogspot.com and ‘Family Crock Pot Recipes’ http://familycrockpotrecipes.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sherry_Frewerd
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When You Are Camp Cooking, Always Think Safety
Safety had better be the top priority if you are going to be doing any camp cooking. A fully supplied first aid kit with supplies to for burn treatment needs to be on hand. This is important not just for cooking, but for any other unforeseen accident that may arise. Preparing meals over an open fire is an enjoyable, pleasant experience and you should have no problems as long as you use a little care and common sense. I’m sure tried it once you will want to it again and again.
For a lot of years, campfire cooking was considered the typical thing to do when on a camping trip but several changes have occurred with respect to safety. These include things such as; where the fire can be built, the proximity to other campsites as well as dried brush and grasses nearby. Recently the amount of available firewood has decreased dramatically, so much so that many campsites now require campers to supply their own logs and kindling.
There are some times and places where campfire cooking is expressly out of the question. If surrounding brush is extremely dry for instance, and a wind is blowing. Sparks from the campfire could ignite a brush fire ruining your camping trip, along with that of many others. Forestry Services will sometimes issue a high fire danger warning and no open fires will be permitted. This is not intended to ruin your fun but to keep you safe. And always be sure to build your fire with clean, dry wood. Chopping off a few branches from nearby trees will not get the job done and you may well manage to kill the tree, don’t do it. Plus if you actually get the fire started, it will produce so much smoke that you won’t be able to get near the fire and it may well ruin the taste of the food.
If the campground doesn’t have burning rings or fire-pits, your campfire can be built on bare earth, with no vegetation covering which can possible start a ground fire. Use a shovel to dig a small hole and be sure there are no roots showing. Then build a U-shaped fire pit of stones with one larger stone, approximately three times the height of the side stones to act as chimney. The smoke will naturally go towards that end and be lifted above the campfire.
If there are not enough stones to line the spot for campfire cooking, you can also use green logs but be sure to keep them watered down to prevent them from becoming dried out by the fire and bursting into flames!
Usually there is access to a metal grill to place across the fire on which to rest a pot for boiling water, frying pan and other cooking utensils. If no grate is available, steel tripods can be set over the fire to hold a pot for boiling water, making stew or any one of various single pot campfire cooking recipes you can find. You can also bring along your own grill. When you are finished cooking and ready for bed, the fire must be clearly out. If built on the ground it may take more than bucket of water, but lugging two or three buckets of water can be better than finding your campsite on fire in the middle of the night. Pour some of the water on the coals then stir around with a stick. Add more water and stir again. Repeat this until you are sure the fire is out. Have fun. I hope you enjoyed these cooking tips.
