Camping

Lukas is working hard on the requirements for the Boy Scouts Merit Badge in cooking. He has spent hours creating meal plans, figuring out appropriate serving sizes, and calculating nutritional value of individual items and complete meals. He has shopped, making sure he does not exceed his budgeted amount and he has prepared and planned. This past weekend, he and Bob headed out with the Patrol to do some more of the requirements. One of the things that Lukas needed to do was cooking with a Dutch Oven, so he poured over recipes this past week, looking for suitable camp food that is cooked over charcoal in a Dutch Oven.

Friday morning he carefully acquired the needed items from the local grocery store, and Bob assisted by shopping for the vegetables on his way home. The prices at the local grocery is far higher than the Fruit and Vegetable Market we frequent and every penny counts when there is a set amount.

Lukas spent Friday afternoon chopping, cutting, slicing, and sauteing in preparation for the weekend. His first meal to cook was Friday evening, light meal/Cracker Barrel. He settled on a Vegetable Stew to accommodate one of his patrol members who does not eat meat, yet satisfied the carnivores by serving the meat on the side.  The Cracker Barrel - ie late night snack - was a Pineapple Cherry Cobbler cooked in the Dutch Oven. Judging by the lack of leftovers, the Cobbler was a success. The stew hit the spot to keep everyone warm on an extremely windy evening, 30-40 mph making it almost impossible to light the fire. However, a true Scout is always ready, and Bob saved the evening with a can of liquid fuel to help get the fire going.

Lukas spent Saturday exploring the area and also fashioned a chair from sticks, ropes and tarp. He enjoyed himself in his new comfortable chair, watching the fire and staying warm while other scouts cooked up Saturday meals.

Sunday morning, thin layer of ice on everything, Lukas climbed out of his tent and set out to make breakfast. Another Dutch Oven recipe that attracted a lot of attention, not a morsel was brought home.

Back home, Bob and Lukas had to clean up, air out and wash away smoke. Fortunately, the weather cooperate and the sun came out, and the light breeze helped in the clean up.