Camp Cook

Dave and I like to cook. We enjoy making meals at home together and while Dave is pretty handy in the kitchen, I usually end up taking the lead. And although I'd never cooked over a campfire before, I impressed myself when I was able to do so this weekend and make up some pretty yummy meals.

I left the meal planning to Dave since I knew his years of Boy Scout camping experience would prove useful in seeing how far we could test our culinary limits. I mean, the kid cooked full on turkeys in the woods, Thanksgiving-style.

A few years ago, our friends Brandi and Seth got married and had their reception on the lake. Mere and Nick ended up camping at the lake, so after the wedding we hung out at their campsite, next to the fire. Nick pulled out the pie irons and made us all hobo pies. For those of you unfamiliar with these terms, allow me to explain.


This is a pie iron. It's cast iron and seals up tightly around so you can cook your food super fast. The long handle makes sure you don't burn yourself when you take it out of the fire.

A hobo pie is two slices of bread with fruit pie filling sandwiched between. Since the bread is usually a little larger than the pie iron, when you seal the iron, it pinches the bread and when it's cooked, you basically end up with a poor man's version of a Hostess fruit pie.

Anyway, we thought they were really cool and versatile for other foods, so we bought some for a camping trip two years ago. We used them and were happy, but I think we outdid ourselves this weekend.

On the menu for Friday night was Chicken Fajitas.


I had cut up the peppers and onions at home, as well as sliced the chicken into more manageable pieces that would fit inside the irons. I even brought seasoning! A little chili powder and cumin, salt and a lime to squeeze over the cooked yummies.


We ended up sealing the iron that had the peppers and onions so they would cook a little faster. And the chicken got nice a brown on the outside. And since I'd brought extra aluminum foil, I wrapped the tortillas in it and was able to warm them up on the fire too.

As you can see, Dave was very excited to eat.

I too enjoyed my meal. So much so that I forgot to take a picture of the finished product!

Of course, what's camping and a camp fire without Smores? We toasted up some marshmallows and made the traditional Smores. But I had also bought a box of Nature Valley Granola Thins. They're basically a very thin granola bar the same size and shape as 1/2 a graham cracker, with a thin coating of dark chocolate on the bottom. I decided to make a Smore with part graham cracker, part granola thin. It was delicious! All of the chocolate was melty and the nutty crunch of the granola was a different and yummy flavor.

Dave toasted a perfectly gooey marshmallow to make an excellent Smore.

In the morning we just had cereal, bananas and yogurt so that we could hit the road for the Jeep run. And since we knew we'd be on the trail for lunch, we had packed sandwiches and such for lunch that day. So our next culinary excursion was dinner.

I have a recipe for Cheesy Broccoli Pockets, kind of like a calzone, that I make every once and a while. When we were menu planning, Dave asked me if I could make the filling in advance. Easy enough, I was concerned and intrigued if this was going to work on the fire. When we arrived at the campsite and I'd learned the rec center kitchen was going to be open, I was less concerned about going hungry that night.

The filling is made of chopped broccoli, roasted red peppers, mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, salt and oregano. I also put some slices of deli ham inside for a little extra flavor and volume. I used a whole wheat dough that I divided and a little cornmeal to handle the dough.


We plopped them right into the pie irons and figured it would take about 10 minutes per side for the dough to cook. Yeah. We were done in less than 10 minutes total! And they were perfect. The first batch was a little crusty on the outside, but inside the dough was soft and the cheese was perfectly melty. The second batch was pure heaven since we knew to take them off the flames earlier.


Ta-da!

Sunday morning we woke up to some light rain. It wasn't that terrible. We had put all our stuff (and firewood) in the screenhouse before bed, so we were pretty much dry. I actually think most of the "rain" we contended with in the morning was the drops that were left on the trees that kept falling every time the wind blew.

It was just before 8:00 am and we had to check out by 11:00 am, so we figured we had time for breakfast. Dave started a fire and I got out the ingredients.

Pancakes! Yes, I realize it's Bisquick, but I'm still making pancakes in the woods. And turkey sausage. With the fire blazing, we stuck the pie irons over the flames to get them going. Then I shook up the pancake mix and loaded up the irons.

The irons were so hot the sausage started to sizzle as soon as it hit the metal.

This was perfect and so easy. The pancakes actually turned out better than when I make them at home (I have a tendency to burn the first few and the last few--don't know why). The pancakes puffed up right away and the sausage got a nice crispy brown outside.

I can honestly say that for as many stories as I've heard about Dave eating well when camping, I never expected to have such good meals and have them be so easy and quick. I was pleasantly surprised. Just goes to show you that a little preparation and planning can make it easy for you. Maybe I should put this much thought into making dinner at home during the week.