Old Fashioned Dutch Oven Potatoes

This is a Dutch oven classic for camping and backyard grilling. Enjoy!

Old Fashioned Dutch Oven Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 package of bacon, diced
• 1 large onion, cut into large pieces
• 1 large spoonful of minced garlic
• 5 lbs golden potatoes, sliced
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (or more)
• salt, pepper and garlic salt to taste

Directions:

1. Heat Dutch oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Cook bacon and onions until done (bacon is crispy and onions are golden). A minute or so before your onions and bacon are done, add a spoonful of minced garlic and stir for just a minute. 
3. Then add your potatoes and stir. Cover and cook for 40-45 minutes or until your potatoes are tender (how long depends on how thin you slice them). 
4. Once the potatoes are done cooking, add your soup and cheese, stir, and recover until heated through and the cheese is melted. Season with salt, pepper and garlic to taste.

Marsha's Notes:

Scott noted that he most often only gets about 45 minutes of good cooking time with a single batch of briquettes, and these potatoes can take about an hour to complete, so they might require two batches of coals.

Country Dutch Oven Chicken

During our camping trip this year, we decided to make some Dutch Oven and the recipe winner was this Country Dutch Oven Chicken. Our first attempt was okay, so we spiced this up a bit with a few tweaks and here is the recipe we landed on. Enjoy! Scott liked this chicken with some fresh cut-up pineapple and thought it would be good over potatoes or rice as well.

Country Dutch Oven Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 trays raw chicken cut into tenders (maybe 2-3 lbs) 
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup (or 1 can each cream of celery, mushroom and/or chicken)
• 1 bottle BBQ sauce
• 1 package bacon
• 1 small onion
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Chop bacon and onion into small pieces. In a small sauce pan, cook bacon and onion until bacon is crispy and onion is tender and browed. 
2. Cut raw chicken into your desired size. Place in Dutch Oven and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Scrape bacon and onions, drippings and all, over chicken in Dutch Oven. If there is a lot of browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan, de-glaze pan by boiling a small amount of water in the pan until all the bits come off the bottom and then pour the liquid over the chicken as well.
4. Mix together your cream soups with the bottle of BBQ and add it to your Dutch Oven. Stir everything to combine and then cook until chicken reaches 160 degrees internal temperature or is no longer pink.

Marsha's Notes: 

Cooking in a Dutch Oven with coals or briquettes can be tricky. If you are a pro, you can cook the bacon and onion first in the Dutch Oven and then add the chicken and sauce over the top. To keep from losing too much heat from lifting the lid and checking everything over and over, we used a remote temperature probe so we could know when the chicken was done (160 degrees or so) without lifting the lid.

Marsha prefers the chicken to be cut into larger (more like tenders) sized pieces and to have the bacon diced up and cooked until crispy and golden.

Tin Foil Dinners

*This recipe is low-carb if you omit or sub the potatoes.

One of our favorite things to do in the fire pit is make tin foil dinners and s'mores, but we don't always remember exactly how we do it every time, so I wanted to make some notes here for the perfect foil dinner.

Marsha's Tin Foil Dinner

Ingredients:

• hamburger
• potatoes
• carrots
• cream of chicken soup
• salt
• pepper
• garlic salt
• BBQ sauce
• heavy duty tin foil

Directions:

1. Put a serving of hamburger on a large piece of tin foil sprayed with non-stick spray. 
2. Depending on that flavor you are going for, season with salt, pepper, and garlic salt and top with BBQ sauce. 
3. Pile your diced carrots and potatoes over the top of your meat. 
4. Season again and top with several spoonfuls of cream of chicken soup. 
5. Wrap the entire thing up in the foil, then foil again with two more pieces. 
6. Place over hot coals and cook for about 45 minutes, depending on the size of the dinners.

We have also added cheese, corn, onions to ours. But you can add anything you like. I love to add sour cream and more cheese to the top after it is done cooking. The cooking time can vary depending on the size of the dinner, the thickness of the foil packet, and how small you diced the veggies.

Things to try: I want to remember to try this with chicken some time.

Krystal has also made this recipe in a Crock Pot by putting in the raw beef, veggies, soup, etc. and letting it cook for 4 hours on High (approximate) or 6 hours on low. She used about a pound of beef (raw but broken up in the pots) and two cans of soup and her desired amount of everything else. 

Dutch Oven Pumpkin Delight

I found this recipe years ago and am now copying it here from our family cookbook binder. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Delight (Dutch Oven)

Ingredients:

Crust:

• 1 yellow cake mix, reserve 1 cup of mix
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup butter, melted

Filling:

• 1 (30 oz) can pumpkin
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 3 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Topping:

• ¾ cup dark brown sugar
• 1 cup cake mix (from above)
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 Tbl cold butter

Directions:

Prepare crust:  

1. Mix together cake mix, egg, and melted butter.  
2. Press into bottom and 1 1/2” up sides of a well greased 12” Dutch oven.

Prepare Filling:  

1. In a bowl, combine all filling ingredients and mix well.  
2. Pour filling into Dutch oven to fill crust.

Prepare Topping:  

1. In a small bowl combine cake mix, sugar and cinnamon.  Stir to mix.  
2. Cut in butter until coarse crumbs are formed.  
3. Sprinkle over top of pumpkin filling.

Bake:  

1. Cover Dutch oven and bake using 10-12 briquettes bottom and 14-16 briquettes top for 1 hour.  
2. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream as topping.

Dutch Oven Dump Cake

I found this recipe years ago and am now copying it here from our family cookbook binder. Enjoy!

Dutch Oven Dump Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 cake mix                                                               
• 1 large can pie filling
• 1 can soda pop

Directions:

1. Place pie filling on bottom of Dutch oven.  
2. Then add cake mix.  
3. Pour one can of soda pop on top, do not stir, cover and bake for 35-40 minutes.  
4. For the number of briquettes, take the diameter of the Dutch Oven (so, for example a 12 inch Dutch oven) and add 2 more for the number that go underneath, and add 4 more to that number for what goes on top (so 14 underneath and 16 on top).

Marsha's Notes:

Some favor ideas might be; chocolate pie filling, chocolate cake mix, and chocolate Shasta pop… or peach pie filling, yellow cake mix, 7-up pop… or apple pie filling, cinnamon cake mix, 7-up pop… whatever sounds good to you.

Crazy Cookies

I found this recipe years ago and am now copying it here from our family cookbook binder. Enjoy!

Crazy Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter 
• 1 cup Karo/corn syrup
• 1 bag corn chips (Fritos Scoops)

Directions:

1. Combine sugar, syrup and peanut butter in a sauce pan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until runny, completely dissolved, and on the verge of boiling.  Be careful not to let it burn.  
2. Put corn chips into a large bowl.  Pour peanut butter sauce over chips and stir gently to coat evenly.  
3. Cover a cookie sheet with wax paper and pour chips out evenly onto wax paper to cool.  Pull apart to eat.

Marsha's Ultimate S'mores

S'mores are my favorite part of camping, and thanks to my wonderful husband, I can make s'mores at home on our indoor s'more maker anytime I want. So, I thought I would share with you the way I like to have a s'more.  The picture is from the Amazon website, and it is very similar to the maker I have.

Marsha's Ultimate S'Mores

Ingredients:

• 1/4 Hershey milk chocolate bar (3 squares)
• 1 marshmallow
• 2 Tbl. creamy peanut butter (approximate)
• 1 Honey Maid cinnamon graham cracker bar

Directions:

1. Carefully roast marshmallow until all sides are golden brown, and the center is completely melted.  To do this, you need to go slowly, or the outside will be done before the inside can melt.  
2. Once you have mastered roasting the perfect marshmallow, take your cinnamon graham cracker bar and break it in half so you have two equal squares of cracker.  Spread each cracker with peanut butter and place your chocolate bar on top of the peanut butter of one cracker.  
3. Place your perfectly roasted marshmallow on top of the chocolate and use the other graham cracker to sandwich the marshmallow down, allowing you to remove the roasting stick.  It will also squish down the marshmallow, allowing all the melt-y goodness to ooze around and melt the chocolate.  Enjoy!

Marsha's Notes:

This treat requires a nice beverage to wash it down. I recommend a cold mug of milk!