January 2014 Challenge - Outdoor Cooking

[DerekH]

It is once again that time. What time you ask? Time to cook. Outdoors. The contest is simple: make a meal (which consists of however many dishes you wish) outdoors using a Becker knife. Building the fire, prepping the food, making utensils to aid in the cooking of said food, etc... are the the things that will win you extra points. We all love food, and we all love knives, so use your imagination. Make sure to get action shots of the knives being used. More pics is never a bad thing (despite what other forums might have you believe).

Info Thread can be found here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...ation-Thread-03-December-2013-Outdoor-Cooking

Ka-Bar, Cutco, Bladeforums, Ethan Becker, nor any other entities are responsible for any harm that may come to you by participating in this contest. None are compelled nor required to participate, and participants enter of their own free will and will not hold liable any entity previously named or associated with these contests, bladeforums, Ka-Bar, Cutco, Ethan Becker, or any affiliates. Enter at your own risk, use your heads, keep the sharp bits pointed away from yourself, and good luck.

Contest is open to all, however if you are under the age of 18 your prize will be sent to a parent after they send the pertinent info along to myself or Ethan.

Prize will consist of the following:

One lucky winner will get a set of the Becker/ESEE kitchen knives, courtesy of the boss.

Prize will be sent out by the boss once the contest is completed and judged. Contest will run until January 31st. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the discussion thread here:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1145077-January-2014-Challenge-Discussion-Thread

Post "Yes Chef" if you are in, and keep your entries down to one post. Good luck, and bon appétit!

 

[mountainmist]

"Yes Chef"

For this challenge I made stew & bannock

I shot a squirrel for the meat in the stew

The knife I used for everything was my newly acquired bk15

I De-boned the squirrel, the bk15 did awesome for this!

The sunrise.

My camp for this was the stand of pine trees

My dogs and my camp

Sticks (for feathers)

The bk15 did good, but a think my bk16 & bk11 are just a little bit better at making feathers.

Fire! With a LMF rod

I started boiling the squirrel first

I made the pot hanger with the bk15

The Bannock pan

The Bannock mix

The stirring stick

The rough dough

With raisins

In the fire

The squirrel is coming along great!

The 15 cutting up potatoes

The dog on the lookout!

The celery

The bannock is done! Cooked to perfection!

Carrots

I love this knife! It supplied the firewood for this trip with ease.

Beef bouillon cube

Stew looks good!

I added a little onion soup mix to the stew

And some corn starch to thicken

Now I need to make a spoon

The tip on the bk15 worked great for making a spoon

Stews done! This stew is absolutely delicious.....wish you guys could taste it! Had to bring some in for my family to try, it was that good!

Thanks so much for the challenge, I hope all the other entrants had as much fun as I did! God bless!

 

[Chameleonbear]

Yes Chef!

 

[dynamicmoves]

Yes Chef

 

[Dexwithers]

Yes Chef!

 

[GSO1962]

Yes Chef - Ready to post now. Derek said more photos are good, so hopefully I don't break BladeForums with this.

Given my philosophy that you don't have to rough it when you cook outdoors, I broke out the Dutch ovens which haven't been used in a long, long time. I wanted to do breakfast to try some experiments, but won't have time in the morning the rest of the month. Therefore, we had breakfast for dinner this past Monday night.

On the menu: Orange-Maple French Toast Casserole and Hash Brown Breakfast Casserole.

Ingredients for the Hash Brown Casserole

Chopped up the onions

And fried them up with some turkey sausage (one concession to health, although there may have been a "little" bacon grease left in the pan....)

I actually used two bags of "crisp rounds", and in retrospect should have used one and the casserole would have been a little crisper. But one just didn't seem like enough. Also feel free to use whatever shaped potato product that floats your boat. Put in one small bag of the taters, tossed in the skillet of sausage and onions, some shredded cheddar, the second bag of taters and then more cheese. The potatoes actually should not be frozen, by the way, so no worries about them being in an ice chest for a day or so before using. Also, if you want to do some of this ahead, you could cook up the sausage and onions at home ahead of time, and put them in a zip-lock bag to take on your trip.

Scrambled about 8 eggs with some milk and added that to the casserole.

Put that Dutch oven on the coals that I had on my commercial half sheet pan with an old scrap steel ash pan under that.

Put the lid on this first Dutch oven. Prep of the other casserole was done in parallel with this, so the second dutch oven was added on top right after this.

Ingredients for the French Toast Casserole
Original recipe was for mini-casseroles, but I decided to try one large one in the Dutch Over.
http://www.incredibleegg.org/recipes/recipe/mini-orange-maple-french-toast-breakfast-casseroles

Chop up the bacon...with a BK5, of course.

I fried that up in a skillet while the charcoal heated. Make sure you save the bacon grease for cooking....my cup is close to runneth-ing over!

In the meantime, I chopped up the bread. You can use whatever you want. I've done this before with white bread, multi-grain, french, and others. I had some leftover Italian with herb, some French bread, and stale hot dog buns this time.

I used tiramisu mascarpone cheese to give a little extra flavor.

I was making a double batch, so mixed eight eggs in, one at a time. Then add the orange juice, milk, and maple syrup. Recipe called for maple-flavored, but I went for the real thing.

I put a metal insulating thingy (a technical term) that has something to do with cake baking in the bottom of the Dutch oven so that the cake pan didn't touch the bottom of the cast iron and scorch the bottom of the casserole. I promised my wife that I wouldn't mess up her cake pan or metal thingy, and it all worked out.

Bread cubes and bacon in a 9" cake pan.

Then I put the cake pan in the Dutch oven and poured in the custard mix (egg, milk, maple syrup, orange juice mix). I mashed the bread down to make sure it was soaked in custard after the photo since I had a bit of charcoal on my hands and didn't want discolored bread in the photo. I also topped it off with the last of the custard mix and managed to overflow the pan since my back yard is not quite level. Glad I lined the Dutch oven with foil!

Lid on the second Dutch oven. Stacking them lets you get by with using less charcoal. And also is good for cool points.
I had let the charcoal go to long before stacking, so I added a few unlit ones to make sure I had heat for a half hour while they both cooked. I checked every ten minutes and they both took about a half hour to complete.

Both casseroles are done when stabbed with a toothpick or other pointy object (like a BK5) and it comes out clean (i.e. no raw egg).

Dust with powdered sugar...in the kitchen I usually use a flour sifter, but here I just grabbed a handful and sprinkled it on.

I sliced wedges of the French Toast, and scoops of the hash browns. Serve with extra syrup and beverage of choice. This is my wife's, so there is cream in the coffee...I drink mine black, but am working on her...

Leftover hash brown casserole reheated with some bacon in a skillet pretty well this morning.

I really enjoyed this challenge, since it got me outside cooking with my Dutch ovens for the first time in a dozen or more years. Thanks for the encouragement to get out of my rut and try some new recipes with an old cooking device!

 

[spydercobenchmadekai]

Yes Chef!

Sadly I won't be getting an entry in.

 

[zzyzzogeton]

Yes Chef!

 

[GarnetandBlack]

Yes Chef!

Hey yall, here's my attempt at an entry for the contest.

In this first picture I have all my materials laid out and ready to go. I obviously wasn't thinking, but all the work the BK15 did wasn't photographed (i.e. scrape cedar bark for tinder, strike sparks for fire, process wood) because all the tasks weren't really easily done with one hand free for snapping photos

Cedar bark and Vaseline cotton balls got the fire going.



The stove full and waiting the flame:



We have fire! I'm the newest member of the EmberLit fan club



Venison steaks I cut from the tenderloin of a deer I shot earlier this season. The Bk15 excelled in slicing them up....gosh i love this knife. Marinated in my top secret formula of soy sauce and some other tasty secrets :thumbup:



My Pop bought me this cast-iron skillet a few years ago. Great gift!



Oh man, sizzlin' and smelling incredible!!



Now time for a hot beverage:



Water boiling--this stove kicks butt!



Coffee is ready.



Thanks for looking. Hats off to all the other great entries, i know we have some outstanding outdoor cooks here!

final shot of the stove

 

[DerekH]

Closing it up until his royal Beardness can judge. Of the few actual entries, they were all top notch.

 

[Ethan Becker]

WOW.......

Mountain Mist gets the number one spot, hands down and going away..........A fine job...... From the hunt to the belly coveragee

Garnet and Black.... Gets a consolation prize of a BK5 Magnum Camp.........

GSO gets a BK5 as well.......

Good job all around...

Please E Mail me ......Real and screen name, street address, and phone number.......beckerkt@gmail.com ........

I really want to thank you all for doing.........

Ethan

 

[DerekH]

Congrats everyone! Some good looking foods there!

 

[tman038]

awesome stuff. congrats guys!

 

[Don W]

Good looking eats all around. Mountainmist, Congratulations! You did that squirrel right. Nice job.