Boogers on the Wall

Each summer my husband bans me from baking in our hotter-than-Hades-non-insulated-or-air-conditioned kitchen. Normally I just look at him, roll my eyes and ask him if that means he wants to starve.

Not this year.

This year he proposed a solution to the stress of oven-free living: the Dutch oven.

Every Friday for the past several weeks we have cracked open the cast-iron cooker and tried our hand at cooking mountain-man style.

Not only does this help keep our house temperature to a tolerable 78 degrees, it helps us practice new recipes to take camping. Next time we spend some time in the great outdoors, we’re going to eat in style.

We’ve had the Dutch oven for years and we’ve never really learned how to use it. Now we’re forcing ourselves to become experts.

I guess you could say we are going Dutch. When it comes to Friday-night eating anyway. I prepare the food while my husband prepares the oven – outside under our shaded patio.

So far we’ve had breaded chicken breasts with potatoes, ham and cheesy potatoes, pork ribs and potatoes, and – believe it or not – pizza.

I stumbled across an excellent website that has really easy recipes and a full-proof guide/chart for using briquettes (it tells you how many to use for what temperature you want to cook at.) If you get the urge to try cooking outside check out www.dutchovendude.com.

In years past, after my annual kitchen seasonal banishment, I have tried my hand at cooking on the grill – something I have not yet perfected, but it gets us through. I grill a mean honey ranch chicken breast and I have finally acquired a taste for bratwurst.

I have also made good use of the ever-famous slow-cooking crock pot. I’ve mastered several throw-it-in, turn-it-on recipes including an awesome chicken and rice burrito filling.

But the Dutch oven has rounded out our summer cooking nicely. I was going to wait to post about our new cooking style at the end of the summer, but it has been so fun, and the food has been so good, I thought I’d share so you could try it out too!

I strongly recommend it. There’s nothing like the smell of fire-hot briquettes on a warm summer night.

Now I don’t think we will starve, not this summer anyway.