My gosh, I've slacked enough on posting! There was a little crisis at home on Friday and I broke my sidekick in the midst of all the chaos, so I was emotionally drained. But there's nothing like spending some time in the woods to lift your spirits! Jesse and I joined Melissa and Timm at the Van Duzen river on Saturday. The trout were far too young to be fished, but I had fun swimming amongst them! Being nibbled by tiny fish is a funny sensation hehe
Humboldt beauties
So, that meant no fish for dinner. I kept nagging Jesse about what to bring to prepare with the fish, but he told me to never plan on catching fish. Good thing I listened to him! Instead, I made potatoes with green onions and bacon and beef kebabs. Timm complimented the seasoning on the beef, which I love to hear! I almost always season my beef with my staples: cumin, salt, and pepper. I also used chili powder for the kebabs. Jesse cooked the beef perfectly! It was awesome, as campfire food always is :]
So, the potatoes were prepared first since it required about 30-40 minutes of cooking time. Bacon was crisped up in a bit of vegetable oil in the dutch oven, and then taken out with the drippings reserved. I chopped up about eight red potatoes, which should be hasslebacked--deep cuts crosswise about 1/4-inch apart, stopping 1/4-inch from the bottom--but I kept cutting through the bottom with the silly little paring knife I had on me, so I just chopped them up. Put the potatoes on foil and drizzle the bacon drippings over (with hasslebacked potatoes, pour the dripping in between the slices) and toss with a few coarsely chopped cloves of garlic. Place the potatoes, still on top of the foil, in the dutch oven (or loosely wrapped in foil in a regular oven preheated to 450 degrees). Cover and cook for 30-40 minutes over the fire (45-50 minutes in an oven). Add the green onions and crispy bacon, crumbled and stir. Season to taste with salt and pepper. I added crushed red pepper flakes to my potatoes because I like a little kick :]
The kebabs were simple, as kebabs should be. All I used was red bell peppers, onion, bacon, and seasoned cubed beef. The ingredients were coarsely chopped (onions were quartered), and threaded onto wooden skewers that had been soaking in water for half an hour. They were put over the fire (with foil underneath), lightly drizzled with oil and lightly seasoned with salt, and grilled until slightly charred in spots and cooked through.
Last weekend, Jesse and I went camping at Hat Creek by the Subway Caves. We went fishing, went to the caves, spent one of the nights at the 'Mayor of Shingletown' (Jesse's dad)'s house, and best of all, I cooked with my dutch oven over the campfire! There's nothing better than a well-prepared meal cooked over a campfire in the cooling evening air as the sun slowly sets behind the trees and mountains!
I bought a cooler the day before the trip so that we could bring meat for the chili. At the Co-Op, we pickled out Humboldt Grassfed beef (I know I'm going to make a vLog about how wonderful grassfed beef is and how y'all should be eating sustainable meat!!), fat strips of bacon, and buffalo tri-tip (no pictures because that was cooked by Jesse's pa at his house).
For my birthday (Friday after next!), we probably will go camping in the Trinity Alps. I've got to bring my dutch oven again, no doubt, and I've already thought up dinner heh. This time, if I let Jesse keep some trout that we will catch (I got six last weekend!), then I definitely want to grill the trout whole after gutting and filling the cavities with orange slices, and score the flesh, which will allow the saffron-orange butter to distribute throughout the meat. mmmm yum, right? That'd be one crazy campfire meal!!
Humboldt grassfed beef browning up nicely in the oven. This isn't what I did first, though. I added chopped bacon to the oven for its wonderful, delicious, and salty drippings (pork fat rocks!!) and then sauéed chopped onions in the dripping. A few minutes of stirring until the onions started to become soft and sweat its juices, and then I removed the onions and bacon before adding big, cubed hunks of Humboldt grassfed beef to the oven.
When the beef browned up nicely and pink could no longer be seen, back in went the bacon and onions. Also, at this point, a can of beer was set slightly off the fire to warm up. In went crushed tomatoes (huge can), organic kidney/pinto/black beans, and the warmed beer.
I brought seasoning that I pre-mixed myself. Of course, I cannot remember everything that went in it, but you can see a bay leaf, I know I used cumin because the finished chili had the most wonderful note of cumin, and also because I use cumin all the time. There's some tumeric in that, chili powder, probably a hint of cloves. Also, cumin's wonderful pal- coriander seed, crushed red pepper flakes, and gosh I don't know, all wonderful spices went into that chili!! Note- I forgot to add the corn until after I added seasoning. I would've put corn in first, but doesn't matter!
We left the dutch oven alone while we fished some more in the last bits of sunlight. The water was black, yet the trout were still feeding on buzzing pests bouncing on the surface. We were getting nothing more than bites..darkness quickly crept up on us. Beer and longing thoughts of dinner fueled us with giddy energy as we ran through thorny bushes and jumped over volcanic rocks. By the time we got to our camp, the chili thickened up perfectly and we quickly spooned ourselves bowlfuls, never minding the heat on our tongues. Only a mere bowl was left of our smoke-infused, tender, meat-filled chili!
*****
The next morning, we fished first thing when we woke up. After an hour or so, our stomachs finally started to wake up! The fire was rebuilt and the dutch oven was warmed up earlier, so I tossed in the remaning slices of bacon to crisp up nicely.
In the great bacon fat, I fried some potatoes and quickly made scrambled eggs. Nothing technical or fancy about this meal, but it sure made a wonderful breakfast mash that went well with cold beer!
