SODO: First Time Baking Bread

For Father’s Day my wife more than took care of me. Actually, if you ask me, she went a little over board. But, I finally have some items that I have been wanting for a very long time. So, I forgive her.

I received two things that I really wanted. The first was a Camp Chef Dutch Oven Table to make it easier to cook. Now I don’t have to bend over and risk hurting my back.

The other thing that I wanted was Charcoal Lighting Basket (I didn’t get the one pictured, but you get the idea). This will hopefully help me to get my coals to cook more evenly, and thus have a better cooking experience.

Finally my wife got me something else that was on my list, but not as high as those two. She got me a second 12″ Round Dutch Oven. This will be especially nice when I want to cook two things at the same time.

So, that’s what we did. Yesterday, we cooked up a roasted chicken. Nothing special there. Just clean a whole chicken, season it (we use seasoning salt), and then cook it in your oven.

But we complemented the chicken with some fresh homemade rolls. My wife for years has been using the “refrigerator” bread dough recipe. It will keep in the fridge for up to about a week. So, you can have fresh bread almost all the time. Just let it rise, then bake it.

FRIDGE DOUGH

1 Pkg. Yeast (abt 2-3 tsp)
1 cup cool water
2 eggs
½ cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2/3 cup shortening
1 cup Hot water
About 6-7 cups flour

1. Mix Yeast in 1 cup cold water
2. Mix eggs, sugar, salt and shortening
3. Combine ingredients of 1 and 2 and Hot Water.
4. Mix in flour until dough is no longer sticky. (Dough will not be firm, but not sticky)

Store covered in a large greased container. Dough will raise some in the fridge so be sure to allow room for growth (Use within 10 days or it will get to tasting a little ripe.)
Makes about 3 recipes worth.

Sandy mixed all of the ingredients, and placed them in a tinfoil lined Dutch Oven. Then we let them rise in the heat of the sun for about a half-hour to 45 minutes.

Then we cooked them in the Dutch Oven. It should have taken around 30 minutes, but my coals were damp, and they didn’t get very hot. I think I have finally learned my lesson to bring my unused charcoals into the garage to stay dry.

I was really nervous that the rolls would be burned on the bottom. But they were, They were just shy of being perfect on the bottom. The top, however, wasn’t done as well as I would have liked. Yes, they were very edible and the flavor and texture was just fine. The only problem was that they didn’t brown on the top. They were as pale as when they were put in the oven.

So, I am going to have to research and figure out the best way to brown bread on the top in a Dutch Oven. Otherwise, the meal was fine (accept we ate late again today).

SODO: The Great Chicken Dinner

Okay, the title to this post is a little misleading. Because last night’s meal was nothing great.

I guess, I felt that because I had been home all day that I would have enough time to start some dutch oven. But I didn’t start until 5:00 in the evening. And we had kids that needed to be to various church activities. So, I was thinking that this would have dinner done well before 6:30pm.

I was so wrong. At 6:30, the chick was still raw and the potatoes were crunchy. It really wasn’t ready to eat. So, we fed the kids a small amount of left overs and sent them to their activities.

Pride having set in, I decided to keep them on the coals for another half hour or hour. But somewhere in there, I knew that I needed hotter coals. So, after the hour had expired, and American Idol was half over, I broke down and put them in the oven.

I know, it’s horrible. We were hungry and needed to eat.

After another half hour, it was finally good enough to eat. Still some of the potatoes and carrots weren’t fully cooked, but the were still edible.

So, after that disaster of a dinner you my be wondering why the title of this post. I call this recipe “The Great Chicken Dinner” because it was perhaps one of my first exposures to dutch oven, and the chicken usually tastes great. So, here is the recipe:

1-2 lbs. of bone in chicken (last night we did legs and thighs)
1/4 cup of butter
1/2 cup of flour
2 tbs of seasoned salt (to taste)
10-12 small potatoes cut into about 1/2 inch slices
1 lbs bag of baby carrots (medium carrots cut into baby carrot size is okay too).
1 small onion sliced
1 can of cream of chicken soup

First of all start melting the butter in the pan. Then remove the skin from the chicken. In a large bowl or plastic resealable bag mix the flour and seasoned salt. Coat the chicken with the flour mixture then brown in the melted butter. After both sides are browned, leave chicken in dutch oven and top with potatoes, carrots, onions, and cream of chicken soup.

Looking over the recipe, and after a pleasant comment from my wife, I realized that I had forgotten the cream of chicken soup.  There wasn’t enough moisture to cook the potatoes and carrots properly.

Also, the charcoal that I used had been slightly moist from all of the rain that we had yesterday.  Combine that with the wet ground, and I don’t think that my coals were hot enough to reach the needed 350 degrees.  So, yesterday was definitely a learning experiences.

SODO: BBQ Round Steak

Well, I had to skip the last couple of week in my attempt at a Dutch Oven meal every week for the next few months.  It wasn’t because I was busy.  It wasn’t because I am tired of Dutch Oven cooking.  Nope it’s because I ran out of charcoal.

Fortunately my wife sent me to the store, and I remember to pick up some charcoal.  So, when I got home I had to use it.

The recipe was pretty simple.

1.5 to 2 lbs. of Round Cut Steak
1 to 1.5 cups of BBQ sauce (what ever your favorite is)
1/4 to 1/2 cup of water
1 medium onion sliced into rings

Basically, through it all into the dutch oven, then bring the sauce to a boil.  Then cook for about 1.5 hours at about 325 degrees.  However, I think that I would have been better off to go for a 300 degree oven.

The steak was a little tough, but the flavor was good.  My wife made some corn bread and potatoes to compliment the meal.

Spring/Summer of Dutch Oven (SODO)

About a month and a half ago, our office had a Chili Cook Off with a $100 cash (well, Visa Gift Card) prize for first place. I decided that I would enter with a Dutch Oven Recipe that I found on the Internet thanks to the good people at Utah Association of Geocachers.

I won. $100 that I still haven’t decided how to spend.

But that isn’t the point of the post. Since then I have cooked one dutch oven meal every week for my family. This will be a little bit of a challenge, because as of yet, I own one and only one 12″ dutch oven. It is great for casseroles, deserts, and roasts. But if I want to do a meal of separates, we might just have to use the conventional oven.

The meals that I have cooked have ranged from the pre-cook off test run of chili for the family. To this weekend we had breakfast before Conference out of the dutch oven. I cook the typical but always delicious peach cobbler. It wasn’t as brown on the top as I would have liked, and some of the peaches were a little burnt. They weren’t too burnt, just too far beyond caramelized.

Then to end the Conference we had a delicious Beef Roast with potatoes and carrots. Again it was excellent. The beef was a little too crispy on the bottom, but honestly, it tasted great. It almost added a little jerky flavor to the meal, and everyone liked it.  Hmm… I see a new family tradition starting…

Both of the recipes for this came from the Better Home & Garden’s Checkerboard Cookbook that my wife and I received on our wedding day (or she got it at a wedding shower). I mention that because in future posts, I hope to share the recipe. But since I am at work, I don’t have the recipe, so I am offering up the source.

As I just indicated, this is my first in a series of post about my adventures in dutch oven cooking. I hope to keep you posted weekly on which recipes I am using, and how it turned out. So, keep your taste buds under control this Spring/Summer, because I am going to be sharing some culinary delights. Just keep your eyes open for the SODO preface to indicate that it is about tasty goodness.