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Dutch Oven Cooking


Mariojr67

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Any relation to Dwayne Pritchett, the "Medicine Man"?

 

One of my jobs is to sell the Patrols in my newly adopted Troop on using Dutch oven cooking to fulfill First Class requirements. They used my copies of The Geezer Cookbook for the first time last Monday. At first the older Scouts resented the idea of not just opening a jar of spaghetti sauce, but then at the same time I overheard the same refrain from two of the Patrols:

 

"No, wait, LOOK. This is EASY!"

 

Kudu

 

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Love the dutch oven. It took time to convince our guys how easy they are to use and clean. After they watched the adults enjoying splendid meals followed by easy cleanup, the boys started to give it a try. Of course, it helped that I gave them a challenge a few years ago that they had to prepare at least one meal on the upcoming campout using a dutch oven. 'Here's a recipe book guys, see what you can find.'

 

Now, one of their favorite breakfast items is cinnamon rolls. They also have gotten quite expert in making biscuits and gravy. Boy Scout Pizza (pita pockets split open and covered with sauce, meat and cheese) has appeared for lunch or dinner. I stopped making cobblers or brownies a while ago and finally the boys started making it themselves. Thankfully, they share with the adults.

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Dutch oven cooking is a staple with me since I was a kid. Unfortunately I didn't own a full-sized one until well into my adult years. However, that never stopped me from using my standard, cheap mess kit as a dutch oven. Ever since I baked my first bisquits in my mess kit, I've been hooked. It is a great way to start the boys out on the concept of baking at outings. I've always carried two mess kits, they're light and I use one for cooking and the other for eating and cleanup.

 

Stosh

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Dutch oven cooking is a staple with me since I was a kid. Unfortunately I didn't own a full-sized one until well into my adult years. However, that never stopped me from using my standard, cheap mess kit as a dutch oven. Ever since I baked my first bisquits in my mess kit, I've been hooked. It is a great way to start the boys out on the concept of baking at outings. I've always carried two mess kits, they're light and I use one for cooking and the other for eating and cleanup.

 

Stosh

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My sons troop has dutch oven contests during their meetings at least 2 times a years and the boys really love it. Then they are really excited about taking their new recipes to camp. Check out http://www.troop68.org/ and go to the recipes page. A couple of weeks ago they did a dutch oven pizza contest and I was really impressed with the results, some patrols had cheese in the crust and put the local Pizza joints a run for their money. When boys get to create it's really quite fun to see how self supporting they can be.

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There's a few options here.

 

1) If you have a all metal cover to the inner boiler pot then you can drop it in the bottom of the fry pan as a spacer to keep the bake goods from burning on the bottom.

 

2) put thin layer of sand on bottom of fry pan and bake in the boiler and/or metal cup.

 

3) put whole mess kit on small rocks so it doesn't sit on the coals

 

4) use 3-4 briquettes on the top and bottom. Until you figure out how the coals work on such a small oven, you will produce a lot of hockey pucks along the way. Remember, it's a small baking chamber and a lot of heat isn't necessary. Take your time and be patient. It's a dutch oven, not a microwave oven.

 

Over all the years I have been doing it, it's more of an eyeball kinda thingy that comes with playing with it. Start with the tubes of biscuits one tube per boy and then start with one biscuit, let the boys play, then do another, let the boys play, I think there's 8 in the tube. By the time they play with all 8 biscuits, they should have a pretty good idea on how it works. Do the sausage and gravy in the boiler while you're playing. Couple of pork patties/links in the boiler, heat through, pour on a little gravy from a jar (on jar per patrol) and you have breakfast....

 

There's not enough individual survival cooking anymore it's all troop and/or patrol cooking even though one of the requirements is to cook for oneself, it's not an art form anymore. It used to be a staple in scouting when I was a kid. Now it's all utensil-less cooking which is rather primitive, makes a impressive demonstrations, but is NEVER used except for impressive demonstrations. With the dutch mess kit, it can be quite sophisticated. Nothing better than blueberry muffins while everyone else is knocking off hot-water oatmeal. Fresh baked cookies anyone? Not only that who says one can't do dutch oven cooking on a backpack outing? Dutch oven cooking is a style of cooking, not the cast iron container. If done right, a dutch oven can be made out of different sized tin cans, too. Put a #10 in the fire open side up, toss a tuna can in the bottom for a spacer, put your goodies on the tuna can (metal cup with muffin mix in it) and cover with another large can (smaller than a #10). Then toss coals on the inverted second can over the food, put your coals on the bottom (now the top) of this inner can. When it's done, brush the coals off the inner can, lift up and voila, biscuits in a cup! If you stop and think about it, one can also fry pan cook on the top of this homemade dutch oven, like maybe the sausage gravy that goes with the biscuit in the oven???? But of course! This homemade dutch works better than a mess kit, but the mess kit transports so much easier in the back country. There's not a lot of baking clearance in the mess kit, but it does work nicely anyway.

 

Good cooking can be an excellent adventure for the boys that leaves a pleasant taste in their mouths. :^)

 

Stosh

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