Dutch Oven Apple Brown Betty

Here's a quick and easy dessert that is delicious to eat. The dry ingredients can be mixed together and placed in a ziplock bag ahead of time if you want to fix this one while camping. To make things easier you can even prepare the apples before leaving home and put them in ziplocks in the cooler.

I used the recipe from Texas Treasury of Dutch Oven Cooking .

Grandma 20's Apple Brown Betty

Mix together: 6 cups tart apples, peeled, cored, and sliced. (I used Granny Smiths)
                     1/2 cup sugar.

Spread evenly over bottom of Dutch Oven.

Top with:  1 cup brown sugar
                1 cup oats
                3/4 cup flour
                1/2 cup softened butter
                1 cup pecans (I used halves)
                2 tsp cinnamon
                1 tsp nutmeg

Bake in 10" or 12" dutch oven using 8 briquets on the bottom and 14 briquets on the top for 20 or 30 minutes.
It's done when apples are tender and topping is brown. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Double Dutch Stacked Dinner/Stuffed Acorn Squash with Ham Patties and Potatoes

I called this one "The Double Dutch Stacked Dinner" because I liked the name, but in reality, it is baked acorn squash stuffed with apples and raisins in the bottom pot and ground ham patties with potatoes in the top pot. I'll break it down into two separate recipes.

Start by firing up 36 briquettes.

I used a 12" and 10" dutch oven.

I also used a 10" cast iron frying pan.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Ingredients:

2 acorn squash

2 large apples (your choice) peeled, cored, chopped

4 tbs golden raisins

4 tbs melted butter

4 tbs brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Cut the squash in halves and scoop out seeds with a tablespoon.

Pour about 1/2" boiling water in a 12" dutch oven.

Place squash, cut side down in pot. Place lid.

Bake for about 30 minutes with 6 briquettes below oven and 18 on lid.

During this time combine the rest of your ingredients for the stuffing in a glass bowl.

Also prepare the following vegetables for top pot:

Top Pot Veggies

Ingredients:

white potatoes (a few handfuls) cut in half and sliced

1 onion, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced

4 cloves of garlic (I missed this one)

3 tbs olive oil

salt, pepper, dried herbs (your choice)

Place the olive oil in the bottom of a 10" dutch oven.

Put the remainder of ingredients in the dutch oven and place lid.

At this time carefully remove the lid from the 12" dutch oven and turn the squash halves over.

Stuff the center of each squash with the apple/raisin mixture.

Place the lid (coals still on it) back on the pot.

Stand the 10" pot on the 12" pot.

Put 12 hot briquettes on lid.

Let these cook for an hour.

At this point, I started preparing my ham patties:

Ground Ham Patties

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground ham (I bought a reduced sodium ham steak and ground it in the food processor)

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1/2 cup soft bread crumbs

2 eggs

Combine the ingredients and form 6 patties.

Brown both sides in cast iron fry pan with olive oil.

Remove from pan when brown and set aside.

After the pots have cooked for one hour, remove the lid on top pot.

Gently stir the potatoes and place the ham patties on top of the veggies.

Carefully replace lid (with coals).

Bake for 30 more minutes.

Serve and eat... it's good stuff!

Dutch Oven Moroccan Lamb Stew

I went to the Lodge Cookware factory outlet in Sevierville, Tennessee over the weekend and purchased several new pieces of cast iron cook ware at a great price. I've been dying to try one of them out so I put this dish together in my new 10-quart dutch oven.

Ingredients:
1 Bone-in lamb shoulder
2 cans of low-sodium chicken broth
1 can diced tomato
1 can chick peas
1 onion diced
1 cup sliced carrot
2 stalks chopped celery
1 cup diced dried apricots
3 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
6 cloves crushed garlic
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp Garam Marsala (cinnamon, cumin, coriander, black pepper, cloves, cardamon).
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground cayenne

Preparing the Lamb:
Because I was using a bone-in lamb shoulder I pre-cooked it, so that I could easily separate the bone, fat, and connecting tissue from the meat.
Salt and pepper the lamb shoulder and brown it all sides in a 10" cast iron dutch oven in 3 tbs. of olive oil.
When it's browned, pour one of the cans of the chicken broth over it, put on the lid, and bake at a low heat (around 300F) for 4 hrs.
After 4 hrs. the lamb was cooked and the chicken broth was mostly evaporated. I put the lamb in a dish and placed it in the refrigerator for a few hours. When I was ready to use the meat, it was easily separated. I cut it into bite-sized pieces.

Cooking the Stew
To start, scrape most of the lamb fat out of the bottom of the dutch oven (up to you), but try to leave some of the good drippings for taste.
Add a little olive oil and brown the onion.
Pour in 1 can of chicken broth.
Add carrots, celery, canned tomatoes, garlic, and dry spices. Spices should be used to taste.
Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer.
Add meat and apricots.
Simmer for one to one and half hours until carrots are tender.
(I did have to add 1 cup of hot water before it was through)
Serve over cous-cous.

First of all, I must say that I don't know anything about Moroccan food. I'm really just a dude with a couple of Dutch ovens and a penchant for cast-iron cooking. I do like Indian food and this dish has curry and Bengali spices in it, so maybe it should be called Bengali Lamb Stew. I don't know about that, but I do know that this dish is spicy, exotic, and scrumptious. I can definitely see myself lounging around on big pillows with hookah pipes and belly dancers while eating it. It's good stuff, maybe one of the better things I've cooked in a while. Black Betty thinks so too!

I was inspired by a Moroccan Chicken Recipe that was posted by Cliffmeister2000 at the wonderful and informative camp cook forum:  Camp-Cook.com
Bob appetit y'all!

Dutch Oven Pork Roast with Apples and Onions

Ingredients:
4 lb. Pork Loin End Roast
Fresh Garlic
Fresh Sage
Fresh Rosemary
Sea Salt
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
2 Tbs. Olive Oil
1 cup White Wine (I used Chardonnay)
2 cups organic Apple Juice (I wanted cider)
2 Granny Smith Apples, one sliced, one cut into 1" cubes
4 small Vidalia Onions sliced

Prepare the roast in the morning by trimming the visible fat. Stab the top of the roast with a sharp knife and liberally insert fat garlic slivers. Rub the roast with salt and pepper. Chop sage and rosemary, mix with olive oil, and rub on roast. Wrap meat and place in fridge.

To Cook
Prepare 22 charcoal briquettes.
Simmer the apple juice, wine, and cubed apple into a sauce pan on the stove top.
Place the hot briquettes underneath the dutch oven and brown the pork roast all sides.
When it's brown, take roast out of dutch oven and remove 15 briquettes from below dutch oven (leaving about 7).
Place sliced apple in the bottom of the dutch oven.
Set roast on top of apples, surround with sliced onions.
Pour heated juice over the top.
Place the lid on the oven and place the remaining briquettes (should be about 15) on top.
Cook for about 2 to 2 1/2 hrs until it reaches an internal temp of 170 degrees.
Remove roast, place on counter top covered with foil.
Pour juice in sauce pan and heat to thicken (I did use a little cornstarch).

To Serve
Slice thin, serve with au jus.
We ate the onions and apples on the side (in au jus) and served a green salad and cous-cous.

It's a keeper! It was a big hit with the fam and fed 4 hungry adults and 3 kids, with left overs.

The apple-wine-onion combination really worked and was something deliciously different to my taste.

Next time I cook this dish I will add more sliced apples. We wanted more!

Dutch Oven Beef Pot Roast with Beer and Veggies

I've bought some really good local beef, raised right, no hormones, no antibiotics, allowed to roam the fields. You know, good stuff, not your usual grocery store variety feed-lot beef. Hell yes, you can tell a world of difference. But anyway, I decided to break out the Dutch oven again. Here's what I did:

I had a 4 lb. fresh rump roast cut from this beef. I rubbed it with salt, pepper, adobo seasoning, garlic flakes, and lots of smoked paprika. I rewrapped it in the butcher paper and stuck it back into the fridge overnight. I prepared a hot 12" dutch oven with 12 coals underneath it and heated about 1/8 cup of cooking oil. When the oil got hot, I browned the roast on all sides, leaving it with the thin fat layer on top.
I then poured a bottle of beer (NA Coors is what I had) into the pot and added my veggie mix (which consisted of a quartered large onion, about 6 medium potatoes cut into 1" squares, a cup or so of baby carrots cut in half, and several chopped cloves of garlic). The veggies were seasoned with salt, pepper, and dried basil.  I placed the lid on the oven, gave it a spin to ensure that it was on tight, and placed 24 hot coals on the top of the lid.

I pulled the lid after two hours and stuck a meat thermometer down in it. It was still pretty rare at this point (120F) so I built back some coals and left it for another hour. This is what I saw when I pulled the lid the second time.

It was truly delicious; the beef was extraordinarily flavorful and the veggies were perfect. The paprika had a little heat to it, and added with the beer and juices, it was hard to beat. The family loved it, and no one seemed to want to back away from the table. It'll be a keeper, for sure!

Note: This roast ended up being more on the medium well side of doneness, which was fine for my daughter's family, but my wife and I could have eaten it more on the medium rare side. Next time (for us), I would probably take it off about a half hour earlier.

Dutch Oven Leg of Lamb

We bought two spring lambs from our friends Dan and Kathy out in Cartoogechaye. So now I've got a freezer full of delicious, local lamb, and I've also got a new Dutch oven that I've been wanting to break in.  So, what do you think I came up with?  I decided to invite the fam over for some Dutch oven roasted leg o' lamb.

Searching the net for Dutch oven roasted leg of lamb didn't really yield me too many results (most were for braised 7-hour lamb), but I did find a site about Dutch oven meat which gave me some good pointers. I followed its advice pretty closely, with a few changes.

This is what I did.  I studded the lamb with a generous number of garlic spikes and rubbed it with olive oil, black pepper, rosemary, salt, and more garlic and then let it sit in the fridge over night.  I placed it on a rack in my 12" oven, surrounded by potatos and onions which themselves were oiled and seasoned.  I placed 12 briquettes below the oven and 24 on the lid.  I cooked it for 2 hrs, took it out, and let it sit for another 20 minutes before carving it.  It was done perfectly, rare to medium rare; it couldn't have been any better!  The fam loved it; it melted in my mouth, just like prime rib. I would say that this recipe is a keeper!

This is what I saw when I pulled the lid off the pot: