2016 Gulf Wars - Day 5

Welcome back to my Campfire Cooking blog

Our last day in camp dawned hot and sticky.  Technically, it is Thursday on the Gregorian Calendar.  My camp and I are tracking a storm that is scheduled to hit later today that reminds us that today's Norse name was Thor's Day.  Due to a wet night, the fire was more difficult than normal to start.  We had some dried wood and started a slow stew of some beef ribs with sage, rosemary, thyme, and veggie scraps. 

 

As the meat simmered, I started the process of chopping the remaining vegetables:  turnips, kale, beet leaves, carrots, shallots, garlic, and leeks.  We are on track to use the rest of groceries today and tomorrow we dine out (well at least as far as the food court). 

A pot of cheese was also heated over the fire and transferred to cheese cloth to drain.  Usually draining goes pretty fast for crumble cheeses (those heated above 175 degrees F) but with our humidity and struggling fire, it was a slow process.

 

Today's preparation should have been relaxing compared to yesterday's food festival.  The storm news was more unsettling the later it became. 

About 2:00 or so the edge of the storm came to Gulf Wars.  Thors Day was about to make itself known.  The rain started falling and quickly our fire was out and would not restart.  Our veggies based stew was transferred to our propane crockpot to complete its cooking.  A hot meal was guaranteed to be most welcome with the rain and resulting wind that tagged along. 

 

The meat was pulled off the fire and the cheese was moved under the cover of the kitchen space.  The cooked ribmeat and vegetable pieces were removed from the pot of broth and the meat stripped off of its bones.  Our meat choice was one of economy - it was on sale.  Next time we will opt for something that will pull apart a bit easier. 

 

 

After the vegetables were roughly 10 minutes or so from fork tender we added our grain.  The meet was added to a ziplock bag with its broth and placed in the crock pot.  We wanted to get both the meat hot and vegetables and grain cooked without cross-contamination.

 

Once everything was done, the vegetarians of our group took their portion of the stew, the meat and broth was added to the pot of vegetables.  The rest of the camp that had returned was served shortly there after.  Several of our camp mates had opted to weather the storm where they were that afternoon.  All checked in and were marked as safe as we rushed to put away loose items and head to Atlantian court.

 

In short, the last day of over the fire cooking was not what I had hoped it would be but we were able to create a plausibly period meal within our allotted time despite the challenges the weather presented.  Casualties of the storm included our kitchen tent, our fire pit (totally underwater), and a couple of mild steel pans.  Thursday's leftovers from the meal were also a loss.  We tucked them in the car and forgot to refrigerate them after the storm passed.

 

Friday morning, the morning was clear and everything looked sparkly from yesterday's washing.  We evaluated the water in the tents, the ruined fire pit, and decided to check on friends and then break camp a day early and head back to the civilization of the modern world.  The company during our week at war and their willingness to be may guinea pigs for the week was a blessing I am still in awe of today. 

 

Thank you for following this Gulf War cooking series.  A lessons learned summary and some action shots of my team will follow in about a week.  Source material for these recipes and how to develop your own pre-1000 recipes can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/scaannorahall/my-teaching-topics - scroll to the bottom of the page for the hand-out.  It was a pleasure to revisit my Gulf War challenge and adventures. Please let me know of your own cooking by campfire adventures.  You can reach me here or by email: annorahall AT yahoo DOT com. 

I hope I will see you by the fire.