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.

Parunuweap Canyon

On a little lighter note, but something that is just as much fun for me, I would like to tell you what I did this weekend. While many in my county were working at the convention, I decided to get away.

Yep, I traveled down to Zion’s National Park and enjoyed an 18.4 mile hike through some of Utah’s beautiful red rock country. We started out the trip by meeting up with the rest of our party at the East Gate of Zion’s National Park. It was a beautiful way to start our trip.

Then we heading to beginning of our trail which was located just south of Mt. Carmel on a dirt road about a 10th of a mile from US89. At first we worked our way down the road past the first gate, but from everything that my guides read, we needed to park at the first gate. So, we dropped our packs off as far as we dared take the truck, then we drove bak to the first gate and hiked to our packs.

There were many great pictures of buttes and mesas along this trail. I couldn’t help taking picture after picture. But it was also perhaps the least interesting part of the trail, because he hadn’t yet entered into the red rock that I love.

The first part of the trail is both an off road trail and a horse trail. So, while were were mostly by ourselves (accept for one small meeting with some ATVs) there was plenty of signs of people having been in the area.

The sun was starting to set as we got into the red rock part of the trail, and more and more we spent our time walking in the water. This was actually really nice because it would be a nice refresher to tired and sore feet. When we arrived at Mineral Gulch we knew that we only had a few hours left and my guides had read that there were several beautiful rock formations in the gulch. So, we donned our wet suits, and I put my camera away (I didn’t want to get it wet), and we trekked into the gulch.

They were correct. It really was full of some beautiful rock formations. I truly regretted not having taken my camera for two reasons. First, it was very dry. The wet suits were completely useless, but mostly I regret not getting some great pictures. My party was probably tired of me, because it seemed that every time I turned around a new corner, I saw a face in the formation. I really wish that I had some pictures of them to share with you.

That night we settled down along one of the Sandy banks just at the mouth of Mineral Gulch. By the time we got out of the gulch is was getting dark, so we barely had enough time to set up camp and get a fire started. Then we ate dinner, and as soon as my food was eaten, I went to bed. I was tired, and I say no reason to stay up and talk.

The next morning, we woke up had breakfast and headed out on the trail at 9:00 in the morning. Again we saw many great rock formations. But there wasn’t a lot of time for picture taking because we had 11 miles of trail ahead of us, and the last 4 was supposed to be the hardest.

I wish that I could describe the beauty of the place, and the best part of the hike was knowing that we were one of very few people who have ever traveled in this area. However, we know that these trails have been traveled for many years. One of the signs were these fun petroglyphs that were located about 500 feet from the trail, and well worth the brief break and trip of the trail.

One of my main goals for this trip was to hunt for a couple of geocaches. But this trip proved a disappointment for this trip. There was one cache that was on the must do list. It was called Fat Man’s Misery, and from what I understand it was reachable from where we were. Unfortunately, we lost satellite reception when we got within 350 ft. and we didn’t pick it back up again until we passed it by a tenth of a mile.

There were a couple of other caches that we passed, but one of the men with us wasn’t interested in geocaching, and really didn’t seem to want to indulge me. So, I came home without even one find on this trip. I was hoping to find one after he had left our group, but by that time I was very tired, and my GPS just up and lost all of my personal waypoints. So, I was left with nothing.

But, before I get to the end of the trip, I have to write about the last 4 miles. It was by far the toughest hike of my life. The first mile was straight up. Not so bad that we needed gear, but there was definitely one point where I felt that one slip would have cost me my life.

The next two miles were up hill, after up hill, after up hill. I was beginning to wonder if it would ever head down, which according to the elevataion chart it was supposed to.

The last mile was still pretty rough. Yes, it was finally heading down hill, but like the rest of the trail is was mostly sand. So, that double the amount of effort you needed just to walk in a straight line.

During the last 2 miles, I kept trying to listen for cars so that I knew I was close to the end. But we didn’t hear any cars until we could see their headlight just a head of us. Yes, I said head lights. We didn’t get off of the trail until around 9:00pm, and I was purely beat. I took everything in me to make this trip, and I had a terribly wonderful time.

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.

2008 Calendar

They are done. Actually, I still have one more, but I have until Dec. 31 to finish that.

Every year for the past several years, I have taken photos from my wife’s family and used them to make a personalized calendar. You have probably purchased them as gifts, and they are wonderful to hang on your wall.

However, as you know I am cheap. So, I make them myself. However, in making them myself, I have also decided that I would put important dates on the calendars. Primarily, I include all of my wife’s parents children and grandchildren’s birthdays and anniversaries.

However, I usually make three different calendars. I usually use the same pictures, but I include different birthday’s depending on the recipient. My wife and my calendar includes birthdays for her family and for mine. The Calendar for my wife’s grandmother includes birthdays for her brothers and sisters and all of her progeny. That’s three different but similar calendars.

If that wasn’t enough, I decided that this year, I would make a calendar for my side of the family. However, they wouldn’t be interested in photos from my wife’s family. So, I had to have different pictures. Past attempts at getting them to send photos have completely failed, so this year, I used photos that I have taken from my travels this past few year.

Unfortunately, I  have made a few mistakes.  The calendars that I mailed out a couple of days ago, went out without my brother-in-law’s birthday on it.  Also, the calendar that I printed for me doesn’t have any of my wife’s family on it.  I just wasn’t thinking and I was happily printing away.  Also, a few of the calendar’s for my family have the wrong photo connected to the wrong month.  I was just too cheap to print them again.

So, I have had to make 4 different calendars this year. And trust me, if you want to put your printer to the test make 13 calendars on cardstock using extensive color.

Some of My Favorites Photos from the Calendar:
Duck in a Pond
Wild Flowers of Idaho
Flag on “Blue” Bridge, Kennewick, WA
East of Park City

I Hate to Like These Books

I just finished the 7th Year of the Harry Potter Series. And to be honest, it has been mostly drudgery. Okay, not the 7th Year, but the whole series. The first two years were good enough to get me into the next two. But after year 4, I just about gave up on the whole series.

I didn’t like Year 3 and 4 because they weren’t getting into the battle between Voldemort and Harry. I wanted to learn more about their relationship.  I wanted to know what Harry was doing and needed to be doing to finish him off.

However, the popularity of the series, a certain kinship that I had for Harry Potter, and my desire to know more about the relation of Harry with Voldemort kept me reading. Year 5 got back on track, and Year 6 was the best of the two (I even read it twice, but that is another story).

Year 7 was back to the original story like I wanted it, and I might even say that it was the best of the 7.  Not that I am saying it was the best, just that it might be.  However, if I could use just 2 words to describe year 7, then they are: too much.

Too much story. I felt that there were times when it moved too slowly and had details that could have been either eliminated or in earlier books, without ruining the flow (perhaps bettering the flow).

Too much death. I have heard that British authors are more likely to kill off their supporting characters when compared to American authors. And if that is true then I forgive Rowling to a certain extent. But I want most of the good guys to win. And thinking back, I can’t think of a single bad wizard who died (beside Voldemort, of course). While reading the last year, It got to the the point that I was almost ready to give up. And if Rowling had killed one of a few select individuals, I really think I would have put it down and never read the end.

Too much violence. Honestly, I am afraid that the only way that they can make the 7th Year into a movie is to make it Rated R. I don’t watch rated R movies, and I am picky about PG-13. It took me over a year before I finally watch Year 4 (but that was my least favorite of all the books). And I don’t know if I will watch Years 5, 6, or 7.

Before I read the book, and even before they were sold, I made a few prediction about the 7th Year. I am sorry to say that only one of them was a correct prediction. And without trying to ruin the book for others, I will simple say, that it was about who Snape was. I didn’t have a prediction about why he was who he was, and I like the reason that Rowling offered. However, I don’t want to be a spoiler for others, so, I will leave it there.  I just wanted to point out that one of my prediction was correct.

Now to end on a positive note, I have to tell you that my favorite scene from Year 7 had to be the battle between Molly Weasley and Bellatrix LaStrange. I won’t go into details, but it was the best scene in the whole book, bar none.