Monday, January 11, 2016

Dutch Oven Recipe: Monkey Bread

Dutch oven: Monkey bread
Group: Richard
Rating: *** Good I would make this at home

Ingredients:
  • 2 rolls of Pillsbury biscuits
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • 3 Tbsp cinnamon
  • 1 stick butter, melted

Instructions:
  1. line the oven with foil and spray dutch oven with cooking spray.
  2. Chop biscuits into quarters. Mix sugar and cinnamon in plastic bag. Drop each quarter into bag and shake to coat well.
  3. Place the mixture in the dutch oven.
  4. Melt the butter and pour over biscuits.
  5. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Check around 30 minutes to see if the dough is done.

Outcome: I expected that I would have trouble starting the fire but I was able to do it with a single match. I had already put the Sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a bag together before I started so I didn't have much to do. I cut all the Pillsbury biscuits, put them in the mix and then put them in the dutch oven. I forgot to cut one of the biscuits and put it in so there was less than I expected but there was still more than enough. I had also forgotten to put the butter in before I started cooking but that didn't detract to much from the taste. School had ended and I was still cooking so I had to stop before they were done even though I had cooked for the required time. If I hadn't  put the tinfoil around the dutch oven so tightly I might have been able to finish cooking. When I was done they were a little under cooked but the few people who tried them said they were good. If I were to make this again I would make sure not to wrap the dutch oven too tightly in tinfoil and put the butter in before I put it on the fire.  




Bibliography:


Tuesday, December 15, 2015

S'more Pie (Julianne, Emma G, Fatima)


PAD30 Dutch Oven Cooking Assignment
S’more Pie Dutch oven Recipe

Rate your recipe:   ☆☆☆ Excellent, we would make this at home
Ingredients:

-          1 graham cracker pie crust
-          2 cups of chocolate chips
-          2 cups of mini marshmallows
Directions:
            Heat dutch oven to about 350° or until coals form. Cover graham cracker crust with a layer of chocolate chips. Cook in dutch oven for about 5 minutes until chocolate chips are melted. Then, cover chocolate chips completely with a layer of marshmallows. Cook in the dutch oven for about 10 minutes. Check every 5 minutes until marshmallows are brown. Now carefully remove pie tin from dutch oven and set aside to cool. If you can, set in snow or shallow cold water to cool pie faster.
Plan:
            We are going to need 24 briquettes (18 on top, and 6 underneath the oven). Light the coals. Put dutch oven on coals once they turn white. Then, take the lid off after a certain amount of time and place hand in pot but not touching for about 5 seconds and then that’s when you know that it is at 350°.
(Maintaining the heat) Rotate oven every 10 minutes to maintain heat and to cook pie evenly.
Who’s bringing what:
            Fatima = 1 bag of mini marshmallows
            Julianne = 1 graham cracker pie crust
            Emma G = 1 bag of chocolate chips
Some things that helped us be successful were that we didn’t struggle when starting the fire. We used good matches and we knew what we were doing since we had lots of practice with the bannock challenge. We knew exactly what kind of wood to use and when and we also had some help from Bobby. Some things that we would’ve changed to make our s’more pie even better the next time around would’ve been to check it more often. Our graham cracker crust kind of burned because we weren’t keeping a closer eye on it. 
Source:
-          Dutchovendude.com,. 'S'more Pie Dutch Oven Recipe'. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.
 
                                                                 Final Result:
 
 

Dutch Oven Cobbler

Ted Morris and Patrice Yazdanyar

Rating: ***

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup evaporated milk
3/4 cup water
4 cups sweetened canned fruit, with juice

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt butter in a 12-inch Dutch oven over low heat. Mix sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir in milk and water gradually, mixing just until moistened. Pour into Dutch oven. Pour fruit over top. Cover with a lid, place coals on top, and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, or until batter is lightly browned on top. Check to make sure that batter is fully cooked through. Remove from heat, let cool slightly, and then serve warm.

The cobbler turned out great! One thing that we eliminated from the recipe was the canned fruit and juice. Instead, we used frozen fruit, which were mixed berries. We let the fruit thaw during the day, and consequently there would be juice from it as well.

With our experience, the recipe called for too much butter. After about 40 minutes in the dutch oven, there was still some melted butter at the top and in the middle of the cobbler, which caused the cake in the middle to be softer. We would recommend only using 3/4 cup of butter.

The cake was also softer in the middle because the heat was generated more through the perimeter of the dutch oven. If the coals we more centred then you could get more heat generated there to cook it all the way through.

The directions state to check after 30-40 minutes. We just wanted to be careful that it didn't burn so we checked it after 30 minutes. But, with 6 coals on the bottom and 16 on top, we recommend to only check after 40 minutes because it still might need to cook more after that amount of time.

In the picture of the cobbler on the recipe's internet page, it appeared that the fruit had sunk to the bottom of the cobbler while it was baking. We didn't experience the fruit sinking. We are not sure if it is because we used frozen instead of canned fruit, but don't take any chances on pouring the fruit in before the batter.

The cobbler was still enjoyed by the class and would be a scrumptious dessert on a camping trip.



American Chuck Wagon Association. Dutch Oven Cobbler. Food Network. Retrieved from:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/dutch-oven-cobbler-recipe.html

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Mac and Cheese: Dakota, Jessica, Ashely

Rating: *** Ingredients: 2 cups of macaroni ½ cup of milk 3 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. flour 3 cups of grated cheddar cheese Instructions: Prepare pasta at home according to package directions. Store in a seasonable container and place it in a zip lock bag. Place shredded cheese in another container, flour in its own small bag/container, and put the milk in a small water bottle so it does not spill. Once the fire box is set up and everything is ready to cook, place a grill over the firebox, then out your Dutch oven over top. Put the 3 tbsp. of butter in and wait for it to melt, add in the half cup of milk. Put 1 tbsp. of flour at a time until it has thickened and you have a roux. Add cooked macaroni to the Dutch oven and stir to coat with the sauce. Let pasta cook with sauce until heated throughout. Top with 3 cups of shredded cheese. Cover and cook for 5 minutes until the cheese melts. The mac and cheese turned out alright for our cooking group. It was very easy and fast to make sine the noodles were already precooked. The only real tricky part was making sure the sauce mix didn’t burn to the bottom of the Dutch oven, so our group was stirring the pot constantly to prevent this from happening. We decided to cook 2 cups of macaroni, and it was a perfect amount for the whole class to enjoy a little portion of the mac and cheese. Overall it was extremely fast to make, and it tasted pretty good, although I probably would not make this again at home where I have more tools,ingredients, and time to prepare something better. "Camping Macaroni and Cheese." Munchin with Munchkin RSS. 25 May 2011. Web. 12 Dec. 2015. http://www.munchinwithmunchkin.com/2011/05/25/camping-macaroni-and-cheese/

Saturday, December 12, 2015

S'more Pie
Emma M. and Aislinn
Required:
pie tin
dutch oven
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter
2 cups chocolate chips
2 cups mini marshmallows
Instructions:
Either buy a premade graham cracker crust or make your own:
Melt butter. Mix butter with graham crumbs and sugar. Press into pie tin.

Heat dutch oven to about 350 degrees.

Cover graham crust with layer of chocolate chips.
Cook in D.O. for about 5 minutes to melt chips.
Cover chocolate chips completely with layer of mini-marshmallows.
Cook in D.O. for about 10 minutes.
Check every 5 minutes until marshmallows are brown.

Carefully remove pie tin and set to cool. If you can set it in snow or shallow cold water, it will cool the crust faster.

Serves 8

(All recipes use a 12-inch dutch oven, unless specified. If you have a 10-inch dutch oven, use about 2/3 to 3/4 of the ingredient amounts but keep the temperature and time about the same.
If no temperature is listed, use 350 degrees.)

This recipe turned out to be delicious! It was extremely simple to make and took little time. However my partner and I did face some challenges that we would be sure to do differently if we were to make it again. First of all, the recipe didn’t specify how many coals we should use to bake it, but rather listed a temperature. When we decided that we were going to use 16 coals on top and 5 on the bottom, it seemed to be working well, but it took longer to make than expected. We’d recommend either increasing the amount of coals you use, or adjusting the amount of total bake time to about 20 minutes. Furthermore, as we decided to make the crust from scratch, we discovered after taking the pie out of the dutch oven that although the marshmallows and chocolate we done, the crust was soft instead of hard. Even so the pie was really tasty and we’d recommend it to anyone who loves s’mores!!

Friday, January 30, 2015

Apple Jerky

Ted Morris and Cullen Wyne

Rating: ****

Ingredients: 
  • 1 Jar Apple Sauce 28 oz (796 ml)
  • 1 Banana
  • 6 Dates, chopped
  • ⅓ Cup Flax Seeds (79 ml)
  • 2 Tbsp Honey (30 ml)
  • 1 Tbsp Agave Nectar (15 ml)
  • 1 Tbsp Cinnamon (15 ml)
  • ½ Cup Orange Juice (118 ml)
  • 2 Apples, shredded
  • 1 Cup Oatmeal, uncooked (236 ml)
  • ½ Cup Coconut, shredded (118 ml)
  • 3 Cups Rice Krispies Cereal (708 ml)

Instructions:
  • Add apple sauce, chopped dates, banana, honey, cinnamon and flax seeds to blender. Let this sit to soften up the dates while you get the other things ready.
  • Peel, core and shred two apples. Combine with orange juice in a large mixing bowl. Mix it around a bit to keep the apples from turning brown. Add oatmeal, coconut and Rice Krispies to the mixing bowl and stir.
  • Turn the blender on for about two minutes or until everything is well blended.
  • Dump blender contents into mixing bowl and mix well.
  • Pour mixture into a large bag or jerky gun. If using a bag, cut a ½ inch hole in one corner.
  • Cover dehydrator trays with Excaliber Paraflexx sheets or parchment paper. Make lines of apple jerky on trays. Should make three trays if using an Excalibur Dehydrator.
  • Dry at 135° F for about nine hours. At five hours, take off the paraflexx sheets and continue drying. Will dry similar to fruit leather.
  • Let cool and cut strips in two or three pieces.

The jerky turns out great if you follow these precise steps. Our first batch didn't turn out so well because they weren't in the oven for long enough, but we learned from our mistake the and so the second batch came out delicious. Everyone from the class seemed to enjoy it. It would be a great item your menu to pack for a trip. 

















(2014) Rutherford, Al. Apple Jerky. Retrieved from:
http://www.backpackingchef.com/yr-als-apple-jerky.html 

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Ahmad's Dehydration Asginment

Ahmad El-Arab

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

PAD20

Jan. 22, 15

Rating ***

Ingredients:

½ lb of Ground beef

½ cup of spaghetti sauce

½ of teaspoon of salt

½ of teaspoon of black pepper

2 garlic cloves crunched

2 tablespoon olive oil

Spaghetti sticks

Steps:

Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to the cooking pot. When oil is hot add the ground beef and cook it

until it is brown in colour. Add the salt and black pepper, then add the sauce and the crunched

garlic.

Boil water in another pot with a tablespoon of olive oil and dash of salt. Boil for 8 minutes and

then drain all the water. Add to the meat sauce and mix.

Spread on an oven tray and place it in the oven and set the temperature for 120° Celsius, and

leave it for 12 hours.

After 12 hours have passed, place the meal in a container. When ready for use, simply boil

approximately 2 cups of water, and mix it with the spaghetti. Continue mixing until the texture of

the pasta is soft enough for your liking.

Hints and Changes:

When testing out the pasta at home after it had been dehydrated, I realized that if I were to ever

do this again, there would be one major issue that I would change. First was that it wasn’t

necessary to dehydrate the actual spaghetti itself. As dehydrating the pasta would leave it in the

same state as when it was initially bought. This left meant that extra time was wasted cooking the

spaghetti. Although it did seem faster to rehydrate then it took to initially cook the spaghetti, it

would be all around faster to simply leave the pasta uncooked and simply boil it on the trip.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Apple Butter Bannock

Our Recipe:

1 1/2 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 pinch of salt
3 1/2 tablespoons of apple butter (or to taste)
water

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl and then add Apple butter. Knead the mixture while slowly adding water until the mixture turns into a play dough like consistency (dry but a bit sticky). The batter should stay together in a ball. Stretch the dough into a snake- like form that is about 1 cm thick. Wrap this around the end of a stick with the bark torn off. It should stick to the wood if you turn it 360 degrees.

Cooking:

Make a hot fire. Let it naturally burn down to glowing coals with a bit of flames. Then take the stick with the bannock and place about 15-20 cm above the fire (your hand should be able to be held there for 20 seconds). Rotate the bannock over the fire to ensure even cooking. The bannock is done when the outer layer (crust) is a golden brown. You should be able to slide it off the stick. If you can not, cook it for a bit longer and try again.

Our Thoughts:

The Apple butter paired well with the smoky taste of the fire. The brown sugar complimented the apple butter and made it a little sweeter. The bread was fully cooked and tasted fantastic! It didn't take long to cook. We believe that this was a success and would try it again. 

By Lucia and Gillian

Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips by Brayden M.

Cut the potato in paper-thin slices
using a mandolin (or in this case a meat slicer).
*The recipe is dependent on the thickness of
the slices.*
 Recipe & Steps -

What you'll need -

-one medium to large spud (~200 grams)

                                         
-3/4 teaspoon of salt

                                         
-150mL of malt or                                                 cider vinegar (use                                                 water for plain                                                     salted chips)

             




The salt and vinegar mix should be poured into
a bowl. Put the potato slices in the bowl to soak
for approximately 10 minutes. After 10 minutes,
remove the slices and dry them off.
 Rating - **** 4/5 stars

My batch was very light tasting and lacked the taste of salt. Although my                                                batch was very                                                      crunchy.                                                  
Preheat the oven to 250°F and then put in the slices.
Parchment paper is recommended so they don't stick.
Bake for 30 mins, check periodically depending
on the thickness of the slices. Voila!

Raw Banana Bread


Rating: ***
Ingredients:
      1. 5 bananas
      2. 1 2/3 cups roughly chopped carrots (peeled)
      3. 1/4 cup water
      4. 1/4 cup dates
      5. 1/2 cup chia seeds (or flaxseed meal)
      6. 1 tablespoon vanilla
      7. 1 teaspoon cinnamon
      8. 1 pinch sea salt
      9. 1 cup raisins
      10. 1/2 cup chopped pecans (or chopped walnuts)
      11. 1/4 cup sesame seeds
  1. Directions:
1. Get out a large mixing bowl. Place raisins, pecans and sesame seeds in bowl. Set aside for later.
2. Place water, peeled bananas, vanilla, cinnamon and sea salt into your high speed blender. Once blending, add chopped carrots and dates. Mixture will be pretty thick. Try to avoid adding any extra water (besides the initial quarter cup). Blend until nicely combined and smooth, like a smoothie.
3. Try to do this step quickly: Add chia seeds to blender mixture and blend well. Since the mixture is already quite thick, your chia seeds might get stuck at the top of the mixture. If so, turn blender off and create an air pocket down the side of the mixture. Also, use your Vitamix tamper (big tool for mixing, like a big spoon) if you have one. Start blender on low again and increase speed. (Remember that chia seeds will thicken the mixture even more so work fast!)
3. Once your mixture seems as smooth as you can get it, find the mixing bowl that you set aside in step 1. Now, pour/spoon blender mixture on top of rasins, pecans and sesame seeds. Mix with a spoon. This should now resemble regular, Standard American Diet (SAD) banana bread batter.
4. Line two dehydrator trays with parchment paper or teflex sheets. (Do not use wax paper! It'll stick and be a disaster!)
5. Pour half of raw banana bread batter onto each tray. Smooth batter out with the back of a spoon (or with a palette knife/cracker spreader). Batter should be a 1/4 of an inch thick or a bit less. The thinner the batter is the better it will dehydrate, although you don't want it too thin because you want some moistness in the middle like "raw banana bread slices" not like dried out "banana crackers or cookies" if you know what I mean!
6. Dehydrate on high for 1.5 hours. Reduce temperature to 105 degrees and dehydrate your banana bread for another couple of hours. Once it seems to be holding together and drying out, score lines into the crackers with a knife so that you can more easily break them up later.
7. Keep dehydrating. At some point once they appear to be holding together very well you’ll want to remove the parchment paper, flip them over and finish dehydrating them. (You want to remove the parchment paper so that the air can flow around better without being blocked by the parchment paper.)
8. One you've flipped over your banana bread slices, keep monitoring based on how dry/moist you want your banana bread slices to be. Dehydrator times and temperatures can vary greatly so I urge you to check this raw banana bread recipe quite frequently. Don't be afraid to taste test, especially if you are new to dehydrating.
9. Once your banana bread is done, remove from dehydrator.  Eat some right away, and let the others cool.
Comments: This recipe was really good, even though it didn’t turn out as planned. I made a couple of changes when making it (taking out the nuts and sesame seeds and adding coconut) and I would make a couple more. On the recommendations of Mrs. Trumpower I would add some honey to the recipe. I would also put it in the dehydrator for longer because it was a little bit undercooked (the recipe called for a more advanced dehydrator with heat settings). Overall I would say that this recipe was really good, but it wasn’t banana bread; it was more of a banana fruit bar.

Source: "The Rawtarian: Raw Banana Bread Recipe." The Rawtarian RSS. Web. 23 Jan. 2015. <http://www.therawtarian.com/raw-banana-bread-recipe>.  

Dehydrated Chili

Chili Recipe Simon C.
Rating ***** of *****
Ingredients
-Ground Beef----------------------------------------------------------1 Pound
-Onions---------------------------------------------------------------------1 1/2
-Garlic----------------------------------------------------------------- 6 cloves
-Carrots---------------------------------------------------------------- 6 large
-Celery----------------------------------------------------------------- 3 sticks
-Bell Pepper--------------------------------------------------------1 Chopped
-Jalapeno Pepper--------------------------------------------------1 Chopped
-Tomatoes------------------------------------------------------------ 3 Cubed
-Tomato Paste-----------------------------------------------------------1 can
-Kidney Beans-------------------------------------------------------1 Lrg Can
-Black Beans---------------------------------------------------------1 Lrg Can
-Chili Powder----------------------------------------------------------To Taste
-Oregano ---------------------------------------------------------------1 TBSP
-Cayenne powder------------------------------------------------------1 TBSP
-Marble Cheese-------------------------------------------------------Optional


Method
-Place the ground beef in a large pot and put in the garlic and the onions. Cook over medium heat until browned.


-Add Carrots, Celery and peppers cook until the carrots are softened.


- Next add tomatoes, tomato paste , chili powder,, oregano,and cayenne. Stir together, cover pot, and then reduce the heat to medium low. Simmer for 45min, stirring occasionally.


-Put on tray in oven at 170 C with the oven door
open and heat for 24h- 30h or until completely dry


-To rehydrate put in a Container and fill with water
until you reach the top of the chili wait 12 hours
add extra water if required after 12 hours


-Heat on Medium until it reaches a simmer


-Serve with Cheese on top (Optional)


Thoughts
This recipe was an overall success, I enjoyed it and so did everyone else. It kept its flavor very well seeing as I had kept it dehydrated nearly four months. It had great taste and I would not change anything if I were to make this recipe again.


"Chili." Interview with Simon. page 0. Print.

Dehydration assignment: Teriyaki Beef Jerky By Joshua and Grace

Teriyaki Beef Jerky

By Joshua And Grace

Rating:

Ingredients:

30 pieces of beef cut into 1/4th of an inch thickness

Teriyaki Marinade 
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
-1 cup of water
- 2 tbsp honey
- 5 tbsp Brown Sugar
- 1 tsp  ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder


Instructions

1. you must make your marinade by adding all ingredients together then cooking on your stove top on low till the brown sugar has blended into the sauce 

2. Cut up your beef into 1/4th of an inch slices making sure to cut off all the fat inside the beef.

3. Soak your beef in the Marinade for 18-20 hours checking it occasionally 

4. Then place all your beef on the dehydrator racks and cook at 160 degrees fahrenheit till it is dehydrated. Check on it occasionally and flip the beef if needed.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Angel Cake


Angel Cake

Rating: ***

By: Amanda, Olivia H, Alyssa

Ingredients
1 Betty Crocker Angel Food Cake Mix
1 ¼ cups of cold water

Directions

In a medium size bowl, add package of Betty Crocker Food Cake Mix and add in water. Mix ingredients with electric mixer on medium for 30 seconds, then on high for 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Make sure to get rid of all remaining air bubbles by smoothing over the surface with a knife.

Pour the mixture into a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan and put it into the oven. Preheat the oven to 350ยบF and bake for 50 minutes. You will know it’s ready when the top is lightly browned.

Set and let the cake cool for 5-10 minutes. When cooled, cut into small, square sized pieces.

After the cake is prepared, place them into the dehydrator and leave them there for 4 hours.



Reflection

At first we did not know if dehydrating a cake would work but it ended up tasting really good. It tasted just like normal angel food cake but the texture was a bit different. It was sometimes hard to break off parts of the cake but the flavour was excellent. We were pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was. It only took 4 hours to dehydrate in the dehydrator and we did not have many issues. Except for when we were dehydrating the food at school, someone stole a few pieces of our cake so we had to break pieces apart so that everyone in the class could have a bit of our cake.