Scones for Breakfast

(More food from TERT Trip July 2010)

Scones were fun to make this trip.  I made them twice and the kids loved them both times.  Too bad I only made them once for Hubby and myself.  Because we love them too.  But the second time we had eggs and fried potatoes.  Yum!

I made some Artisan Bread Dough just before we left for camping on July 1st.  I did some research and learned about this method of making dough and keeping it for a week or so and pinching off what you need for the day.  I tried it during this latest trip and I loved it.  It was fun to use, easy to make and we had fun experimenting with it.



Even though this pan looks large, it is only about 5 inches across.  I have two pans this size but they are slightly different, and they are from different manufacturers.   

This is the second pan.  Now I am hungry for scones!  I need to get these posts done and away from my fire food memories.  

Here is a plate of freshly fried scones.  They have butter on them.  They are waiting for some powdered sugar, jelly, honey or syrup.

Here is a powdered sugar with maple syrup scone.  This would be Pilots.  See- Pilot is stuffing his face full of fresh scones.

Here is Angel with hers.  She is a powdered sugar with honey gal.

Here is the stove with the two small pans with a scone in each one.  The $1.00 hot water pot from the second hand store.  And my tall sided skillet with fried potatoes in it.  

I should mention that each of the small cast iron frying pans were $1.00 each and the bigger skillet was $2.00.  The larger skillet is a Lodge cast iron pan.  A very reputable cast iron maker.  The crock for the bread dough- $1.50 including the lid! 

I feel blessed to have found so many nice and usable items at the DI thrift store.  Saves money and let's us have some things we would never choose to spend our money on at full price.

I am soooooo very 

hungry right 

now..................

Wait!! Where did they all go?

......

CampPizza

(More food from TERT Trip July 2010)

Fire baked pizza! so very delish, except for the ketchup sauce.  I was not going to open a jar of pizza sauce for one small pizza.  But again, food over a fire is almost always delicious.  I loved it.  

The kids were still full from breakfast to eat very much, but they both said they liked it.  They had only had breakfast a couple of hours before.  I split the rest of the Artisan bread dough and used half to make scones for the kids' breakfast. And the rest I put aside for the pizza experiment. 

Hubby really loved it too.  But then we were hungry.  Hubby and I ate breakfast several hours earlier and we  were getting hungry.  

I started the pizza, got the Artisan dough ready.  The bread dough was now 5 days old and I was wondering if it would still be good.  YES! It was wonderful.  

I put the ketchup on and a good sprinkling of Italian Seasoning. Then I turned the pizza making over to Hubby.  I had sliced olives, sliced mushrooms, small Canadian bacon slices and cheese (Mexican blend) for him to build the pizza with. 

We put the dough circle on a piece of non-stick aluminum foil so I could put it on the grate.  I didn't have my pizza peel or I might have tried putting it directly on the grate- there would have been some nice grill marks.  

Then I covered the pizza with our large stainless steel bread bowl.  This became the 'oven' and the pizza baked beautifully.  Bubbly cheese and nicely baked crust.  I was in Heaven.  I need a pizza now..............

....

Giant Campfire Roasting Marshmallows

(From our July 1 to 6, 2010 TERT Weekend)

Playing with fire! No not really, in the fire...... well in the fire with food ...... not playing with fire in the dangerous sense.

Here is what I wanted to share about roasting marshmallows.

Campfire Marshmallows has come out with a Giant Roasting Mallow.

On the left is the new Giant Mallow.  The middle with tan is the Vanilla Caramel Mallow, then to the right is a regular sized mallow. In the front is a mini-mallow.  Don't you love the different sizes?

Here is our selection of marshmallows that can be found waiting for our next trip up into camping land.

We roasted the new huge marshmallow as well.  But let me tell you, I can only eat one!  And that is after it has roasted 3 times, as the shell comes off and then you roast the inside and this shell comes off and finally it is small enough to roast and come off leaving no shell!  

We all had fun with this one, here is Pilot trying to eat a newly roasted mallow.

  Oh, we also tried the vanilla/caramel regular size marshmallows.  I really loved these ones.  They are not as sugary for me, they didn't upset my stomach system like regular marshmallow do.

  I don't know why, but I wasn't going to research it, I was taking it as a gift.  I had fun roasting and eating them too, along with the kids.  Not something I normally do anymore.  But still I only had a couple.  I kept my eating in check and didn't gain anything while we were gone.  Well done, well done.

.....

Playing with Food over the CampFire

(From our July 1 to 6, 2010 TERT Weekend)

So we were kind of bored at one time while camping.  So we built up a fire and began playing in it! No not just playing with the fire, playing with cooking over the fire.  We took bacon and wrapped it on the roasting sticks.  It cooked up really crispy and was very tasty.

We wrapped hotdogs on the roasting sticks with bread dough and made pigs-in-blankets.  This was fun and very tasty too.  

Too bad the camera was on vacation.  But believe me we had tons of fun.  

***

Here are photos of other things we cooked:

Here are pearl onions, sliced onions, mushrooms sautéing in a skillet over the fire/coals.  

We ate some of it and then froze the rest in the trailers freezer for later use at home.

Looks really good, right?

Here is some corn I cut from two cobs to roast, bake over the coals.  I hate getting corn in my teeth when I eat it from the cob.

Here are two cobs wrapped in foil.  They cooked in the coals and are ready to be eaten.

Doesn't this cob look nice?  I buttered and salted it before I tossed them in the fire to bake/roast.  All one had to do to eat a cob was open the foil and cool a tad, pick it up and eat!

Yum, yum was the reaction I got. 

Campfire cooking is really easy and fun.

...

CampPeach Cobbler

(another post from July 1-6, 2010 TERT Trip)

Peach Cobbler for the family-

made by Angel

(a recipe she learned from Girls Camp)

So Angel decide she wanted to make Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler.  So she grabbed a box of yellow cake mix, a can of lemon-lime soda, and a can of peaches.  Yes, I try to keep my trailers pantry loaded with things that we can make while camping.

Here is how it looked as we pulled it off the fire.  We used our little dutch for this.  It just barely fit, we didn't add the whole can of peaches, because it was a big can and I knew it wouldn't all fit into our little dutch.  

The big one was cooking ribs so that the only choice we had was to use the little one.

Just look at how delicious this looks!  I can taste it now just looking at the photo.  Angel and Pilot are great cooks in the outdoors and I love it!  

We added some whipping cream from the can and it was just delish!!

Happy Camping!

Happy Camp Cooking!

Happy Eating!

...

Baby Back Ribs in the Dutch Oven and Leftovers

(Another post from our July 1-6, 2010 TERT Trip)

Sunday Dinner was wonderful.  On the menu we had Baby Back Ribs, Corn on the Cob, Baked Potatoes and Peach Cobbler for dessert.

Here are the ribs:  this photo show them dry, cooked to fall off the bone perfection and already picked at.

This photo show the ribs in the Dutch Oven.  Yes we really did cook them in there.  We cut a whole rack in half and put Pilot's secret dry rub on them.  And then wrapped them in foil and let them cook away for a couple of hours over nice hot coals and coals on the lid as well.

As they were just finishing up getting ready to fall off the bones, we smothered them in Pilot's secret homemade bbq sauce.  These were delicious.  And four ribs a piece, was not enough for satisfaction fulfillment, it was enough for caloric intake and control. 

But really, who can stop eating delicious ribs?  I could eat them all day when they are prepared correctly.  Correctly only means tender, fall off the bone soft, and tasty.  I enjoy all different tasty flavors.  I do have to say though, Pilot's experiments have all been tasty to me.  I'd rather eat his, than eat ribs prepared by any restaurant, any day!!

After the ribs were done, we had quite a bit of bbq sauce left over.  So I threw in the rest of the bag of meatballs from earlier meals, and carrots and pepper chunks, both red and green.  I let this simmer until the veggies were tender and the meatballs were soft and juicy.  This too was delicious!!  

We tasted it and then put it in the trailer's freezer for another day- at home that is.  We couldn't eat any more this day, the ribs were filling, the corn and potatoes were filling as well.  And then to top everything off, Angel's peach cobbler was rich and very filling!  It was a delicious Sunday of good campfire eats!!

...

**Hobo Dinners = Foil Dinners ** and a Single Kabob

(From our July 1 to 6, 2010 TERT Weekend)

It was time to do some foil dinners.  You know the foil wrapped dinner you cook in the coals.  Hamburger, slices of onion, potato and carrots, with salt and pepper.  That you cover in ketchup and devour.  In our photo you can see our latest hobo/foil dinner with meatballs and/or chicken chunks.

Everyone in the family loves them and they are pretty easy.  The best part is that you can do some of the preparation at home before you leave.  But if you don't, it isn't that hard to do in camp. 

(Thanks to www.RangerDJ.com for the photo of preparation.)

Foil dinners vs hobo dinners.  Well virtually they are the same.  It all depends on where you come from and of course what you learned and your own personal experience. 

I have usually called these foil dinners, but when I called them hobo dinners, everyone thought that was pretty ingenious.  Of course it helps that we love to watch the movie, Kit Kitterridge which tells a story about the hobos and life during the depression.

After researching the Internet, I found some fun ways to change the basic formulation.  I sometimes use a cream of mushroom or chicken soup addition to make a stew.  Some folks add cheese and no soup, comes out more like a cheese burger with veggies.  

There is a wonderful article from Heather's Happy Haven, explaining how she made hobo dinners at home and sent them pre-made and pre-wrapped to a Father's and Son camp out for her husband and son.  They were already cooked and just needed heating up.  Smart gal.  Sounds easy and looks delicious.  

I might make hobo-foil dinners at home in the future to take camping and we could toss them on the fire for the first night.  

But I always seem to run out of time to do my pre-made meals.  I suppose I should be assigning the kids to make these, so for future reference I need to involve the kids a bit more in the planning and getting ready part of our trips.

So here are the resulting photos of our Hobo Dinners:

Store purchased meatballs with chicken chunks, sliced onion, potatoes, carrots, fresh mushrooms and a spoon of mushroom soup over the top.

Heres a chicken one with a couple of diced green and red pepper chunks.

An all meatballs one.

Smothered with ketchup.  I don't do this, a little catsup can be nice, but I like all natural.

The menu called for Hobo Foil Dinners or Kabobs.  I had pre-cut the chicken and peppers into chunks to make easy Kabob making.  But at the last minute I decided to use these ingredients in the hobo dinners.  I also had not brought any hamburger for the patties in the hobo dinners, but I knew I could substitute the chicken chunks and also use the frozen meatballs.  

Both of these meats were heading for kabobs.  So I preempted the menu and altered the plan.  I came up with the Chicken Chunk/Meatball foil dinners.  

Then there was left over kabob chunks, so I went ahead and made one kabob.  I have never really made kabobs before- as a meal.  I always want to, I love how they look.  I think they would be awesome, but I have never broken down and done them. 

So I made one.  And I didn't take care of it.  My firepit was jammed pack full with cooking foil packets and making hot water to clean with and ........ well I don't remember, but it was full.  

I also wasn't prepared with a place to cook kabobs.  I do have the skewers, so I used one and then put it on the grill grate.  I didn't keep my eye on it and so it got quite well done.  I actually loved it, it didn't taste as burnt as it looks.  It was good, but the hobo/foil dinners were much better.  

Juicy and tender.................. just wonderful.

Tips:

• Use your favorite meat.  Cutting into chunks usually quickens the cooking time.
• Pre cut/chunk and bag your ingredients before you go camping.
• You can even pre-cook and pre-wrap at home so when you arrive at camp just reheat them.
• Research the Internet- there are many ideas, tips, recipes and stories concerning hobo/foil dinners.
• These obviously can be vegetarian meals.  Adjust to your liking.
• I usually start cooking them top side down and then halfway through I turn them over.  I find that if I have not folded and sealed the foil correctly, I have less leakage during the first half of cooking.  My wrapped bottoms almost never leak as I keep the folds and crimps on the top side.
• Adding an ice cube per packet can help with moisture and keep your dinner from burning and drying out.  Although remember if you use fresh mushrooms, they release water as they cook.  So use your best judgement when added ingredients.