Travel Camping Hiking

Dutch Oven - For Good-Tasting Camping Meals

Camping is a perfect opportunity for both adults and children to appreciate nature. From packing, traveling to hiking to building tents and cooking with woods, could be very exciting for kids. Because campfire cooking is not cooking in the comfort of your kitchen, involving a Dutch oven can help adults introduce more fresh, low-fat foods to the camping meals.

Dutch oven cooking is fun and can make delicious camp-out feasts along with enjoying the smell and heat of true fire in the woods. It has recipes with taste that go back to the old days of campfire cooking. It may seem like very old-fashioned but it's absolutely the incredible way to cook just about anything from boiling, broiling, baking, roasting, frying, and almost any other kind of cooking you can think of.

Teaching and learning how to cook outdoors using a Dutch oven will increase cooking options during camping. Instead of the ordinary hotdogs and eggs, you can steam vegetables, make biscuit breads, rice puddings, dump cakes, desserts and of course, a delicious Dutch oven cobbler. You can even make your favorite burgers by using the lid as pan. Campfire cooking can make it an opportunity for you to cook foods using only organic ingredients and convince even the most hard to please eater to enjoy eating your outdoor meal with the group.

Camping can be the most fun place for children to learn skills such as cooking, but outdoor cooking puts everything in a different place, so never leave the kids unattended. Children love to be given specific tasks and they feel important when involved particularly when with playmates. Fetching water, gathering firewood, arranging the briquettes or keeping track of the time the food has cooked are meaningful camping tasks for the younger children. The older ones can help mix and stir the foods in the pot. Don't forget to recognize their contributions with praise.

Always put safety on top of everything. Explain the importance of care and precaution. Show them how to determine how hot the charcoals are and teach them to stay in a safe distance from the flames during cooking. There are three ways to use your Dutch oven. You can hang it over the fire, place it directly on the fire or burning coals, or bury the cooking pot in the coals. Don't place too many briquettes right away. For Dutch oven recipes involving steaming, be sure to remove some briquettes to prevent drying out and burning the food. Remember that too much heat at once can mess up your meal so try going slowly and easy. When using a kitchen style Dutch oven, see to it the pot is securely balanced when directly placed on fire to avoid the danger of tipping over while cooking.

Whether you trail a rocky mountain wilderness, a rough country lake, or plainly trekking your favorite mountain top, a Dutch oven is your perfect companion for inexpensive but good tasting meals. Just make sure you follow basic fire safety rules, safety for the kids and prevention from creating forest fires while camping.

About the Author

Terry Retter

Your Smart Kitchen, the online location for Dutch ovens, quality cookware, bakeware, cutlery, appliances and related kitchenware at reasonable prices with customer satisfaction guaranteed. Featuring the new product Terracotta Clay Cookware.

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