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Favorite 60 minute meal?

8K views 31 replies 20 participants last post by  ryguy 
#1 ·
What is your favorite 60 minute meal on the river, mine is steak, sauteed mushrooms, baked potatoes, tossed salad and corn on the cobb. Quick and easy.
 
#3 ·
Steak done over hot wood coals or charcoal briquets for BBQ, number 2 size potatoes ( fist size) wraped in aluminim foil, placed in coals for 45 minutes, mushrooms sauteed in butter in duch oven, corn on the cobb also wraped in aluminum foil with butter and placed in hot coals for 20 minutes. Season to taste.
 
#6 ·
Have your butcher slice a whole ham in half inch steaks so you can grill them over coals and than baste them with with honey BBQ sauce. Bake number 2 size sweet potatoes wraped in aluminum foil in hot coals for 45 minutes, then serve with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Boil broccoli and cauliflower then serve with graded cheese.
 
#8 ·
Holy Cow raymo..... steak, salmon, ham, taters, veggies ...... can I sign up for your next trip? I am the queen of the dutch oven. Pizza, enchilada casserole, and chicken pot pie are some of my favorites. And of course dutch oven cobblers..... YUM-O
I'll have to try the taters in tin foil thing, sounds good. Do you have any trouble with them not cooking enough? Is the trick to get smaller spuds?
KJ
 
#10 ·
Yes the number 2 size (fist size) potatoes when buried in hot coals work the best. Always hand pick your potatoes so it takes all the guess work out, of how long to cook your potatoes. 45 minutes works very well. Never cooked pizza, enchilada casserole or chicken pot pie, but they sound delicious, I was never very good at desserts. But always willing to try something new and find other boaters ideas. We always like to invite new boaters on rafting trips.
 
#9 ·
Kebabs. We like lamb, deer or antelope. An all-purpose marinade: lime juice, soy sauce, and ginger. Vegs are infinitely variable, although I like those wee boiler onions more than sliced yellow onion. Skewer the vegs and meat, then spray with olive oil (those spray cans are great for river trips). Bamboo skewers are good for the river, as you can burn 'em after (but don't forget to soak 'em beforehand).

Vacation Travel Tourism Bay


Steak night is also a big event. We grill vegs and mushrooms first, then puff up the coals and do the meat.

Another goodie (for groups up to six) is risotto. Arborio rice, olive oil, cup of white wine and a can of broth. You can use leftovers or veg scraps, so it's a good catch-all for later in the trip. Extremely satisfying. Beautiful women seem to love it.
 
#14 ·
Chip, I agree with you about kebabs, and the game versions sound awesome. We generally do swordfish or chicken. Some of my foodsnob friends don't like the canned olive oil spray, so I take a small pump spray bottle. Same goodness and ease, no propellant. Your marinade is basically the same as what we use, though I like a splash of El Yucateco habanero sauce.

Mmmm, Risotto. We use the Lundberg Creamy Parmesan Risotto in a box. Easy and damned good.

OK, now I'm hungry!

Kebabs. We like lamb, deer or antelope. An all-purpose marinade: lime juice, soy sauce, and ginger. Vegs are infinitely variable, although I like those wee boiler onions more than sliced yellow onion. Skewer the vegs and meat, then spray with olive oil (those spray cans are great for river trips). Bamboo skewers are good for the river, as you can burn 'em after (but don't forget to soak 'em beforehand).

Steak night is also a big event. We grill vegs and mushrooms first, then puff up the coals and do the meat.

Another goodie (for groups up to six) is risotto. Arborio rice, olive oil, cup of white wine and a can of broth. You can use leftovers or veg scraps, so it's a good catch-all for later in the trip. Extremely satisfying. Beautiful women seem to love it.
 
#18 ·
DO Lasagna is always a hit. 1lb ground beef, 1 lb Italian sausage, I jar/can of spaghetti sauce, 1 large bag of shredded Italian cheese, 1 tub ricotta cheese, 1 box of lasagna noodles.
Brown and mix meat ahead of time, either at home or when you start the coals.
Set aside 2 large handfuls of the shredded cheese aside.
Mix remaining shredded cheese and ricotta together.

2 small scoops of sauce in bottom of 12" DO.
Mix remaining sauce with meat mixture.
1 layer of DRY lasagna noodles.
1 layer cheese mixture
1 layer of DRY noodles laid at a 90 degree angle to the first.
1 layer of meat/sauce mixture.
Repeat layers until no more noodles remain.
Cover top layer of noodles with the 2 handfuls of shredded cheese set aside earlier.
Pour 1 cup of water evenly around the edge of the DO.

8 coals on top, 8 on bottom, rotate DO 90 degrees clockwise every 15 minutes while rotating closed DO lid 90 degrees counterclockwise every 15 min.

Should cook in 50 minutes to 1 hour. When you can smell it, it is done!

PS. Don't buy the no cook noodles and don't cook the noodles first, they will cook as the water boils off.
 
#19 ·
DO Lasagna is always a hit. 1lb ground beef, 1 lb Italian sausage, I jar/can of spaghetti sauce, 1 large bag of shredded Italian cheese, 1 tub ricotta cheese, 1 box of lasagna noodles.
Brown and mix meat ahead of time, either at home or when you start the coals.
Set aside 2 large handfuls of the shredded cheese aside.
Mix remaining shredded cheese and ricotta together.

2 small scoops of sauce in bottom of 12" DO.
Mix remaining sauce with meat mixture.
1 layer of DRY lasagna noodles.
1 layer cheese mixture
1 layer of DRY noodles laid at a 90 degree angle to the first.
1 layer of meat/sauce mixture.
Repeat layers until no more noodles remain.
Cover top layer of noodles with the 2 handfuls of shredded cheese set aside earlier.
Pour 1 cup of water evenly around the edge of the DO.

8 coals on top, 8 on bottom, rotate DO 90 degrees clockwise every 15 minutes while rotating closed DO lid 90 degrees counterclockwise every 15 min.

Should cook in 50 minutes to 1 hour. When you can smell it, it is done!

PS. Don't buy the no cook noodles and don't cook the noodles first, they will cook as the water boils off.
Interesting about the lasagna noodles, definitely saves time. Love the technique with the Dutch Oven. I will try your DO lasagna on my next outing.
 
#20 ·
Elk and sweet potato sheperd's pie in a dutch oven. Brown the meat with garlic and onions and whatever veggies you like at home, mash the taters with shredded cheddar at home, freeze them in ziplocs depending how many nights into the trip you are cooking it. Yumm, satisfying!
 
#21 ·
simmer chicken in your favorite enchalada sauce until cooked. put it in lg. freezer bags and freeze. on the river de-thaw, roll up into tortillas with cheese and cook in d.o. serve with beans and rice with all the fixin's . keep leftovers on the stove and toss with scrambled eggs in the a.m., YUM! so easy it's a crime.
also, since you are not going to be burning up ice, you could have different folks make homemade soups and chili's and freeze them (same as above). heat and serve with bread and salad. i just got off the canyon, days are short and chilly, fast easy meals are the bomb.
 
#23 ·
Tecate Chicken

At home, make about 1 gallon if fresh salsa. One way is: tomato(garden variety is best), white onion, garlic, cilantro, Jalapeño (1 to 4+ depends on you). If your good with knife chop all vegies to your desired texture or use your favorite blending devise. The amounts of each are all about the color, should look kinda like Christmas. Toss in some whole Kernel Corn. Season with salt black pepper. I like to put in some chili powder as well. Set some salsa aside for lunch stops in a zip lock bag.

OR..... if you want you can buy your favorite brand of salsa(cheater).


Now, at home or at camp put salsa in large pot or D.O. add chicken breast (number depends on desired amount) and the Magic ingredient.....about 12 ounces of Tecate beer, MMMMMM beer. Simmer until l chicken falls apart.

If you don't want much for dishes serve in a bred bowl with cheese on top and sour cream. Or serve with tortilla chips tortilla soup style. The sky is the limit, no wrong way to do it. have fun with it! Cheers!

*
 
#24 ·
Simple DO desert.

1 package yellow cake mix or similar. (I like to use muffin mix, cake mix or Krusteaz Cobbler Mix) Make sure that you have the extra ingredients on package.
1 can of favorite fruit. I like a mixed berry myself.

Pour Cake mix in DO. Add oil and eggs if called for. Add the whole can of fruit. Mix ingredients together. leave chunky. Only add water if juice from can is minimal and cake mix calls for it.

Cook 30 to 40 minutes. Enjoy
 
#25 ·
I just got a DO and can't wait to start using it. Do you think it would work to try recipes and then just put the DO in the regular oven at home? I was thinking of heating the oven to around 450/500? There is a great free DO cookbook online just google "boy scouts dutch oven cookbook", the book has a lot of recipes.
 
#26 ·
i use my ovens at home all the time, both in the oven and on the stovetop. don't think you need to turn the heat up that high, though. you can also check out idos.org for a great collection of recipes. i also picked up a couple of books on DO's from a local outdoors store. they had some helpful stuff on how many coals top/bottom for temperature, different cooking methods, etc., plus a lot of recipes.
 
#28 ·
The vast majority of DO recipe's are for 350 degees. This is my favorite DO site, it even tells you how to adjust the coals for different temps required by non-DO recipes.

Byron's Dutch Oven Cooking Page

For oven baking, preheat the DO a bit (15 mins or so) to account for the slow heating of the large mass of metal. It'd be tough for most people to adjust a recipe to extend baking with a cold DO. Preheating cast is the standard for non-sticking also, in case you like to bake corn bread in those little corn-stick pans.

We love to use our DO at home in the summer, it allows us to bake outside so we don't heat the house up, an important thing when it's over 100 degrees and we don't have AC. Especially when the berries are coming in from the garden and lots of fruit cobbler is necessary - yum!
 
#30 ·
Several good sites for recipes and use of Dutch Ovens are listed in this thread.

I use the GSI hard anodized aluminum size 12 dutch ovens for river trips and find either one or on big trips two of them cook the quantity of food needed for a trip. GSI makes a size 10 unit as well. They nest inside the size 12 units and I carry mine there. The size 10 works great if one needs to cook for a few fellow trippers who are vegetarians on a trip.

If you use the GSI units, clean up is simple. Just wash them like you do any other of your dishes. I have cast iron dutch ovens and love to use them on car camping trips. They are great for biscuits. On river trips they are heavy and take a bit more clean up and storage care, but if dry box space is there, the cast iron units cannot be beat. The GSI units are the way to go for river trips and I rarely go on a river trip without them.

Lodge puts out a chart for heat control which is a great starting point for baking in any dutch oven.

After cooking in dutch ovens for many years what I do is put 8 to 10 charcoals in a circle on the bottom and just line the outer edge of the top of the dutch oven.

This gives close to 350 degrees heat and works for just about anything cooked in a dutch oven.

Most dutch oven cooking is pretty simple and almost always tastes good. There is something very nice to having a baked cake, hot bread, hot cornbread or fruit cobbler on the side of a river. Adds a lot to the enjoyment and is not difficult to do. Try it and I bet you agree.
 
#31 ·
Heat control on a 12 inch DO:
1 coal = approx 25 Deg
2/3 coal on top and 1/3 on bottom
350 deg = 14 hot coals or 5 coals on bottom and 9 coals on top.

Great starting point

a stiff nylon bristle brush is great for clean up. Also having a beater (unused) paint bruh for oil is nice. I have been known to use a tin foil ball to clean and paper town to oil in a pinch.
 
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