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My hubby is REALLY excited about Dutch ovens! We got one for Christmas '04 and Doug has challenged the males on my side (all of them Boy Scout Eagles) to a cook off this summer. So until then, he plans to diligently experiment around until he can find his favorite recipe. I'm excited I won't need to cook! Anyone have any favorite Dutch oven recipes they'd like to share?
When I was stationed at Mt Home AFB Idaho we did a lot of camping and hunting,The way we cooked was to bury the oven and start our campfire on top of it.Elk tenderlion about 5 lbs,5 garlic cloves,5 carrots,5 large potatoes,2 medium onions and salt and pepper.Cut the Vegs in large pieces and let it go.After about 4 hrs you have the best stew you have ever tasted.Opps forgot to add water,fill till its almost full,2in from top. Best to make your biscuits at home and wrap them in aluminum foil and warm them on the side.That was good eatin after hunting all day.Add what you want,a Dutch oven just makes it better.
Mmmm...we have a bit of an elk shortage here in KS, though hahaha, maybe I could substitute beef?
I went to school in Idaho for a while near Idaho Falls. The people there are SO extremely nice. ; )
I not only have one, but I have two...different sizes and they are my fav...
I love pot roast and stew in them...I learned this from my mother when I was knee high to a grasshopper...The taste is just different..And the GRAVY...euw,la,la... Just make sure you never put them in soapy water or you will take out all the seasoning in them.
Computer problems?? hahaha jk My posts seem to attach pretty slowly. I thought it was just my provider since I have dial-up (no other options) and they like to play with us country folk. I've been tempted to click 'send' again, but I was afraid it would submit duplicate posts. Maybe that's what happened? Oh well...no big deal.
Yes, it's been seasoned and used plenty of times. He would just like more recipes. ; D
Hap, what do you mean when you say they dont like tomatos. I make stews all the time with tomatos both fresh and canned tomatos in my cast iron pots. Dont have recipees just trow whatever I feel for at that day. However if you get rust in your pots, just put a thin layer of veggi oil in it after you cleaned it with JUST HOT WATER. Dont worry about the rost, its good for your blood. Better then eating pills for low iron levels :0))
one that I do make is 50-50 of lamb and pork, cut in smaller pieces.
garlic after taste... for me 5 pieces. 1 onion
Fresh Paprika 1green 1 yellow
4 beef tomatos cut in half remove the stempart inside you know the whitish hard part.
Add water and boil untill the meat is soft about 1 h
Herbal spices (Provence mix)
Sometimes I do also put whipcream in. No dieting here.
Make Cous-Cous and digg in...yumm
However I do it on electric stowe
Janett
Tomatoes, because there is so much acid in them, takes off some of the seasoning. Of course, pure tomatoes will sure clean the whole pan.LOL Yes, and the "rust" is good for you. It's not really rust, but the iron does leach into the food which is a Good thing.
It is a stew they make in Marocko but not the Muslims Marockans because they dont eat pork.
Cous-Cous is weet(?) that is cut in small pieces and you take 50-50 water and Cous-Cous.
Boile the water with 1 teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon veggi oil. poor it over the C-C:s let it set (swell)
Its dang more yummi then rice to stews
We have Cous-Cous in the same place they have rice and pasta at our stores.
Janett
I have a stew recipe that is sooooo good. You can use whatever kind of meat you want. I use beef. But you can use elk, venison, pork, chicken, just use your imagination. About 3 pounds of meat, browned first, then vegetables, I use carrots, potatos, onion, celery, peas,, corn, just whatever. 1 large can of diced tomatoes, 3 TBL tapioca, 2 tbls sugar, salt and pepper. I put this in a 300 degree oven for about 4 hours. The tapioca thickens it, and all I need to do is serve a salad and bread.
This is a good slow cooker recipe too.
Any kind of soup recipe is good in a dutch oven.
Then I do chicken and dumplings also. Just put a whole chicken into the pot and cook for several hours. (de bone it first), salt, pepper, and chicken broth. About 1 hour before it is done, I add the home made dumplings, and let simmer. Grandma didn't do it as well. We are talking very slow simmer here.
Hope you have a successful contest. I want all the recipes please.
I was over here looking for catfish recipes and found this thread. The MacScouter site is good, very good. Here's another site we've used that also has some decent recipes-
[HYPERLINK@www.scoutorama.com]
We've made the Black Forest Cobbler from this site and it was really great-
Ingredients
1 Choclate cake mix
1 Cherry pie filling
1-2 Hershey bars(you can never have too much choclate.)
chopped walnuts if your crew likes 'um
Equipment Dutch Oven
Instructions Cherry pie filling in first
then add the cake mix
(if your cake mix calls for eggs and or milk by all means add it for a richer texture. It will still work with out it though.)
Mix only if you add eggs and milk.
Add the walnuts if the crew will let you.
Break up the Hershey bar on top so it will melt.
We've also made the Dutch Oven Lasagna from this site and although it sounded sort of so so, it was really good.
Ingredients
1 #10 spaghetti sauce
5 lbs hamburger
3 lbs hot sausage
5 lbs mozzarella cheese
2 large containers of cottage cheese
6 eggs
2 lbs lasagna noodles
Equipment 14" dutch oven
10" skillet
large pot
Instructions brown meat, drain, set aside
mix cottage cheese and eggs and set aside
boil noodles
Building the lasagna:
in layers place meat,cheeses,& noodles
when dutch oven is about full pour in spaghetti sauce
put remaining cheese on top
cover and cook about 45 min on charcoal or hot coals, top & bottom
serve with garlic bread
serves about 12 hungry scouts
Which recipes did you try? Sort of an inside joke between you and me but you know those little hotdogs by Gerber for kids in the little jar? As a joke they created some sort of a recipe using those things and called it "Lauren's fingers".
Heya there, Lauren!! I haven't seen you for a long time!! ; ) Thanks for those recipes...mmmm...they sound REALLY good!!
I don't remember what all recipes we tried before the contest- we tried quite a few!! Our "cookoff" was more of an informal thing and we didn't really ever decide on a winner. hahaha ; ) I was actually impressed so much of my family was interested in coming. There's 7 of us kids and all but 2 were interested in "competing." Plus my parents and DH's parents came. One of my brothers made chili (I only remember that because I really, really don't like chili) and a brother-in-law made a South American chili that was actually really good. Someone made bread (from a Bisquik mix...what a cheater). My husband made a marinated chicken and can't remember what else was made. The kids had a blast playing softball in the yard and horseshoes and one of my brother-in-laws had a weird game he brought and I don't know what it's called but it was fun. Then Doug pulled some of the kids around behind the lawn mower. lol One of my brothers didn't get to go and he came over last month and complained that we needed to do another one this year so he could go. So I'd say it was a success. ; )
I'm going to give Doug those recipes and maybe he'll cook for me again this Sunday. ; ) Gotta love it! Thanks!
Not much going on up this way. One thing led to the next and the weather didn't exactly help matters by shortening my gardening season with unseasonably cold temps starting this September. Next year will be better. I was able to erect a Purple Martin House and am looking forward to hopefully getting a few occupants in the years to come. I'll have the English House Sparrows to deal with but we've got them under control... I think.
Cooking! Ha! I was too busy playing in the dirt with my plants to do much of that. I did get out and buy that smoker for my husband and I think he will like it. He's really into the Scouting experience these days and I think it will be fun for him and the kids to play around with. When they go fishing, they get quite a few catfish. I've never quite liked the taste of catfish so figured maybe it would taste better smoked? Who knows but it's worth a try since we'll have the smoker.
My in-laws woke up one day and decided to move to Arizona. Do you perhaps remember me complaining about how my step-father-in-law was proud to be so uneducated??? lol My largest concern was how he would influence my Christopher's attitude. So...no worries anymore. I do miss Doug's mom some, though.
Don't know what to tell you about catfish. I don't care for it, either. Aren't they bottom feeders?? Be glad you don't like it. ; )
Yes, the English House Sparrows are an ongoing threat. Extremely frustrating.
Tee he, my finger was surgically reattached and looks none the worse for the wear. Amazing what they can do these days. I can use it and I can feel with it. After I heard about the odds of it being able to be surgically reattached successfully and after they scared the death out of me with warnings of infection and how injuries such as this to hands were at a higher risk for infection and how it wasn't uncommon for people to end up in the hospital on IV antibiotics... the fear of God was put in me so I told them to just let it go. They whipped back at me and strongly encouraged me to allow them to reattach it. I forgot all of what their reasoning was but I'm glad now that I chose to try to keep it. I am still blown away that they were able to save it.
Yes, I remember your step FIL. Sometimes, comments such as those are a defense mechanism. I have mixed emotions about their move to Arizona as now your kids don't get the intergenerational unconditional love of their grandma. I'm really sorry about that as your kids lose out on that raw deal. I know our kids love my MIL and their grandpas and they look forward to being with them. One grandpa isn't even a real grandpa but they sure do love him to death. There is something really magical about grandparents. They aren't hurried or all stressed out like us parents and they seem to interact with them on a different plane. Grandparents have more time on their hands and definitely don't have the distractions we have so they tend to be very doting. Kids eat that type of attention up. It's so healthy. Any way you could send just her a round trip ticket to come and visit her grandchildren or would that be insulting to her husband?
I got a good recipe from eweed for smoked catfish so I'm good to go there. Seems as if everytime the kids go fishing somebody reels in a catfish. I love fish, don't get me wrong, but catfish is way too fatty for me so maybe smoked catfish will be better. If smoking the catfish doesn't make it edible to us, we could always toss it out for the opossums and turkey vultures to have. They like leftovers!
lol- you reminded me of something- my dad works with prosthesis and so when I was growing up, there were times when if we complained about a body part hurting, he'd look at it really carefully, and then say, Yeah...I could have it cut off right here and get you a new one.
And when we shouted, NOOOOOOO!!!!!, he'd say, Well, it wouldn't hurt anymore!
But we knew he was joking and so it made us giggle and the pain didn't hurt as much.
And do you realize how much a new finger would cost? They don't come cheap!! lol
Rest assured about thegrandparents- we still have 2 sets near us- Doug's dad and his wife and my parents both live an hour and a half away. lol That sounds horrible, doesn't it? ; )
But really, my step-father-in-law, Charles, was getting REALLY nasty in a last couple months. Mostly about how I'm stupid for encouraging Doug to finish his degree (he says colleges just want your money and people just go there to party) and how I'm horrible for not wanting them to smoke in front of us and Christopher (Doug and I decided to stop going over to their house when there was smoke and he would have you believe that I personally aimed every nuclear warhead in the U.S. at him in his house).
Judy, Doug's mom, is from Arizona and her mom's health is going downhill and that was their reason for moving back there. She told me before she left that I'd better give her some more grandkids. She knows I had a really rough time being preggers with Chris and I'm not anxious to go through it again. It's supposed to be bad each time for me so she said she'd come back to help me when I get bedridden and until the baby matures at the hospital (it was over a month for Chris). So that will be a very long visit. She's not gone for good. And who knows...they may move back in a few years.
Dutch oven cobbler can't be beat. I've been in scouting for over 15 years and have seen some really neat ones. We have a cobbler cook off at many of our camporees.
One of our troop's favorites is blueberry cream cheese cobbler. I'll have to find the recipe and share it.
Hey cjolene! I didn't even realize one could buy fake fingers from somebody like your Dad. I must admit that if I had known... I probably would have told them to let it go in favor of a fake. I'm major league not into pain. Now about Charles- he sounds like a flaming idiot so still no great loss there. Tell Judy that you'll pretend like you're pregnant if she'll come back to stay for a while. Take a photo of yourself with a throw pillow rammed in your t-shirt and if that doesn't make her laugh and want to come out to stay for a spell, nothing will.
Hey David, our Troop would love that blueberry cream cheese recipe when you have a spare moment to share it please. They love cooking with Dutch ovens.
lol I don't think I'd ever volunteer for prosthetic limbs. ; )
David, I'd love that recipe, too. I saw this thread come up on my list of watched threads, but didn't see any post after mine. I just chalked it up to being a technical glitch. I'm glad you responded, Lauren, or I probably wouldn't have come back to make sure.
Doug's starting to get ready for our next Dutch Oven Cookout. This will likely be our last Dutch Oven Cookout in this house...we're planning on moving to the big ol' city of Emporia in a few months...population 26,000...wow...what a booming metropolis! lol But they don't allow open campfires in their backyards there...can't imagine why. We'll have to switch to charcoal if we want to keep doing this. So we've got to make this one a real bang-dinger of a cookout. We'll invite my inlaws in AZ...they actually might come up for it. lol And we got my little sister her own Dutch Oven. She was complaining last year that she was the only one in the family who didn't have one (lol- there's one other). And one of my brothers bought an extra one for himself just to make sure we'd have enough. So if everyone brings theirs, we should have 9 Dutch ovens this year. ; ) It just now occurred to me that we might have to make an extra fire pit. lol
Oh my! Fires and fire pits. Those are y-chromosome magnets you know. Just say the word fire and they all get sparkles in their eyes like addicts or something.
Now why exactly can't you create a fire pit at your new house? Something recessed in the ground by 1.5' or so that was self contained and possibly surrounded by retaining blocks surely wouldn't be referred to as a campfire would it? What about having a grate made for it that was elevated above the pit. There's got to be a way around this. It's a pit for goodness sakes not an open campfire. What do they think you're going to do, set up tents and live outside year round in a residential neighborhood living off the land smoking up the whole neighborhood. My neighborhood has a lot of restrictive covenants but other than the no-fence rule, most of them make sense to one degree or another. We can not park campers anywhere on our properties over night, we can't have chickens or any other type of farm animal and they did choose to include Vietnamese pot bellied pigs but they allow horses and fences associated with horses providing the fences are all of one style and one color for everybody, we can't have detached structures other than horse barns or indoor riding arenas. Go figure, you can't have a detached garage but you can have any size indoor riding arena you want. Lemme see, we can't have boats or jet skis or snowmobiles or any such equipment left outside over night. Composters must be in backyards. And here's a really interesting one, no clothes lines that are not retractable and only in the backyard. They must be afraid somebody's undies might have holes in them or maybe (gasp) some elastic could be detached at the waist and oh horrors who would want to have to view that flapping in the breeze by one's front door for a few hours. Oh ya, no Mute Swans or Peacocks. Feel better? You could have it worse than just no open campfires. By the way, we don't have no-burn odinances around here so it's a pyros haven. Come move by me and create as many pits as you want. Make the whole place look like a movie set for Louis Sachar's "Holes" but what ever you do... do not leave a 4-wheeler or a riding lawn mower in the driveway over night or the president of the association will waddle over and leave her signature pink post it note on your front door.
Did you see that newer movie, Over the Hedge? It pokes a lot of fun at a Homeowner's Association president. lol I'm sure she'd find a way for getting after you for the "Holes" set. Maybe a salmon post it note on your front door. lol
I have a friend who tried to put up one of those kid's fort/slide/swing set. It was really nice, but she got a big tongue clicking for it. I guess anything kid-related must be trashy. She couldn't get a pool put in, either. Crazy. I'm going to miss not having any rules... *sniff*
The no-campfire thing is a city-wide ordinance. At least that's what my brother told me. He lives there. He's pretty pyro, so I trust that he's either looked into it or gotten in trouble for it already. ; )
We just made the blueberry cheesecake cobbler as a demo for some visiting cubs.
Very simple. 2 cans blueberry pie filling, one tub premixed cheesecake filling, 1 box yellow cake mix, 1 stick real butter.
Dump the pie filling and cheesecake filling into the oven and mix. Dump the cake mix on top and slice the butter and let the slices fall on the cake mix. Try to distribute the butter evenly; you may not need to use the whole stick.
Cook for 20-25 mins, take some heat off the bottom. Cook another 15-20 mins and check. When the cake mix looks done, remove the rest of the heat.
I thought I would add some recipes we have used over several years of camping and scouting...
Dump cobbler variations noted above...we like the simplest:
2 cans fruit filling
1 box yellow cake mix, generic (Duncan Hines just doesn't seem to work as well).
Dump in the fruit, dump the cake mix on top, cook.
Roast:
1 bag carrots
1 roast
potatoes
onion
salt/pepper
Carrots go on the bottom; potatoes and onions on the side, season to taste, cook.
Dutch oven pizza:
Pizza dough in a tube
Pizza sauce
Cheese
Pepperoni and other toppings.
Toss the pizza dough and spread out in a 10" pie pan coated with olive oil or Pam. Assemble the pizza as usual. Place three same-sized rocks in the bottom of the DO and set the 10" pie pan on top of the rocks, cook.
Summer camp Friday morning leftover breakfast quiche:
This is a recipe using solely items leftover from earlier meals at summer camp. Quantities not listed (or known, I just kind of wing it...)
Onion, chopped
Bread
Cheese, chopped or grated
Eggs, beaten
Ham or other lunch meat, chopped
Tomatoes, chopped
salt/pepper
Saute the tomatoes and onion (in the DO if you wish). Grease 10" pie pan, and line it with pieces of bread. Toss the onion, ham, tomatoes, and cheese together and put them in the pie pan on the bread. Pour the egg mix over the dish. Place the dish on three rocks on the bottom of the DO, cook.
Those are some of the favorites. Others we have done include fresh apple pie, pineapple upside-down cake, chicken and dumplings, choc chip cookies, bread pudding. I have made many-a-scout's birthday at summer camp with a two-layer DO chocolate birthday cake, complete with icing and candles.
What a riot! The men have all the good tried and true recipes!
We've done left over quiches before pretty much the same way you do them which is to toss in everything but the kitchen sink. They're fun and they help use up the left overs the last day of camp.
Stress- what's your recipe for the chicken and dumplings? Chicken is cheap so they like to include it in their menu planning a lot when the whole troop goes camping monthly. Helps keep the cost per scout down.
speckledpig never came back to share his Blueberry Cream Cheese Recipe! I went online and found two that look interesting-
Blueberry Cream Cheese Dutch Oven Recipe- 1
The Recipe
Login to add this recipe to your cookbook.
CRUST:
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup margarine -- melted
1 cup flour
TOPPING:
4 cups blueberries -- fresh or frozen, divided
1 cup sugar -- divided
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup water
FIRST, combine crust ingredients; spread in a 9x13" pan and cook for 15 minutes at 350°F. Cool.
SECOND, combine 1/2 cup sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Add water, then 2 cups of the blueberries. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and translucent (about 10 minutes).
Crush some of the blueberries as they cook. Remove from heat and add remaining sugar and blueberries. Cool.
THIRD, cream together the cream cheese and powdered sugar. Fold in Cool Whip. Spread over cooled crust. Chill.
FOURTH, Spread the blueberries over cream cheese filling and chill.
Blueberry Cream Cheese Dutch Oven Recipe- 2
Blueberry-Vanilla Cream Cheese Cobbler (Baked in a 12" D.O.)
Add...
8 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup milk
1 cup powered sugar
1 tblsp. pure vanilla extract
into a 5" dutch oven or small sauce pan. Simmer-stir until consistant and set aside.
Lightly spray or coat inside of cold 12" D.O with olive oil and add...
18.25 oz. white cake mix
12 oz. can ginger ale
into the cold D.O. Stir until mixture is consistent.
Add...
2- 15 oz. cans blueberries (Drain and discard syrup)
vanilla cream cheese mixture
into the D.O.
In a separate bowl mix and add...
17.5 oz. sugar cookie mix
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 1/4 sticks butter (melted)
into the D.O. Place lid on top of oven.
Place cold D.O. and contents over 12 briquettes and place 22 briquettes on oven lid.
Bake for 50 - 60 minutes with quarter rotations of oven and lid every 15 minutes.
Your nose will tell you when this one is done!
Has anyone ever tried either one of these or some variation?
"speckledpig never came back to share his Blueberry Cream Cheese Recipe! I went online and found two that look interesting-"
Yes I did!!! Two posts up.
But those sound good too.
I actually just came back from camping this weekend. We made a cherry apple ("chapple") cobbler in the dutch oven. Butter (plain old butter, no margarine) sliced on top of the cake mix makes for a great crust. Other items of interest on our menu were ribeyes grilled right over the coals and bag omelets.
I am so sorry. When you posted the Blueberry Cobbler recipe I thought you were holding out on us women for the Blueberry Cream Cheese recipe. They're one and the same! (slaps self on side of head)
Yes, the second one I found looked interesting. I don't do the Dutch Oven cooking anymore because they've moved up to Boy Scouts and my husand took over but I print out the recipes and give them to him then when the boys do their meal planning, they pick and choose what they want to make for their camping trips. I used to do the Dutch Oven cooking for 6 years through Cub Scouts but I'm out of it now. The boys didn't want their mommas around any more at every meeting and then the dads started calling all the moms the fun police so we women retired. It was fun while it lasted but they certainly did grow up fast. Aside from that, I always hated camping with a passion. Now if we join the manly men and their manly motherless sons, we get hotels in the local area. Fine by me- flust toilets, heat/ac, hot showers, and room service and... we get to eat what ever they cook and we don't have to clean up any longer.
Bag omelets are great too. I love it that you don't have to use any oil or butter to grease the pan and you just drop the ziplock in the boiling water. Great idea.
I've been tired, very tired. We vacationed something like 9 weeks out of the 13 weeks of summer and barely had time before taking off again to do laundry to be able to have clean clothes. I did get in quite a bit of gardening when we were home in between tossing load after load into the washer and dryer. We never did do the Sonaran Desert (I must have been having an out of body experience when I considered doing the desert in the middle of summer). We also never did drive out anywhere like planned (that must have been yet another out of body experience). The thought of getting stuck in a car for that many hours and days with kids was ultimately too much for me. They wanted to drive for a vacation but I started getting visions of kids with their mouths duct taped (by me) in the back seat of the car and figured my license plate would get called in by some childless citizen and I'd get pulled over and arrested for trying to drive in peace. We flew all over the place though. Had a blast and we still did cover a lot of ground in the rental cars. Just got home yesterday and won't be going anywhere for a while. Next trip is to go to the Sonoran Desert and the Grand Canyon this coming March for two weeks of spring break. Possibly a ski trip over the Christmas break but I'm not sure. Then we've got a line up again for next summer. No cross country driving though. I don't think that's for me. We definitely had a blast.
Oops, I forgot. I'm going back up north one weekend soon to learn how to can. My Mom's good friend has some recipes of my Mother's that she saved before my Mom passed away and she's going to work with me and teach me since my Mom can't. Then my aunt is going to can with me another day when I am up there. Canning venison is on the list of things to do but she's also going to teach me how to use some of my Grandmother's canning recipes and we're going to also make a strawberry rhubarb pie using her mother's recipe. I've wanted to learn how to can for the longest time. It's nice to learn from people who have been canning for decades. Food fest! A weekend all to myself doing one of my favorite things- eating. Oh how I love to eat.
Float (trip). Having now taken each of my 2 boys on 2 50 milers, I thought my daughter ought to get a chance. So 2 dads and 2 daughters are floating this weekend.
