This past weekend, me and some of my friends tried to horse camp at Hickory Creek Wilderness Ranch http://www.hickorycreekranch.com/ in the Allegheney State Forrest in PA. Gorgeous country in northwestern PA, and the Hickory Creek folks are awesome. Gorgeous campground.
I say we tried, because we got washed out over the weekend. Cold and wind and rain do not make for happy horses pr happy campers. Truly, we didn't want our horses getting sick since they were tie lined. Anyway, Friday was gorgeous and we got some dutch oven cooking in. My friend Jen brought her set up which is the nicest I have ever gotten to use, with a dutch oven table, camp kitchen and all. You can see the start of our set up below--- This was a real treat. My folks were outdoors people, hunting, fishing, trapping, etc. and I grew up loving it as well. We didn't have anything fancy, just our old army issue knapsacks, but we'd go up on the edge of our woods where we had stones for a fire ring, build a fire, and when it died down, we'd take meat and taters and veggies wrapped in foil with butter and bury them in the coals and then go for our hike or whatever, coming back later to a great dinner. I didn't have a tent either, my dad taught me to camp using a canvas tarp and using blow downs or deadfalls to rig up my "tent" area. My mother's father was Seneca Native American and one of the best outdoors man I have ever known. It was a treat to go with him camping! Mike and I used to take the bike and go camping with our tent as well. I loved all of this. I will admit that now that I am older with more aches and pains, I enjoy glamping more, but I wouldn't trade all those years of doing that for anything.
So, that night I dutch oven cooked our dinner which was a sweet and spicy cajun chicken and rice dish. It came out awesome and was super easy. I also took along my strawberry spinach salad with poppy seed dressing, my other friend Lynn brought an avocado-tomato-feta salad with balsamic dressing and I brought my chocolate cake with peanut butter icing for dessert. It was too rainy the next morning to dutch cook my scrapple, baco and apple datch. And after a couple of us got a ride in that morning, the weather got worse and worse and we packed it in later in the afternoon. :( This pic below shows the dutch oven cooking and I have the charcoal started that would then go on top.
My friend Jen dishing up supper!
Supper!
I showed the Dutch Oven Cook Book above in the first picture, and I suggest if you aren't familiar with dutch oven cooking but want to learn, get that book. The author does it all the time for scout troops etc. and also has a good video series on getting started. Great resource. http://www.dutchovencookout.com/
I also am going to share below, they make an ap for that! Available for both Droid and IPhone, this is really handy with no thinking needed! Thanks for showing me, Jen! The downside is that if you are in the mountains like we were with poor reception, you may not be able to get it.
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