Peach Upside-down Cake...Without the Cake

I picked up a copy of Woodall’s Campsite Cookbook. If you’ve ever wanted a really good resource for camp friendly recipes, this is it. You can open this cookbook to any page and find yourself salivating. The recipes are a collection of traditional down-home favourites, ingeniously tweaked to be accessible at camp.

Woodall’s Campsite Cookbook gets into all sorts of interesting cooking techniques using everything from the usual pots, pans and camp grill; to Dutch ovens, reflector ovens, and aluminum foil cooking.

I’m excited to try a number of recipes from this book. The first one I pulled out was Foil Peaches. I started with this one because it seemed easy and was sure to be delicious.

I didn’t follow the recipe to the letter, but what I did turned out just fine. Here’s the rundown.

In the centre of a generous piece of foil place, sliced peaches (fresh or canned), a nice healthy spoonful of margarine or butter and two to three big spoonfuls of brown sugar. Wrap the foil to form a packet. Do your best to eliminate leaks. Place the packet in the fire for a few minutes. You will hear the contents start to sizzle when it’s hot. Use tongs to pull the packet out of the fire. Carefully pour the contents of the packet into a bowl. Keep in mind that hot sugar can burn you very badly so use caution! This is not a job for kids.

Our Foil Peaches were delicious. You know how you can taste something and flash-back to your childhood? This treat did it. It’s like you’re getting all the deliciousness of a peach upside-down cake, without the tediousness of the cake. Next time I’d like to try adding pecan pieces. That sounds like a winning addition to me.

Banana Boats - The Fruity S'more

This is a Campfire Cookin’ idea that came from readers. I had never heard of banana boats until I had two readers independently describe them to me.

When I first heard about them I thought the whole idea sounded kind of gross. I wasn’t convinced that the banana would come out of the fire in an appetizing way. I’m not a big banana fan under normal circumstances, so I had my doubts about a fire roasted one. Well let me tell you, I tried them and I’ve changed my tune. They’re fantastic.

Banana Boat on the Campfire

Here’s a little rundown on how to make them. Cut the ends off a banana and slice it, skin on, along the inside curve. Fill the slit with alternating bits of marshmallow and chocolate. Wrap the whole thing in foil and stick it in the fire for about 6 minutes, turning once. Eat it straight out of the foil. The banana skin forms a boat to contain the goo.

It Tasted Better than it Looked

We made them twice on our most recent trip. The first time we used squares of Dairy Milk. Excellent choice. It was nice and sweet and melted beautifully. The second time we made them we were on the American side and we couldn’t find Dairy Milk. We had to substitute squares of Hershey. It didn’t work quite as well. I found Hershey didn’t melt as nicely; in fact mine ended up burning slightly. The banana boats also ended up with Hershey’s signature bitterness, which I am not fond of. My advice to all of you out there (if you are indeed out there) is to experiment to find your favourite combination. I will share a tip though. We smothered the finished product in caramel sauce. That made it magic!

N.B. this post has been moved over from it's original location at Cottage On Wheels.

Fire Roasted Panini

I went to the TSC Store, one day, looking for chicken wire and came out with a cast iron panini press. That panini press is now one of my all time favourite impulse purchases.

We took it with us to Darlington Provincial Park and used it to make some gourmet eats at lunch time.

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Panini Press on the Fire

I’m not going to tell you what to stuff your panini roll with. You can stuff it with anything you like. The important steps are: to butter the outside of your panini roll on the top and bottom, to help keep it from sticking and to make the outside crunchy; and to use enough cheese to make it melty and gooey and to stick both sides of the bun together.

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There's Some Good Eatin'

I can certainly offer our panini filling as a suggestion. It was delicious. We used two slices of Jalapeno Havarti, salad greens and two slices of President’s Choice Tandoori Chicken cold cuts. It had a little kick to it. Next time I’d love to try making tuna/Swiss melts. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

The panini press was very simple to use, in fact, it explained itself. We assembled the sandwiches in the press, closed it and placed it in the campfire. We weren’t sure how long to leave it on the fire, so we checked on the sandwiches several times through the cooking process. Fires vary in intensity, so I imagine the cooking time is different every time. I had seasoned the iron beforehand so cleanup was easy. All-in-all, my panini press was easier and less messy to use than we feared. It now has a permanent place in the trailer.

A word of caution, though, the iron stays very hot for quite a while. Make sure you leave it to cool in a place where no one is likely to accidentally touch it.

N.B. this post has been moved over from it's original location at Cottage On Wheels.

The Easiest S'mores Ever!

I have to give credit where credit is due. I got this S'more technique from the Barefoot Contessa. I watched her do this on her show and immediately said "Why didn't I ever think of that!"

All you need are some chocolate covered digestive cookies and some marshmallows. Toast the marshmallow over the fire, in the usual way and then sandwich the hot marshmallow between two digestive cookies; chocolate side in. Ta da!

I tried it out myself and it is quite honestly the easiest, least messy, least fussy s'more method I've come across. I know that there will probably be some purists who object to the substitution of digestives, but it's a compromise I'm willing to make. Let's face it, if it's too hard and or too messy, you won't do it. That's why, until now, we've rarely ever made s'mores. Now, we do it all the time.

N.B. this post has been moved over from it's original location at Cottage On Wheels.

Welcome to Campsite Cookin' - A Note for the Sake of Transparency

Campsite Cookin' has been created as a companion blog to Cottage On Wheels and is meant to be a database of food related camping advice, campsite friendly recipes, and handy gadgets and innovations related cooking on the road.
In order to create a comprehensive database, the first few posts will be repeats from posts at the Cottage On Wheels. Any post that is being copied will have a note to that effect added to the end of the post.