Teaching Scouts Dutch Oven Cooking

My younger son is in the BSA and we do plenty of camping trips as the weather cools down.
Every camp is a classroom for more than just Merit badges and advancement, but for diverse life skills too.
This trip was centered on a 5 mile hike and ID'ing at least 10 flora including at least two poisonous plants, and 10 forms of fauna by sight, sound, spoor or feces.


Along with that I've been recruited to teach Dutch Oven campfire cooking.
A very useful skill to have.
Today I started with giving them a lesson on how many coals, coal placement for cooking methods and a delicious recipe which was devoured for breakfast.


Dutch Oven Breakfast Casserole
This can be done as the popular Five Layer or mixed



12" Dutch Oven
2lbs Ground Pork Sausage, lightly browned

2lbs Hashbrown Shredded Potatoes, fresh or frozen

2C Onion/Bell Pepper, chopped (optional)

1.5 dozen, Eggs
2C Shredded Cheese
2 packs canned Biscuits
2T Seasoned Salt


Preheat dutch oven
Layer or mix together, pork, hashbrowns and onion/bell pepper.
Atop that add the eggs and then the cheese.
Finally top with biscuits, you can easily fit 12, 14 if tightly packed.


Set coals in a circular pattern around the bottom, 10 briquets or equivalent in coals.
Set coals in a circular pattern around the top and a few more in the center top, 12-14 briquets or coals.


Cook 45-60min or until biscuits are browned and eggs are set.
Generously serves 12-14.


Gooey Cheese Pic

https://i.imgur.com/0PATlKl.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/MELfuHu.jpg



We also cooked 2 DO's full of biscuits to go with several skillets of crisp bacon.

Cool! Adding this to my list formour camp outs. I’m a Cubmaster for a pack of 35 Scouts.

I was a Scout Master for a number of years and taught cooking in a Dutchoven Real easy once you know all of the tricks. Good food anytime.

Yah couple years ago we had a new parent decide they needed a good cleaning and ended up stripping 6 of their seasoning.

camped last weekend when it was below freezing and made Dutch oven pizzas and cub cakes (I need to learn how to cold weather Dutch oven as the coal amounts are different)

Good stuff my son and I have been in scouts since he started 2nd grade. All he has to make Eagle is paperwork. Stick with it!
amazing what you can cook in a Dutch oven. Our scouts are pretty good at it.

You four will be remembered long after y'all are gone by several of those kids. This thread brought back several memories.....

Thanks guys.
I'm looking forward to teaching them more.
We've more camps scheduled and I'm already planning the meals.

Dinner
DO Scalloped Potatoes with Ham
Ranch Style Beans
DO Apple Dump Cake

Breakfast
Boil-n-Bag Omelettes
DO Biscuits with gravy or cane syrup

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CarlF

Good stuff my son and I have been in scouts since he started 2nd grade. All he has to make Eagle is paperwork. Stick with it!

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Very impressive feat making Eagle, our respect and congrats to him... And you too.

Dump cake so so easy but so good!

Cane syrup must be a southern thing huh?

Thanks, its been a long road,

I think I've learned as much as he has, I served as Den Leader, Webelos Leader, Cubmaster, Merit Badge Counselor and Asst. Scoutmaster!

One bit of advice to anyone in Scouts, get your merit badges done before high school so all he has to do is his Eagle project. ONce they hit high school, priorities change!!

No doubt about priorities changing! Girls are why I never finished my Eagle! How many campouts do you guys do down there per year cubs/boy scouts?

For cub scouts, we did 2-3 per year as a Pack. We did more during Webelos years. We had a den member with a big Christmas tree farm, we went there at least twice a year.

With our Boy Scout Troop, we have a campout planned every month of the year. Usually cancel one or two, so it comes out to around 8-9 troop campout plus week-long summer camp. My son has well over 100 camp nights.

Our troop aims for one every other month in the Summer, and monthly in the Fall/Winter.

Sounds like similar to up here. Though you guys don't have to really have the fun sub zero with snow campouts! My pack does 2 campouts (Spring/Fall) and an overnighter in a cabin in January.

Brings back some great childhood memories. My nephew and I actually won first place at a scout jamboree with a Dutch oven peach cobbler.

Mind sharing the recipe for "research purposes".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChileRelleno

Thanks guys.
I'm looking forward to teaching them more.
We've more camps scheduled and I'm already planning the meals.

Dinner
DO Scalloped Potatoes with Ham
Ranch Style Beans
DO Apple Dump Cake

Breakfast
Boil-n-Bag Omelettes
DO Biscuits with gravy or cane syrup

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Former ASM here. Those all sound good, but shouldn't the boys be making the menus? That said, the above sounds like great menus for the adults. If they smell good enough, the boys will ask how to make them.

The boil-n-bag omelettes are great. I taught my Webelos how to make them the last campout before they became Boy Scouts. They (and I) learned one great tip to make them work well. Let the omelette pretty much cook before you add cheese. Otherwise, as the cheese melts you can't tell if it's underdone egg or melted cheese.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CarlF

Thanks, its been a long road,

I think I've learned as much as he has, I served as Den Leader, Webelos Leader, Cubmaster, Merit Badge Counselor and Asst. Scoutmaster!

One bit of advice to anyone in Scouts, get your merit badges done before high school so all he has to do is his Eagle project. ONce they hit high school, priorities change!!

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I give the opposite advice. Finish the Eagle Project as soon after you get Life Scout as possible. You can do the Badges in little bits and pieces. You can't do the Eagle Project that way. My oldest had about 5 merit badges to go when he finished his Eagle Project. The Eagle Project is the most daunting task, so when it's done, the Scouts can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But the last sentence is totally true--once they hit high school, priorities change.

Reading the first post, I think he was preparing it as part of teaching on how to cook with a dutch oven.

Our Adult patrol cooking is almost always the envy of the scouts! We cook some good stuff.
We did have one scout that was simply a great cook, when he was grubmaster for his patrol, everyone was visiting their patrol area at dinner time!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by perdidochas

Former ASM here. Those all sound good, but shouldn't the boys be making the menus? That said, the above sounds like great menus for the adults. If they smell good enough, the boys will ask how to make them.

The boil-n-bag omelettes are great. I taught my Webelos how to make them the last campout before they became Boy Scouts. They (and I) learned one great tip to make them work well. Let the omelette pretty much cook before you add cheese. Otherwise, as the cheese melts you can't tell if it's underdone egg or melted cheese.

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Most of the scouts bring their own favorite snacks, and they're supposed to contribute to community meals for the troop.

But they have to learn the methods first, and realize the benefits before they want to do it themselves.
I'm simply teaching the various cooking methods... With benefits.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nimakdm

Reading the first post, I think he was preparing it as part of teaching on how to cook with a dutch oven.

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Exactly, method and meal.

When I was a Scout Master. All of the adults planned our meals and we gave them suggestions on what they could fix. If we did not it would be beans and hotdogs. All weekend. I had them alternate cooking and cleaning.

Also realize that these are mostly immature 11yrol Tenderfoots.
Not so much Leading as Herding.
Though a few have their heads on straight and listen/learn well.

Know that problem.

Our patrols do all their own meal planning, menu write-up, buying food and cooking. All we do is review the menus the meeting before the campout and then check on them when cooking.

When I'm running any cub scout meeting or event it always feels like I'm herding cats.

i'm feline your problem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nimakdm

Mind sharing the recipe for "research purposes".

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I wish I could. That was nearly 30 years ago. I do good to remember what u are last week lol