Cooking

We’ll purify many gallons of drinking and cooking water for three crews spending a week canoeing in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park this summer. Here’s what I have learned about purifying water for a hundred or so Scouts and adults who have taken this trip over the past dozen years. We need water for drinking and cooking, and treat them differently. Boiling We purify nearly all our cooking water by boiling. Our menus are a hybrid of freeze-dried and grocery store food explained in this article....

Author Sarah Kirkconnell ( Trailcooking.com) has revised and expanded her excellent book Freezer Bag Cooking with the addition of many, many great new recipes. Freezer bag cooking is a simple technique that is perfect for Scouts, hot water is added to dry ingredients in freezer bag much like one adds hot water to a prepackaged freeze-dried meal. (No, this is not like boiling an omelet in a bag (don’t) and there are no BPA worries with these techniques....

32 Ounce 20 Ounce 48 Ounce 48 Ounce I don’t have one yet, but this coffee press was mentioned on one of our recent live chat sessions and it looks like a “must have” for connoisseurs of camp coffee! REI offers the press in three different sizes, they all get great reviews. The 48 ounce size would mollify a number of grouchy Scouters! Simple to use—add coarse ground coffee or loose-leaf tea and near-boiling water; let steep for 4 min....

When you first see the CM Scrubber you’ll probably say the same thing I did; “it’s too expensive!” But the next time you have a crusty dutch oven to clean you’ll agree that it’s worth every penny. Put some water in the oven while it’s still warm, and scrub away. The chain mail design won’t scratch, and is very effective at lifting tough baked-on residue. No soap needed, cooked-on crud will clean up easily and you’l have a clean dutch oven pretty fast without worrying about damaging the seasoning....

If you’ve been reading the blog for the past few years you’ve likely read about wood burning stoves for camping. High efficiency wood burning stoves have been around for many years but there’s been a renaissance in wood burning stove technology over the past decade or so. This renaissance has its roots in engineering simple technology that can be used to conserve wood fuel in the developing world. Half of the world’s households and 80 percent of rural households in developing countries cook with solid fuels like wood, coal, crop residues and dung....

YouTube is a global phenomenon; 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month, 100 hours of video are uploaded *every minute,*80% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US. Here’s this week’s Scouting video picks I hope Scouters find interesting, informative and useful. Danish Dampers for Gourmet Campers! Campfire cooking idea from Scout’s UK series of Rapid Recipes. A variation on stick bread, add a jam or Nutella, great idea!...

Blogger Sheryl Canter offers this Recipe for SeasoningCast Iron based on what looks like a very well-thought out scientific analysis. After researching the subject she concluded: The seasoning on cast iron is formed by fat polymerization, fat polymerization is maximized with a drying oil, and flaxseed oil is the only drying oil that’s edible. From that I deduced that flaxseed oil would be the ideal oil for seasoning cast iron....

I was introduced to huevos rancheros or “rancher’s eggs’ by one of my Scouts (Jesus Torralba) nearly twenty years ago when Jesus was our grubmaster for a cabin camping trip. Since then it’s been one of my preferred camping breakfasts. A lot of recipes call for toasting whole tortillas and serving whole fried eggs on top of them, but I like this version (where the tortilla is torn up and sauteed with onions) much better....

This tip comes from Field & Stream Magazine via Pinterest: Use straws to store salt, pepper, and spices for camping trips. Heat one end of a clear plastic straw with a lighter, then crimp it with your fingers or a multitool. Fill the straw with the desired seasoning, and repeat the process on the other end. Just snip off one of the ends when you’re cooking, and reseal it when you’re done....

Here’s my latest overview of the endless permutations of the humble patrol box, chuck box, or camp kitchen. We use the Rubbermaid Action Packer to house our modest patrol cook kits. I know some of you don’t care for car camping or big patrol boxes. I find the different solutions folks come up with for setting up a kitchen in a campsite fascinating. Grub Hub Camp Kitchen – the epitome of engineered camp kitchen rigs....

‘Bannock” is a name for quick flat bread that originated in Scotland and was adopted by most Native Americans, voyagers, mountain men and pioneers. With a minimum of fuss and bit of practice anyone can bake a bannock loaf in a frying pan or wrapped around a stick. Bannock is simple, cheap and always welcomed after along day of paddling or hiking. Bannock Base (this recipe can be increased, just keep the proportions right....

On our high adventure canoe trip each crew packs and cooks food for a group of five to nine Scouts. Our menu is a combination of freeze dried and grocery store food that keeps the cost reasonable while providing good nutrition and good eating. After making adjustments to our menus and the kit we assembled to prepare it over two or three years we developed a pretty well tuned approach. Our cooking gear packs down into two basic packages – a cook box that we fondly call ‘Tidy Cats’ and a bag of cook pots....

Steven Karoly’s blog Round the Chuckbox features this recipe with a story about camping with his family: After a quick inventory, I realized that flour was in short supply in camp so I prepared the hotcake batter with ingredients on hand. Quick cooking rolled oats filled in for most of the flour. OAT HOTCAKES IN CAMPThese are approximate measurements as I eyeballed each ingredient. For a richer flavor, substitute molasses or dark brown sugar for the white sugar....

If you want to serve a memorable campfire meal I can’t imagine a much more flavorful or impressive dish than this paella. Dave Herzog (the chef who developed this recipe) is a real dutch oven impresario – you can get his recipe collections through the Cook’n recipe organizer, this requires purchasing the Cook’n software – something you may consider if you are a dedicated cook. Make sure you like Dave’s Facebook page to keep up with his excellent advice and recipes....

Freeze-dried food is convenient, lightweight and packs well for extended trips. A hybrid menu of bulk freeze-dried food and grocery store ingredients is a more versatile and less expensive alternative for a patrol or high adventure crew. For our week-long canoe trips we’ve developed a hybrid menu of freeze-dried and grocery store food that our Scouts enjoy. Cost A traditional freeze-dried meal costs about $3-5.00 per serving (slightly less per serving if you can find group sizes)....

Dan Baker shared an interesting 9 ounce reflector oven idea constructed of titanium foil, aluminum and bicycle spokes. I think this is a great design, it’s lightweight, collapsible and looks like a fun project. I cannot resist taking this on my trips. I have baked pizza, chocolate muffins, bread, etc… with this and it is always terrific! I use silicon baking trays and cups and mainly use ‘add water only’ cake packs and my recipe for bread and pizza dough....

In the never ending search for the perfect chuck box here’s another interesting chuck box design by lupinsea found at the Expedition Portal. Looks like a lightweight, compact and functional idea (there’s a video below showing how it is set up. I could not find any plans for this box, so you’d meed to reverse engineer if you’d like to build one. Features Include Table height work surface, 29.5″ high Work surface area of approx....

Convert a 7-day vitamin/medication container into a camping spice kit – what a great idea! The custom labels are nice, I think I may skip that and use a sharpie marker instead.

Horace Kephart was born in Pennsylvania in 1862 and found his way to Hazel Creek in western North Carolina (later to become part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Kephart campaigned for and is considered one of the fathers of the national park. He helped plot the route of the Appalachian Trail through the Smokies. Mount Kephart was named in his honor two months before his death in an auto accident in 1931....

I am not a scientist, so tell me if this makes sense. There are about 40,000 Scout troops in the B.S.A., they go camping (this is a very conservative average) of six weekends a year. 40k * 6= 240K weekends I’d guess, conservatively, that two-thirds of these troops own stoves or lanterns that use disposable gas canisters or disposable propane cylinders. 60% of 240K = 144k weekends The average troop has 20 Scouts....