Cooking Over the Fire

Camping is an autumn tradition for my friends and I - and this year was no different.  However, this year I requested to make supper Saturday evening and then I set about finding something to make.  Where should I go first, but to my new cookbook - which of course is not really a camping cookbook, but that hasn't stopped me before and it didn't stop me this time.

I found a recipe for Mima's Risi e Bisi (or Rice and Peas) and adapted it to make in my dutch oven over the fire.

First we fried some onion, garlic, and bacon over the fire, then added the rice and coated it with butter, toasting it a little.  Then we removed it from the dutch oven.  

Then we put some chicken, herbs, onion, carrot, and celery in the dutch oven and covered with water, letting it boil and simmer until the chicken was cooked.  After the chicken was cooked, we removed the chicken, herbs, and veggies, and added the rice mixture, allowing it to cook before deboning the chicken and adding it back in, in smaller chunks.

 







                       



 
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One thing that could have been better was the amount of liquid for the rice.  The original recipe had you add the liquid to the rice as needed, as you cooked it, and we just added the rice to the water and cooked it with the lid on as you typically would do rice - well there was too much liquid, so we had to cook it a while longer to cook the extra liquid off - since we didn't really want soup, but it didn't take too long.  We also added some parmesan and peas, and let every one add their own salt and pepper…. since we forgot.

To finish of the meal, we had Mother Buckle's Raspberry Brûlée Cheesecake - however I missed the line in the recipe that required a kitchen torch and hadn't brought mine, so it wasn't really Brûlée… oh well, will just have to try it again.

Enjoying some time on the beach.

A New Cookbook

Spring travels to Europe, landed me at a restaurant chain in London called Leon.  I had a tasty meal of lamb kadesh and longed to peruse some of the cookbooks they had for sale, but we were out for the day and I had no desire to lug around a heavy cookbook on our adventures.  However, upon returning home, time and again this charming stop and its cookbooks continued to pop up in my thoughts and one day I visited Amazon, and then, in late summer, my new cookbook arrived.

I have begun to enjoy various recipes from my new read and have a lofty goal floating around in my head to cook all the recipes in my new book, or at least most.
I have managed to make a few and one evening joined the Colonel Mustard and a couple other friends to try out a couple recipes.

                                  My lamb kadesh.                                 Leon's


 We made Moroccan Meatballs and Green Pea Curry.

                                                    Ground "lamp" or rather lamb for the Moroccan Meatballs and 
                                                                     fresh basil and mint picked from the garden. 

Moroccan Meatballs.

Green Pea Curry.

Ready to feast.

A Birthday Pie

So, Vanilla Bean, wanted pie for her birthday.  Pretty sure the picture below indicates great success.

Apricot Apple Chocolate Pie

It was enjoyed by all, however, I would have preferred no chocolate, but it was Vanilla Bean's birthday, so who am I to argue.

Corn Muffins with Seasoned Lamb

It's Memorial Day weekend, and since it is the season for fair and picnic foods, I thought  I would experiment a bit with making something "vanillabean safe".  So why corn muffins with lamb? Because I've been seeing hot dogs and corn dogs and their baked modifiers everywhere on the food blogs I follow the past two weeks, and now, I am craving that guilty childhood pleasure a corn dog.  Since making my own hot dogs even before I start in on the corn dogs and then using up all my cooking oil to try my hand at deep frying them seems too much for a leisurely Saturday morning, baked stuffed corn muffins seemed a bit more my speed.  Even these got a bit more time intensive than I intended.

I started out with these three recipes:
Corn Dog Muffins from Alder's Grove  (the original inspiration I think)
Mini Corn Dog Muffins from the Pioneer Woman Cooks
Yellow Corn Muffins from Food.com

And then spun them together with a few substitutions.


Step One: "Hot Dogs"

The hot dog bits became little lamb meatballs seasoned with salt and sage, pan seared to get a nice browned outside, then baked in the oven.










Step Two: Zucchini Milk  ( substitute for the buttermilk in the Yellow Corn Muffins recipe)

This recipe came from the  Wow This is Allergy Free Cookbook.  The actual recipe ratio is

4 cup peeled, chopped zucchini
2/3 c water

Liquefy in the blender.
Heat in a saucepan just until a boil.

Since I didn't have that much zucchini, and my blender did not get the zucchini quite as liquid like as I had imagined... I added a bit more water.

Step Three: Corn Muffins

Substitutions were 1 2/3 c zucchini milk for the 1 cup butermilk; 2 T butter in place of the shortening; canola oil/water  in place of eggs. Mix up the batter. Fill the  muffin tins.

Step Four: Stuff the Corn Muffins with Little Sausages


Bake at 400 for 25 minutes.










While I am sure that any of the three recipes listed above is probably quite a bit tastier than these, they turned out pretty tasty anyway.  Only caveat, if I was serving these to friends, I would substitute pork or beef for the sausage center the lamb comes out pretty strong tasting in this , especially if it is not a flavor you are used to.  Now, if I only had ketchup...

Baked Barley Porridge

This absolutely gorgeous (and simple) barley porridge was part of my evening dinner.  And quite pleasing to have it turn out looking as lovely as the pictures of it (on the ScandiHome food blog) on my very first try.


Why barley porridge for dinner of all things? It started simply enough. This morning I had the television on for a bit while I was wandering in and out getting breakfast and collecting things for the day.  It happened to be a food show I haven't watched much...the New Scandinavian Cooking on pbs.  The chef always seems to be cooking seafood (something I can't eat anymore, unfortunately) somewhere crazy, so it hasn't been much of a draw. This morning he was high in a wind/snow storm on the top of a mountain but cooking mushroom soup (dried mushrooms, water, and salt!! hey simple enough for me maybe. and then a dash of cream and some other unusual things like a bright green celery oil and a dollop of lingonberry jam..).  But somewhere in there was also a toasty kitchen filled with a table full of dishes of barley porridge.  Having never had a barley porridge, it stuck in the cracks of my brain until this evening when I went looking for a recipe.

I landed on the website of  an Australian/Scandinavian woman by the name of Maria and her baked pearl barley porridge.. and the results you see above. Quite simple. Very hearty and filling.

Baked Barley Porridge

1/2 cup of barley
3 cups of milk
1 tsp salt

Grease a baking dish with a bit of butter. Pour in the barley and the milk. Scatter the salt across the surface of the milk. Bake (without stirring) at 350-375 degrees for 1 hour 45 minutes or until it looks golden and finished.  Serve in a dish with a little brown sugar and perhaps a little milk, a few berries or whatever other toppings you normally like on your oatmeal.