An Oversized Corn Cob Cooker
Posted on 13 August 2007 under Camp Cooking, Kitchen Gear, Michigan Cuisine | No Comments
Back on June 27th I posted a pic of a camping-grade deep fryer that I’d picked up at Cabela’s in Dundee and made corndogs with for family and friends on June 30th. On July 15th I posted a pic of an industrial-sized pot filled with over a hundred cobs of corn. Combining the two, the deep fryer came in quite handy for boiling 24 cobs of corn for dinner for Caleb’s birthday celebration. I do believe this thing’s going to come in handy for lots of fun jobs.
Adam’s World of Cooking, 1950’s Boy Scout Style
Posted on 12 July 2007 under Camp Cooking | 1 Comment
This past Saturday we picked up my son Adam at Camp Tapico, a Boy Scout camp east of Kalkaska. He’d been there for three weeks, two of them as a Counselor-In-Training. The last week he was there he was able to do what he felt most comfortable with: cooking! An area of the camp had been cordoned-off with a simple wooden fence. Within this area of about 2,500 square feet, 14-year-old Adam and his mentor Jim, an older gentleman, gave visiting Scoutmasters a taste of what Boy Scout camp was like in the 1950’s. I’ll let Adam give you his own tour of the cooking equipment he used to cook meals for these Scoutmasters …
“This is simply called ‘Coffee in a Log’. To make coffee this way, you need a nice piece of hollowed-out wood (cherry, or oak, with this one being made of cherry), coffee grounds, rocks, and water. First, you set the rocks in a fire pit, then build a fire. Heat up the rocks in the fire for a couple of hours until they get really hot. Add the water to the trough in the log, but leave enough room so you can add the rocks. Then you sprinkle however many coffee grounds you want into the water. After the rocks get extremely hot, knock off the ashes and throw the rocks into the log to heat the coffee. After the coffee is hot you just sprinkle some cold water into the coffee to make the grounds settle to the bottom. Dip your cup in and enjoy!”
Street Eats Gone Wild! Well… kinda sorta… not…
Posted on 9 July 2007 under Camp Cooking, Food In The News, Rants, Restaurant Chit-Chat | No Comments
I have a beef about how street food vendors are treated on this continent. This entry is a long one, but by the end, I think you’ll understand.
Yesterday the CBC reported that street vendors in the Ontario province can now expand beyond what’s usually found at the food carts. From the article:
Health Minister George Smitherman said his government has updated food regulations to allow the sale of salads, fruit, hamburgers, pizza, samosas, non-dairy smoothies, burritos, corn on the cob and baked goods, starting Aug. 1 … “We are also helping a new group of entrepreneurs showcase their culture’s culinary contributions to their cities,” he said … “Ontarians are at our best when we embrace the diversity of our people and our culture,” Smitherman said.
Let’s go to the actual announcement from the Ontario government’s web site:
- Pre-prepared, pre-packaged foods such as salads, fruits and baked goods;
- Pre-cooked foods that are reheated on site such as samosas, pizzas, burritos, hamburgers and hot dogs;
- Lower-risk foods such as orange juice, corn on the cob, whole fruit and non-dairy smoothies;
“These new options will help street food vendors be more creative in their menu offerings,” said Susur Lee, internationally renowned chef and author. “It will put Ontario on the culinary map by showcasing our province’s great talent and diversity.”
There’s no way I can appreciate this whatsoever. You may think this only has to do with my lamenting not being able to sell handmade corndogs at the Luna Pier yard sales last week. But really, this goes far beyond that one complaint.
Corndogs for Saturday: Deep Fryer Dilemma Solved
Posted on 27 June 2007 under Camp Cooking, Special Events | 2 Comments
I’ve mentioned previously my cooking corndogs at last year’s City Wide Yard Sale here in Luna Pier. I knew that, for this year (Saturday, June 30th), my “standard size” home deep fryer wouldn’t be enough for the volume of customers we expect I’ll be getting based on last year’s response. Yesterday, a chef from one of the restaurants in Toledo brought by one of their countertop commercial deep fryers. But unfortunately, that unit has what’s known as a twistlock connector for 220V outlets … and the 220V lines here in the house, one for the stove and one for the clothes dryer, have straight connections for standard home appliances. At Home Depot last night in the electrical department, I realized that building the right adapters into the right size and length of power cable would cost as much as another deep fryer.
This morning, I ended up with two choices: Buy another deep fryer, or once again only make three corn dogs at a time with the deep fryer I have. Presto makes a dual home deep fryer, but looking at it online I came to the conclusion it’s really not that much bigger than the deep fryer I have.
Then it dawned on me: What about a turkey fryer? Those beasties are powered with LP gas, which alleviates the connection issue, and maybe I could just replace the pot with something smaller. I went to www.cabelas.com to see if I could possibly pick up something at the store in Dundee. After finding some interesting items, I called the store. Shelley in the camping department suggested I come in and having a look at what she had on the shelf.
What I found was a King Kooker 18″ Rectangular Propane Outdoor Cooker:
With the baskets out of the pan, I’m guessing I might be able to cook eight corndogs in this thing at a time, possibly more. The shelf will be a good place for the tall, narrow container I use to hold the batter for dipping, and a card table is then all that’s necessary for condiments and other supplies.
Ahhh, corndogs. Gotta love ‘em!
Simple Oatmeal
Posted on 18 April 2007 under Camp Cooking, Recipes | 3 Comments
Oatmeal. A simple joy.
What you see here is a serving for Mary. What you don’t see is that she never eats oatmeal at the table this dish is sitting on. Back in March I’d blogged about how Mary and I have morning coffee in bed every day. On weekends, or weekdays like yesterday, she also gets breakfast in bed. Oatmeal is one of our mainstays for these meals. She might also get a fried egg sandwich, or an omelet, or even a full-blown breakfast of eggs, hash browns, thick slab bacon and toast or biscuits. But as long as I feel rested enough, she’ll at least get one of these servings of oatmeal.
You have to start with a decent oatmeal. Oatmeal’s cheap, so forget getting store-branded stuff. To get the right flavor and texture, I get the Old-Fashioned Quaker Oats in the round box. (Nope, not even their Quick Oats! To me, it’s not the same.) For Mary and I, I take the instructions for 2 servings on the box and double it, using water instead of milk, and Kosher salt where salt is called for. I always cook it on the stove top, boiling it rapidly, while stirring constantly, until the water is barely gone. It then goes right into the bowls you see in the picture. I top it with dark brown sugar, some dried cranberries and pats of unsalted Land-O-Lakes butter, serving it with coffee in mugs from Blaze! All American Diner in Temperance.
You may have noticed this post is also under the category for Camp Cooking. Not only is this an excellent meal for camping, but I have a bit of a story to tell …
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