Wonderful day at "Camp Indiana"

[chaunclm]

The time is 11:15 AM June 2nd and the sky is brilliant blue and sunshine floods the land here. The temperature is 63. Our plan for the Afternoon is to grill some chopped sirloin steaks over mesquite. While I do the steaks the wife will saute some onions and mushrooms for gravy and bake a few potatoes. Yesterday's fresh picked asparagus will make for the kind of great food we love.

We'll finish that off with a Raspberry cobbler cooked in our small dutch oven.

It's a difficult life we live, but someone has to do the hard stuff.

[chaunclm]

Here in Angola, Indiana, today is an even more beautiful day than yesterday. We have brilliant sunshine with a forecast high of 75 and a gentle breeze.

On the menu this day is dutch oven Lasagna. with charcoal grilled vegetables and home made peach ice cream.

Gosh what a great way to live.

Where are you and what's on the menu for you?

[mwilliams]

I love the culinary update along with the weather report. Sharon and I are still at the sticks and bricks in Jacksonville, FL but have plans to be back on the road beginning in July (July - Ohio, August - R.I., CT, NJ and DE, September - Virginia). I love hearing about the meals that you are cooking AND the way that you are cooking. I am especially partial to the Dutch Oven method but would love to learn more about using the ovens. I carry two with me (a 10" with feet and a 12" flat bottom).

[chaunclm]

Nice to hear from you folks. The bible for cooking with a dutch oven is a book published by Lodge and the Lone Star Dutch Oven Cooking Society named "Lodge Texas Treasury of Dutch Oven Cooking Cookbook". The first part of the book leads one through the key to using a DO by presenting a couple of different ways to know what the temperature in the oven is and that is the key to cooking with one. When one knows the temp in the oven then one can cook anything that can be cooked in a conventional oven.

[chaunclm]

When we go to the trouble to crank up the grill we like to cook two entrees. Generally we grill one and smoke the other. On Monday we grilled thick (3/4 inch) pork chops and a pork rib eye roast.

We set the grill up with charcoal and smoking wood on one end. We of course grill directly over the hot coals. Then we close the grill and cook the roast on the other end of the cooker. Internal temperatures can be managed by controlling air flow into and out of the device.

We use a Weber 200 with charcoal. Sorry but this model is no longer available. Only the propane model is presently made. I think one could order the parts and make one.

Anyway we are still eating on the meat cooked on Monday. We plan to finish off the roast today with a pork pot pie in our dutch oven.

We will publish our recipe for the pie with pictures in our next post.

[ralper]

Chauncey you have my mouth watering so much I have to wear a bib.

[chaunclm]

Here is our recipe for Pork Pot Pie. This will feed 6 hungry hikers after a day of hiking or 10 couch potatoes. We cooked it in our 12 inch Aluminum Dutch oven.

Pie Filling:

3 cups cubed potatoes
1 ½ cups thinly sliced carrots
½ cup thinly sliced celery
½ cup chopped onion
2 cups diced cooked pork (We used left overs from a rib eye roast)
1 cup frozen English peas

2 cups stock (We used ham, but chicken or beef would work)

1½ tbs flour
½ tsp dried rosemary crushed
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp sage
½ tsp MSG (Optional, but tastes better with it)
1 tbs onion powder

3 10 inch refrigerated pie crusts

Preparation:

Spray inside of a 12 inch Dutch oven with Pam or coat with butter or oil
Use 1 & ½ of pie crusts to cover bottom and sides of DO
Mix flour and spices with cold stock
Mix all ingredients together and pour into DO on top of pie crust
With remaining pie crust cover mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes (See note)
Add 6 briquettes to top of DO and bake for an additional 20 minutes

Notes:

To obtain a 350 degree DO temperature:
Arrange burning charcoal briquettes so that there is a single ring just under the edge of the bottom and one ring around the edge of lid. The briquettes should be touching each other and should be at least ½ covered with ash. We use Kingsford Charcoal.

Stock - When we smoke anything in our charcoal grill we place it in a shallow throw away aluminum pan. We save the juices that accumulate in the pan. After refrigerating we defat this and use it as stock.


Feel free to post any questions.

[greyt-parent]

Chauncey, you are making me very jealous. Right now, we are up in Canada visiting our son and daughter-in-law who are vegans so menus have been very un-carnivoreish lately. However, I do have a new Jambalaya recipe to try out at the Spring Rally.