Cookin' When It's Hot

On Thursday, Aug. 4th, the RS hosted a "Cookin' When It's Hot Night" at the Bagley's residence.  Demonstrations were given on creating foil pack dinners, caring for and cooking with dutch ovens, and creative campfire desserts.  The demonstrations were followed by an amazing dutch oven dinner courtesy of Niki Bagley.  Thanks Niki, it was terrific!  Even though the weather forced us into the garage, we were still able to enjoy one another's company and enjoy some delicious renderings from the dutch ovens.  Here are a few tips for summer cooking that were presented during the demonstrations:

Foil Pack Cooking

Presented by Cherie Johnson

-When cooking foil dinners, use two long pieces of heavy foil and overlap them forming a cross.

-To keep meat from burning try placing a piece of cabbage down first and layering your meat on top of the cabbage.

-You can use a variety of meats and vegetables, or even mixing different combinations to meet your families specific tastes.

-If you want your veggies to cook faster, try using frozen vegetables.

-Whole cloves of garlic added to a foil pack dinner add an awesome flavor.

-Once you have layered your meat and vegetables, try adding 1/2 a can of cream of mushroom soup.  The soup makes everything moist and flavorful.

-Be sure to avoid holes in your tinfoil when folding to keep the juices in and ashes out.

-When your foil dinner is layered and ready to cook, fold over the first piece of foil rolling tightly, mark the pack at this point with a sharpie marker so that when it comes out of the fire, you know who the dinner belongs to, then roll the other side of the foil tightly and you are ready to cook.

-Near the campfire, dig a small hole if possible and scoop some coals from the fire into the hole, place your foil pack on top of the coals and layer with more hot coals.  Hamburger meals should bake for about 30 minutes, flipping the foil pack about halfway through, while chicken and steak meals should cook form 40-60 minutes, flipping halfway through.

-You can also cook foil dinners on a grill on medium heat for about 1 hour, rotating a few times throughout the cooking process.

-In the winter, foil dinners can be cooked in the oven for 350 for about 45 minutes.

Dutch Oven Cooking

Presented by Niki Bagley

-Before using a dutch oven for the first time, be sure to season it, using cooking oil and salt and baking it in the oven.  You can usually find directions for seasoning a dutch oven in the directions that come with the oven.  You can also buy ovens "pre-seasoned" for convenient use.

-A wire buffing pad attachment on a drill makes a quick and easy way to remove rust from a dutch oven.

-Never wash a dutch oven out with soap, but instead scrub it out with a scrubber.  Aluminum foil makes a cheap and easy scrubber.  Adding salt when scrubbing helps get out the grit while also adding flavor.

-If you have scrubbed a dutch oven and can't get rid of a rancid food smell, try boiling water in the dutch oven repeatedly until the smell goes away.

-Dutch oven liners purchased at a sporting goods store make for quick clean up when cooking desserts, but cooking main dishes and side dishes without liners helps add to the seasoning of the dutch oven.

-One simple way to decide how many charcoal briquettes to use is by following this rule:  Take the dutch oven diameter and add 3 briquettes on top. Subtract 3 briquettes underneath. So, a 12 inch oven would have 12+3=15 on top and 12-3=9 underneath. This works for any size dutch oven. Then you need to adjust briquette placement depending on the type of cooking.

-You can always re-season a dutch oven by baking it and rubbing in bacon grease, or oil and salt.

-You can layer dutch ovens utilizing the coals on top of the bottom dutch oven to bake a dish in the top dutch oven.

-When storing a dutch oven, fold a paper towel and hang over the edge of the dutch oven in order to vent the lid and let air circulate.

Creative Campfire Desserts

Presented by Lori Fillmore

Try stepping away from the traditional marshmallow the next time you are in the mood to roast something delicious over the campfire with your family, by trying one of these dessert ideas:

Peach Cobbler without a Dutch Oven

Ingredients:

-Canned Peaches in Heavy Syrup

-Approx. 1 1/2 cups Bisquick

Directions:

1. Drain peaches, but save 1/4-1/2 cup of syrup and add to Bisquick mix.  Leave peaches in the can.

2. Stir until a batter forms.

3. Pour Bisquick mixture into can with peaches.

4. Cover peach can with lid and place into hot coals.  Cook until batter forms a hard toasty pie crust over peaches.

5. Serve with ice cream!

Banana Boats

Ingredients:

-Banana

-Hershey's chocolate bar, or chocolate chips

-Marshmallows or mini marshmallows

-Heavy duty aluminum foil

Directions:

1. Cut your banana down the middle.  Leave it in the peel.

2. Stuff with chocolate and marshmallows.

3. Wrap in aluminum foil and place in hot coals for about 5-10 minutes.  Turn and rotate often.

4. It is ready when chocolate is melted and marshmallows are gooey.

Orange and a Muffin

Ingredients:

-Orange

-Muffin Mix +milk and egg according to package directions

-Heavy duty aluminum foil

Directions:

1. Slice the orange in half and remove the orange fruit from one half.

2. Prepare muffin mix of choice according to package directions, then fill the empty space from the halved orange with muffin mix.

3. Cap the muffin-filled half with the fruit-filled half, then wrap the orange with foil and roast at the edge of your fire until the muffin bakes.

Cinnamon Caramel Apple Wedges

Ingredients

-Apple

-Kraft Caramel squares

-Cinnamon Bears

-Aluminum Foil

Directions:

1. Core and slice an apple (I like using my handy dandy apple slicer) and throw out the core.

2. Holding the pieces of the apple together, fill the void where the core was with a caramel square, then a cinnamon bear, and another caramel square.

3. Wrap the apple with a couple of layers of aluminum foil and roast at the edge of the camp fire for about 10-15 minutes rotating about every 5 minutes.

*If Niki wants to send me her recipes for the dutch oven chicken, beans, and desserts, I will post them here when I get them, so check back later if you came here looking for these recipes.