FOOD

[SMT224]

gwd-scouter -

Yep, I've noticed the stale oil issue as well. Running some clean fresh oil around the oven a couple times before cooking in it seem to clean it up ok.

 

Stosh -

Interesting suggestion on beeswax... do you melt it out of the Dutch Oven before using? Or do you cook with the beeswax still in it?

 

Thanks...

 

 

[resqman]

"How do you get the boys to eat these meals? I would love them, but our boys want spaghetti, foil dinners with hamburger patties, and even hamburger helper. They will eat salad or green beans, but just want venture out. So many of them won't eat anything different ever, even at home. Fish, sushi, roast cornish hens, are all things I can't imagine any of the boys in the troop (other than my son) ever eating. I guess I am lucky, because my son will eat anything and prefers real food to junky convenience food."

 

We don't GET our boys to eat these meals. The PLC (boys) chooses the theme. The patrols do their own menu planning based on the theme. They buy the food, cook the food, and eat the food. No adult invovlement.

 

Remember the theme is a guideline. Chicken & corn served in a coconut shell for C-food/Seafood theme. It could have been frozen chicken fingers heated by flopping around in a fry pan, canned corn served room temp, and served in a Cup. The natural competitveness of the boys will soon takeover.

 

You are telling me the boys in your troop will not eat tacos, meatball subs, pizza, or chinese?

 

Mexican is easy. What are tacos? Hamburger meat with a packet of seasoning browned in a fry pan. Store bought shredded cheese in a bag, dice a tomato, slice some lettuce. Spoon into a store bought taco shell. What boys don't like tacos?

 

Asian? Boil some water and drop in rice. 20 minutes later spoon onto a plate. Cut chunks of chicken and brown in a splash of oil in a fry pan. Throw in a bag of frozen mixed veggies. Add store bought flavor packet. Serve over the rice.

 

Italian: Heat a jar of spagetti sauce with a few store bought frozen meatballs in the pan. Slice hogie roll. Spoon sauce and meatballs into roll. Sprinkle grated mozerella cheese. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.

 

How about pizza? Make a box oven during patrol time. At campout spoon some jar pizza sauce onto tortilla. Sprinkle grated cheese on top. Add pepperoni, pre-cooked sausage, canned mushrooms, olives, or other fixings of their choice. Place in dutch oven or box oven for 5-10 minutes until heated through.

 

Foil meal: Ham slice, sliced jam/sweet potato, pineapple junks, add a sprinkle of cinnamon & nutmeg. Wrap in foil and bake. How about bone in chicken breast, canned corn, few potato slices, pearl onions, salt & pepper, 2-3 spoons of condensed cream of chicken soup, chicken broth, or water.

 

Sounds like you need to organize a cooking class some Saturday in the church parking lot. Bring out a few dutch ovens, box ovens, foil, etc. Maybe do a round robin training session. Sessions last 45 minutes and rotate to next station.

 

I can see several classes including:

 

-Basic dutch oven: charcoal chimneys, Matchlite vs. regular charcoal, distribution of briquetts, 90 degree rotation of oven & lid, cleaning & storing & care of ovens, etc.

 

-Box oven: make a few box oven, bake something simple like store bought freezer cookies, Add water muffin mix, frigerator cinnamon rolls in pop open can, Jiffy brand corn bread, etc. Divide the patrol into groups. One group is making box oven. One group is mixing muffin mix and adding to pan. You already have coals going and prebuilt oven. Place muffins in premade oven and cook. 15 minutes later, they each try muffin. They have finished their box oven and they cook the cookies in their oven in 15 minutes. 45 minutes the boys have made an oven, used an oven, and baked two items which they eat as a snack.

 

-Make boil in bag omelettes: Set up camp stove. Heat pot of water. Break 2 eggs into ziplock. Boys add pre-cooked sausage, bacon, cheese, tomatoes, green onion, diced ham, etc into bag. Boys mash the ziplock to scramble eggs. Burp air of of bags and zip closed. Write name on bag with marker and drop in water. 5-10 minutes later pull out with tongs and eat from ziplock with spoon.

 

- Simple reciepe demo: Show how easy to make recipes listed above.

 

The first several cook-offs were very simple fare. Rice was crunchy, things were burned, portions were off, etc. Immediately we saw improvements in their cooking. They learned things like there are more than two settings on the stove (off and high), start the longest item to cook first, add one portion for the pot, etc.

 

Also the adult patrol modeled. We are held to the same budget, same themes, same tools in patrol box, same everything. They used to complain that we were eating steaks and they were eating sandwiches. We explain the whole budget thing. Oatmeal for breakfast leaves money for steak dinners. Buying at warehouse clubs and store brands is cheaper. Buying in bulk and using some for next campout saves money.

 

Challenge them to choose their favorite meal from home or restaurant. Ask them to cook it on a campout. Suggest they ask Mom to show them how to cook items at home. Hold cooking sessions during patrol time. Some will really like to cook, some will cook so that the other boys don't burn/ruin their only food, and some will shy away. After several campouts, the overall attitude about cooking will change.

 

If you will build it, they will come. Offer patrol or troop cooking class sessions. If you have to, disguise the class as meeting many/most/all of the requirements for cooking merit badge. If you teach the NSP patrol only, guess how bummed the rest of the troop will be when they see them eating great food. What if you only offer the class to the PLC? Let the idea trickle down to the troop. How about the adult patrol invites one patrol leader each campout to eat with the adults all weekend if they agree to shadow the adult cook?

[oldsm]

Although I enjoy a meal cooked in a Dutch oven, it's too heavy for backpacking. Takes up too much room, too.

 

Avail yourself of a couple of Back Country cookbooks. These have terrific recipes. The boys have learned that a little extra prep work at home pays huge dividends with the variety of menus they can have, makes food easy to carry with no need for regrigeration, minimizes on-the-trail cooking time and mess, and is fun to do. It's fun to watch the patrols start to compete with each other for who can have the most interesting dishes.

 

[digression] As much as I hated powdered milk when I was a kid, the scouts have embraced it. I still cringe when I see them sprinkle some on their granola and then add water. Somehow, it just doesn't seem right...but I'm not going to "correct" them.[end digression]

[Twocubdad]

Sometimes the boys need to be booted outside their comfort zone. Once a year or so we do an Iron Chef competition. One year we ran it like the TV show where the troop provided the groceries for the whole weekend and the patrols had to back into a menu based on what they were provided. We've run it requiring the use of a Dutch oven and another time not allowing the use of any pots, pans or utensils.

 

The Grand Prize is a steak dinner on the next campout with all the trimmings, cooking and cleaning provided by the adults. We've had patrols show up with white table cloths, candles, plastic wine glasses and sparkling cider trying to win the steak dinner.

[gcnphkr]

You might try the recipes in the Scout Handbook. There is a great stew in there. I don't recall what else.

 

For the truly clean up challenged, get dutch oven liners or just line the pan with foil.

[Stosh]

I was asked off-forum how the beeswax worked.

 

I have a 1# bar of beeswax. After cleaning the oven, heat it up a bit and take the bar and rub it around and it will melt a bit in the oven. Take a paper towel and wipe it around inside and out while it is still warm just like you would do with oil. Let it cool and store. When it comes time to cook, nothing special is needed to do. Cook as you would normally do. It smells of honey but I have found no taste difference in the food. I would do beeswax all the time, but oil is a bit more handy for every day use, because of the heating/cooling steps that go with the wax treatment. For long range storage it is 1000% better than trying to deal with the rancid oil smells/flavors which compared to wax is a major difference.

 

Stosh

 

[Stosh]

Oops, forgot to add. I have never tried doing both oil and wax in the same Dutch oven. I processed out my oil and converted to wax on my long-term Dutch and then have never done the oil thing with it, always wax or oil, never any alternating on a single item. At home on the stove it's all oil, on the items I don't use very often, it's all wax.

 

My apologies to SMT224 for missing his request for information on the forum.

 

Stosh

[mikecummings157]

Our troop has a policy that lunch & dinner menus can't be repeated for the duration of the Scouting year. We also ask that the patrols use a Dutch Oven for something at Saturday night dinner. This breaks up the menu monotony.

 

As someone else suggested, there are many dutch oven & outdoor cookbooks available on-line. We have some printed and in the troop library to help with menu planning.

 

Even better to get the boys interested in better food is a little competition. We have had camporees and also interpatrol competitions; the boys really have come up with some great dishes.

[eghiglie]

The issues experienced in my Troop had nothing to do with cooking but cleanup was a hassle and fights occurred over who would dump the gray water.

 

So in December we took a hard look at the menus and how to cook with little cleanup. We also reorganized our duty roster to make sure that the same crew worked the kitchen the whole weekend.

 

The menu must be approved by the SPL and SM. In fact, the boys love the new menu and staffing so much that they repeat the menus. Our goal is to have fun not wash pots and pans.

 

The other change we made is the staffing, previously the head cook worked with a rotating staff of young scouts just to get requirements signed off. This failed.

 

The new plan is to have the head cook work with two assistants. One assistant must be 1st Class or higher. The other assistant could be any other youth. A youth must be an assistant cook for at least three campouts before being considered for head cook.

 

The Troop Guide, ASPL and Patrol Leaders must be Head Cook and Assistant Cook once during the six month term to get the POR signed off. The idea is that repetition makes them better at leading teams.

 

Omelets in a Ziploc bag for example are a very delicious meal with little cleanup, then use the boiling water to clean the one or two utensils.

 

Instant oatmeal in a Ziploc works great also.

 

Foil dinner foil meals have become very popular and delicious.

 

Our Troop allows meals to be repeated over and over again. We do not allow pop tarts, hotdogs or hamburgers.

 

It is great to not have any arguments and very little cleanup to get to the fun.

 

Our last campout took 25 minutes for a hot breakfast of omelets in the bag.

 

The Patrol Cook does prep at home and is encouraged to get one of the assistants to help him with the shopping and prep work. School makes this hard though.

 

[OldGrayOwl]

One thing our troop like to make is ice cream in a dutch oven. Always raises eyebrows at camporees (you CAN'T make ice cream in a dutch oven!!!)

[eghiglie]

OldGrayOwl

 

What's the secret to ice cream in the dutvh oven?

 

 

[OldGrayOwl]

I'm glad you asked.

Here is a copy from the troop's web site:

 

Award Winning Dutch Oven Ice Cream

 

Ingredients

1 small package instant pudding (any flavor) (The flavor of the pudding will be the final ice cream flavor) We really like French Vanilla)

2 cup heavy cream

1 cup milk

cup sugar

1 egg

tablespoon vanilla

teaspoon lemon juice

1 can evaporated milk

 

Directions

1. Mix together pudding, 1 cup heavy cream, & milk.

 

2. In a second bowl mix sugar, egg, vanilla, and lemon juice.

 

3. Add 1 cup heavy cream and evaporated milk, stir until smooth.

 

4. Add about 2 of crushed ice and rock salt into either a tub about 18 to 20 inches in diameter or into an ice chest that can hold the Dutch Oven.

 

5. Put the lid onto the oven.

 

6. Put the Dutch oven into the tub or cooler and fill the sides of the tub with more crushed ice and rock salt and leave it sit for about 5 minutes to chill the Dutch Oven.

 

7. Mix in the pudding mixture and pour into a 12" Dutch oven.

 

8. Fill the lip of the Dutch oven lid with crushed ice (NO ROCK SALT ON THE LID!!!).

 

9. About every 5 minutes or so remove the lid and stir and scrape mixture from the walls of the Dutch Oven using a rubber spatula. It will begin to solidify and freeze in about 15 minutes.

 

10. After it has frozen to a point where it is very hard to stir, let it sit and continue to freeze.

 

11. Total freezing time is 45 to 60 minutes.

 

Enjoy

 

[Eagle1982]

Interesting, do you get any kind of metallic or oil taste in the ice cream?

[Buffalo Skipper]

I really like that Ice Cream recipe. We will have to try that--maybe at summer camp.

 

Food, to me has been an issue for our troop for some time, but in a mixed bag sort of way. I have covered some of this in other threads, but let me quickly sum up.

 

In the past:

Menues were planned by patrols and approved by the SPL and SM. Much ado was made about menu emphasizing not only balanced nutrition but also food quality. One or two (or more) patrol members went shopping with the leader, who scrutinized the product choice strictly, sometimes to the point of changing menus. The leader then paid for the food. At campouts older scouts avoided anything resemebling work and the younger ones were overwhelmed by clean up. Too much time was spent on this.

 

Now (after 3 months of adjustments):

Menues were planned by patrols and approved by the SPL and SM. Balance and nutrition is paramont, but no judgement is made on "quality." Now, PLs collect $10 to for meals and designated shopper(s) pay with cash. Adults accompany only if asked (to stash food in the fridge at the scout hut), but do not scrutinize choices. Cooking is much simpler, and meals are balanced but less fancy (burgers, omlette-in-a-bag, etc. Clean up is quicker, and scouts (most active in our troop are 5th-7th graders). Scouts are able to spend more time having fun at campouts.

 

Though food quality is taking a step backward, I feel we are moving forward for the obvious reasons. I am proud of our young scouts for being able to take responsiblity for they actions and their confidence in shopping and cooking is actually improving.

 

We will spend an extra day at summer camp (arriving the day before due to travel distances), so we will still have to cook/prepare a breakfast and lunch before camp begins. Our other campouts this summer will be for long weekends, lasting 3 and 5 nights respectively, giving scouts an opportunity to prepare plenty of meals and refine their skills. I do feel our patrols are growing in ways they should be.

[mikecummings157]

Our summer camp has a dutch oven dessert contest every year and we've served dutch oven ice cream along with a baked dessert. It has gone over very well!