A Dutch oven Thanksgiving-Part Two

By Keith Fisher

Oh yeah, I can taste it now. The candied yams, pickled beets, green beans, turkey, and mincemeat pie. Are these things traditional for your Thanksgiving? All of these things can be cooked in a Dutch oven in your backyard. Pickled beets, however, will need to be made beforehand and brought up from the cellar. For the yams, you might want to line your Dutch oven with tinfoil. The sugars will eat your seasoning off.

Myself, I can’t eat turkey dinner without pickled beats. It’s ingrained in my soul, but I just don’t like mincemeat. If your quest is to become the Thanksgiving chef in your backyard, you will need to think of the little things. Butter, mustard pickles, and cranberry sauce. If you forget, someone will miss them. You can make mashed potatoes, vegetables, gravy, bread rolls, pies, and stuffing in a Dutch oven all it takes is a little planning.

If your goals are only to cook a portion of the meal, that’s great too. Tell the organizer, and make it spectacular. Remember it’s Thanksgiving. As an alternative to turkey, My family turned to Ham, now we have both, so you can guess you know what I’ll be cooking this year.

Pinapple Glazed Ham

12-inch deep or Maca Oval
Cook at aprox 250 degrees for 1 hour then finish with 350 degrees. how to

6-8 lbs ham (bone in)

Marinade
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup prepared mustard
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 cups pineapple juice

Glaze
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
3 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 14 ounce can of crushed pineapple
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon prepared mustard

Remove ham from package and clean excess fat from it. Mix marinade in a very large bowl with a lid and place ham into it. Begin injecting the marinade with a syringe. Close the lid and place in the refrigerator or cooler for awhile. Then, remove and repeat the process. (The longer you can marinate the better.)

Place ham in the Dutch oven fat side up. Pour the marinade over the ham into the oven you may wish to add more pineapple juice for cooking liquid. Place Dutch oven with nine coals on the bottom, none on the top.

One hour later, arrange 16 coals on the lid following a checkerboard pattern and 9 coals on the bottom around the outside edge (none in the middle under the oven). Roast until inside temp is aprox.160 degrees. Change your coals during the process when they are spent. (Charcoal coals are at their peak when all edges are gray, after that, they start to loose temperature).

Prepare glaze by mixing all ingredients together in an 8-inch Dutch oven or saucepan. Stir thoroughly, place on low heat stirring frequently until thick.

About thirty to forty minutes before serving, remove all the moisture from around the meat inside the pot. Pour glaze all over the meat and replace the lid making sure you have hot coals around the outside edge of the lid (none in the middle). The glaze will solidify and sweeten the ham.

Serve with your favorite vegetables, and cut meat into chunks. Takes about 3 1/2 to 4 hours and serves about ten.

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A Dutch oven Thanksgiving

By Keith Fisher

How was Veterans Day? I hope you turned to all the veterans in your life and told them thanks. At the very least, I hope you said happy Veterans Day.

As I promised last time, we’re going to start getting ready for the big day when your family loosens their belt and says, "Okay, pass me some more." For the next couple of blogs before Thanksgiving, I’ll talk about ways you can steal the glory of a fantastic meal, well prepared. You’re family will praise you for cooking it outdoors, and you will learn something new.

First, we need to deal with a main course. By tradition, we will be looking for turkey. I’m going to talk about two ways to cook it and maybe talk about everybody’s alternative-ham.

How many of you remember the deep frying craze? A few years ago, Campchef introduced deep pots and paraphernalia for cooking in oil, on top of a Campchef stove. Many folks tried it, and wowed their holiday guests. After a while, a problem surfaced. People were putting the burners too close to walls, on flammable decks, and weren’t allowing for oil displacement when lowering the bird into the pot. The resulting fires made many fearful. Campchef offers very specific instructions now, and a disclaimer, begging people to act responsibly.

Deep frying poultry is still an option, but please pay attention to the directions. In an effort to offer their customers a better way, Campchef developed the Ultimate Turkey Roaster. It offers the speed of deep-frying with none of the cholesterol or extra fat. It’s safe and you can use it on the burner or over charcoal. The way it works is simple. The bird goes in upright on its haunches, like it’s going to church. Open the cavity so air and heat can pass through and drape the bird over the cone in the center.

You’ll notice the cone has holes that draw heat from underneath and deposits it directly on the inside of the bird. (You can also use flavor-enhancing charcoal or smoke chips.) Life is great. The cast-iron exterior, and the heat from the inside helps you roast a 20 lb. turkey in half the time. I’ve cooked 15 lb. birds in 100 minutes.

Prepare your bird by injecting with any number of substances, like juices, and commercially available marinades. After using a flavor injection needle, massage the hole you made so the marinade doesn’t leak out. The final step is to use a rub. You can use anything you want, but I’m partial to Emeril’s poultry rub. If you prefer crispy, brown skin, you may want to use a red or brown rub. It will give a golden brown appearance.

The last step in preparation is to insert the thermometer in the breast (not near the bone). The groove provided in the flange of the lid will allow you to use the thermometer without opening the lid. Put a half-inch of moisture in the bottom, under the grate. The steam helps in cooking so you might want to use something aromatic. Also, remember to keep it moist. If it dries out, the residue will be hard to clean off the pot.

When the temperature reads 165, the bird is done. Take it out, place it on a platter, and sit back. Your guests will be amazed at how moist and tasty the turkey is. It won’t have a crispy skin, but who cares. After tasting the white meat, they will dub you the master of Thanksgiving. You will have stolen the honor from Dear Old Mom. But I’ll bet she’s okay with that. She might even learn to watch football.

Here's another way to make a turkey dinner, using a traditional Dutch oven:

Stuffed Turkey Breast

12-inch Deep oven

Turkey
8-10# Turkey breast, legs and
wings removed
1 teaspoon rubbed sage
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 1/2 inch water
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Stuffing
1 1/2 cubes butter
1 small onion, cubed
2 cups sliced celery
10 slices white bread, cubed
2 1/2 - 3 cups raisins
1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Wash Turkey breast and season with sage and garlic powder. Place in the pot and sprinkle with rosemary. Add water to the sides of the breast. (Don't wash off seasoning) put on heat with 10-11 coals on the bottom and 16-17 coals on top.

One hour later, inject the breast with the moisture from the pot. Then use the injector with out the needle to collect some more juices and using the holes that you have just created with the needle, carefully baste the breast. When you have finished, change your coals out for new ones and adjust the temperature as necessary. You will want to do the basting again.

Make stuffing by melting 3/4 cube of butter in a hot Dutch oven on bottom heat only. Cut up your onion and celery and place in the Dutch oven with the butter and sauté until soft. Cube your bread slices and toss together with sage, salt thyme, pepper and raisins. Stir in with the onion and celery until bread cubes are coated with butter. Take off heat and put in the rest of the butter in pats. Let stand in the warm Dutch oven until you are ready to stuff the roast.

When the roast is done, at least 165 degrees, take it out of the juices and stuff the cavity with the stuffing. (Sometimes the butcher cuts the backbone, which can make it hard to stuff) put the turkey back into the pot with the juices removed. Arrange the rest of the stuffing around the sides of the roast. And rub the roast with oil. Put the lid on and load the lid with coals (none on the bottom) in broiling fashion. Leave on top heat until skin turns golden. (You may wish to skip this step because it dries out the turkey). Before serving you may wish to heat a cube of butter and inject it into the bird.

Take out of the oven and serve on a lid with stuffing. Garnish with parsley and green onions. Or other vegetables. Serves approx. ten

You might want to use the juices for gravy. Or the base of a turkey soup. Also, stuffing a hot bird is easier if you use a pair of cotton gloves with latex gloves over.

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Giving Thanks---Asking for Blessings

by Keith Fisher



Do you remember these men, and their wives?


Here they are again, with one difference.

Q. What do these men have in common?

A. They were all willing to serve their country. Each one suffered ridicule for their choices. Each one was great in their own way.

Aren't you glad the election is over? Whether your Candidate was elected or not, perhaps we should take a moment and thank God for those who are willing to serve. While you're down there, maybe you could ask him to bless our leaders with wisdom. With all the problems our country faces, they will need all they can get.

This brings me to the subject at hand. In a conversation at work, I heard two guys talking about their Christmas trees, and whether they were up yet. I asked, "What about Thanksgiving?" The answer went something like, "Oh yeah, it's a great day for dinner, but Christmas is the important holiday." Of course Black Friday was mentioned (the day after Thanksgiving---the biggest shopping day of the year).

Don't get me wrong, the birth of our Savior is the greatest thing that ever happened on earth and we should celebrate, but what about the holiday devoted to giving thanks to God for all we have, for our very lives. In a couple of weeks, many of us will have the opportunity to remember our blessings, greet our loved ones, and yes, eat a great meal. Some of us, through no fault of own, won't have these opportunities. There is still time to make plans. Maybe we can think about things we can do to help those in need.

Let's make Thanksgiving the most important holiday of the year, and Christmas, another day for giving thanks. We can give thanks on December 25th in ways we never dreamed of. We can make this holiday season the most spiritual time of our lives. After all, hasn't God promised blessings to those who are grateful?

In my next blog, I'll start posting recipes you can use in your backyard to make your Thanksgiving great, and you can show your gratitude to those you love.

Happy holidays, and don't forget Veterans Day on Nov 11. It's the day we honor those who were willing to serve our country in ways we may never be able to repay.



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Raking in Life's Lessons

By Keith Fisher

I hate leaves. Well, In the spring when they turn green. In the summer, when the heat is beating down, perhaps I do like them. In the fall, however, I have to rake them.

I served a mission where hardwoods grow like Quaking Aspens, and Pine trees grow in Utah. I helped many folks rake the leaves into piles and watched them burn as we warmed our hands by the flame.

Now I live in Utah where the leaves hang onto the trees like someone had glued them on for some cruel joke. When a few leaves start falling, you tell yourself, I’ll wait until they all come down, then I’ll rake them.

Good strategy except in Utah, we can’t burn the piles, and it usually takes a storm to get the leaves off the trees. By then, it’s too late. Remember the glue I mentioned above? When a storm knocks them down, the glue sticks the leaves to ground to the point where you almost need a power rake to get them off the grass. Then they go into the compost pile.

On my mission, I noticed the kids would come running to our piles and fall into them. Kind of like jumping on a mattress. It’s just something you have to do.

I noticed something while watching those kids. There were three kinds of piles, and three kinds of effects caused by jumping into those piles. First was the fluffy, just raked pile that provided the most joy to the jumper. This pile had cushion. The jumper had nothing to fear from the fall. You could almost hear the whoosh, as leaves flew into the air and floated down on top of the giggling jumper.

We would have to chase the jumper away and start again, raking the leaves back into a pile. The second kind of pile had new leaves on top of a previously started pile. The old leaves had time to settle into an almost solid mass. Especially if there was a storm before all the leaves fell. This pile was kind of fun, but landing was harder. Leaves would scatter, but the jumper didn’t need chasing after hitting the hard layer.

The third pile was kind of dangerous. It usually had sticks and branches mixed in with the fresh leaves. Sometimes a few rocks got picked up in the raking. If a jumper wasn’t careful, he/she’d land on one of the sharp ends of a stick and the fun ended abruptly.

Going through life is a lot like the leaves. We are all jumpers seeking fluffy piles of new leaves. When we see a pile, we know that if we don’t hurry, someone will beat us to the pile, and there is nothing worse than landing on other jumpers. Or worse, to catch the blame for jumping on the pile, after someone else messed it up.

So we run along, throwing caution to the wind, and we land on the second kind of pile. It almost knocks the wind out of us, but isn’t too bad. At least we got to see some leaves fly. We get back up, and go looking for another pile.

The game continues until we, inevitably, find the third kind of pile. A stick draws a little blood, and we don’t even notice if the leaves flew or not. We usually curse, and blame the person raking the leaves. It’s never our fault. After all, they made that pile look so good, just like a fluffy pile. Why wouldn’t we jump into it?

The secret to all this can be found in the way we go about out jumping. We could use a little caution and check out the pile before we jump, or we could offer to help rake the leaves. If we make our own piles, we can jump into them knowing exactly where the leaves came from. And the work gets done that much faster.

After the leaves are raked and the piles are burning, we can pat each other on the back for a job well done and remember the magical whoosh when we landed in that perfect pile, the one we made ourselves.

Don’t forget start something cooking in a Dutch oven before you get started. You can serve your helpers when it’s finished, and next time, it’ll be easier to get help. (If you cook, they will come).

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Wonderful Winter

By Keith Fisher

I have a friend at work who loves the stormy weather of winter. He celebrates when it rains, and he’s ecstatic when it snows. He actually hates warm air and sunshine. I have another friend who thinks of sitting by a warm fire with a cup of hot chocolate during stormy days.

We all take comfort in one way or other when winter weather sets in. Just think, we have only thirty-seven more shopping days till Christmas, and don’t forget the fun of shopping on the day after thanksgiving. I can take comfort in putting the lawn mower away, and pulling the snow shovels out. We had rain all day yesterday and I write this as I watch the clouds roll in for another storm. Perhaps we’ll get snow this time.

It was with this in mind that I thought of posting a recipe and calling it Winter Stew. With a wild hair I typed it into Google and guess what. I got 2,310,000 results. I went to the first one and found this great recipe. It originally called for cooking it in a crock-pot, but we cook outdoors, we don’t use crock-pots. I adapted it. Hope you like it.

Remember, no matter what the weather does, we can always learn to play board games with our family this winter. Better yet, teach them to cook in Dutch ovens. Then you can hold your own family cook off next summer.


WINTER KIELBASA STEW

1 lb. turkey kielbasa sliced into angled ½ inch pieces
1 cup celery chopped into ½ inch pieces(add celery leaves as well)
2 ½ cups all purpose potatoes chopped into ½ inch wedges
1 cup carrots chopped
½ cup green zucchini chopped
½ cup yellow squash chopped
½ cup chopped onion
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup water
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon tapioca
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoons spicy mustard
1 tablespoon honey mustard
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon sweet basil
1 teaspoon minced onion
2 teaspoon ground pepper

Combine all ingredients into 12-inch Dutch oven and cook with 9 coals on the bottom and 12 on top until simmering. When coals are spent, add fresh ones continue the process for four hours or until done.

Originally submitted by: Tommy Lusignan


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Like a Moth to a Flame

By Keith Fisher

Have you ever sat down next to an open fire and watched the flames dance an enchanting ballet of chaotic bliss? There is something fascinating, nay, hypnotizing about staring into the flames.
Fire was a tool used by our ancestors to tame their environment. It provides warmth against the winter, light against darkness, and perhaps the most important; It turns raw duck into roast duck. No matter what the use, there is something to be said about mankind’s undying love affair with fire.

In the world of outdoors cooking today, mankind has turned to alternate fuel sources. We use fast lighting, long lasting charcoal briquettes with our Dutch oven and in many cases, we have abandoned charcoal for natural gas. Not many of us can say we use campfire coals, like our ancestors did.

It’s okay though, in a world of cutting edge technology, and neighbors living with in spitting distance, some communities have outlawed the use of fire in backyards. With the smoke, and mess of an open fire, It’s no wonder we have learned to pull a sandwich from the freezer, and nuke it in the microwave. Yet, there is that romance . . .

In an open fire we can find solace. We gaze at the flames, and coals, and the variation of color. From white, yellow, red, blue, to black. All the colors of the rainbow prance on display before our eyes. The kids say, if you look close you will see the pyre fairies, frolicking in the ashes.

About three years ago, in an effort to eliminate the chemically laced fumes from charcoal briquettes, I tried using natural lump charcoal with my Dutch ovens. I loved it. I sat downwind from the cooking table, and with the exception of a nice mesquite aroma, there was no effect at all. I didn’t experience the headaches and other problems I associated with the briquettes.

Soon, I started using only lump charcoal and quickly discovered that when you separate coals, unless there is a breeze, the fire goes out. There are many lessons we can learn form this, but I noticed that if the charcoal pieces were allowed to mingle with each other, they would burn bright and completely, even without a breeze.

I’ve noticed this same thing happen in a natural wood fire. It takes a large handful of kindling to start the blaze, and as long as you continue to add fuel, the fire quickly grows into an inferno. However, if you take one stick away from the mass, even though it was engulfed in flame, it quickly burns out without the support of the source.

If you put it back in the fire, however, it takes flame again, and is as if it had never been extinguished.

It’s easy for us, to compare ourselves to the stick, and think of our spiritual lives. Once we completely catch fire, we think we can go it alone. We tell ourselves we don’t need others. They only get in the way. We can be just as close to God in the mountains as in church.

After a while, we discover our flame is going out. Hopefully, this discovery is made before we forget we were once part of a great pyre of light producing flame. We can, however, return. If we are put back with our fellow sticks, we can produce wonderful warmth and beneficial light for all to see.

Be a friend, help your fellow man. We all struggle to keep our flame burning bright. Together we can help each other to fulfill our goals and the destiny God has planned for us.

A while ago, while camping in a parking lot, I discovered something, I’m sure many have known before. I had to sit up late and wait for my oak wood campfire to burn down enough, that I could go to bed without worrying about it. I kept beating the coals from the logs and before long, found a large pile of briquette sized coals glowing brightly. Perfect to cooking with Dutch ovens. It was too late to use them however, but they didn’t burn out quickly.

Using the analogy above, we can see that if we stay the course and help others, we can be part of an even larger purpose. We can be far more than we ever intended to be. Rather than go out as a single piece of unused, freshly lit, charcoal. Our fire is unquenchable because it burns from within.

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Sometimes I Need Help Cleaning My Plate, Mom

By Keith Fisher

Last time. I told you I was having a personal writer’s retreat. I attached a picture of my temporary office. I made a dinner that night of Pork chops cheesy mashed potatoes and green beans. Sitting there with all that food I regretted being by myself. I got over it, however, when I ate most of the dinner and went back to work.

As the evening wore on, my stomach began to complain. I had eaten too much. This brings us to an interesting subject. How much should I cook for how many people will be there?

I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but it illustrates my point so I’ll tell it again. Several years ago, my wife had to work on Saturday. I needed to work in my yard, and I had some weeding to do in the garden. I wanted to do something nice for my wife, since she had to work a Saturday so I got the Dutch oven out. (Notice I said THE Dutch oven? Yes in those days I only had one).

I set up the Dutch oven in the back yard. Added a deer roast from the freezer and started cooking. After awhile I pulled some potatoes from the garden and some carrots too, added them to the pot and went back to work in the garden.

After mowing the lawn, I added a little water in the bottom, I didn’t want to burn it. And went back to work. A little while before she was due home I picked some corn and broke the ears in half. I placed them in the top of the oven and realized I had too much food.

My solution was I called my dad and brother, they came over, my wife loved having dinner cooked for her, and I had discovered a new way to entertain in my back yard. I loved to entertain with a barbecue but I discovered that if I was cooking in Dutch ovens and my guests knew it, I’d get far more people coming to dinner. It was great, I was a hero, and I didn’t have to eat too much.

Dutch ovens can increase your social life, and you get to decide what's for dinner.

the portions are the same as in the kitchen. one potato each, one chicken breast, etc. always cook a little more than you think you need. people tend to come out of the woodwork when you cook Dutch oven.




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