Cataloochee Wild Women - Part 3 - Cooking Supper the Girl Scout Way

Cataloochee Wild Women Weekend Part 3 – 5/22/11 – Cooking Supper the Girl Scout Way

In my Girl Scout camping days, we would begin our supper food prep by eating a snack - yes, eating to prepare for eating because the process of outdoor cooking, from gathering ingredients and utensils to washing the last dish, takes about three hours.  And what else did we have to do tonight?  Nothin’.  So we pulled out all the stops and cooked a Girl Scout camping meal.

First up, making a box oven.  Baking in the outdoors is easy.  Starting with a copy paper box with a lid, I covered all the surfaces with heavy duty aluminum foil.  Then we set a foil pan in the bottom of the box to hold charcoal.  Next, we punctured the sides of the box and inserted wire coat hangers to make an oven rack (baking pan sits on top of this).  

Lynn mixed up the cornmeal muffins.

At our campfire ring I lit a ridiculous amount of charcoal and waited for it to burn down to white coals.  Each coal is about 40 degrees of heat.  We put 10-12 coals into the foil pan in the bottom of the box oven, then put in the muffin pan.  Next – a crucial step – we designated Cindy to be the timer for the muffins (about 20 minutes). 

Meanwhile, Suzi directed others to chop up veggies, zucchini, yellow squash, red and green bell peppers, onions, carrots and red potatoes.  She also cut up chicken breasts into bite-size pieces.  A little salt, pepper and oil for seasoning and the food was wrapped in separate foil packets and put on the hot coals in the fire ring.  (BTW, Suzi did all the food shoppping for our camping trip, for which we are eternally grateful.)

Meanwhile again, for dessert we created bear scat cake, known in domestic settings as black forest cake.  First we lined a 12-inch cast iron Dutch oven with heavy duty foil.  Then we dumped in a can of cherry pie filling.  Next we mixed up a boxed chocolate cake mix and dumped it on top of the pie filling.  Oops…forgot to add the oil?  No problem, pour it on top and gently stir, being sure not to disturb the cherries.  As Julia Child says, no apologies, no explanations. 

Cooking in a Dutch oven is also easy, regulating the temperature with hot coals.  We put about 10 coals underneath the pot, then 10 coals on the lid, to distribute the heat evenly.  I frequently replenished the coals to keep the heat consistent.  Again a wild woman was appointed as timer for the cake. 

Dinner is served! 

We shared some of the cake with our camping neighbors next door who had been watching us, forks at the ready. Then Lisa volunteered to finish it off.  That woman is a team player.

Corn muffins: $3.00 
Chicken/ veggies: $15.00 
 Bear scat cake: $6.00 
Supper around the campfire with wonderful wild women friends:  PRICELESS

"It's so beautifully arranged on the plate - you know someone's fingers have been all over it."  ~ Julia Child

"The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken. Bon appétit." ~Julia Child