# Best scout camp recipe



## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

I am planning our first 11-year old scout trip of the year, so it is the first scout camp for most of these boys, so I wanted to hopefully start them off with a great experience. One of the requirements is to cook over the fire, of course, their lazy idea was hot dogs, dang city folk :roll: . Would you guys share with me some of your ideas? I'm sure dutch oven would work as long as I can sacrifice one of them I guess, I thought of bbq chicken, but that would be pretty uneventful, but it would work. Any ideas would be very much appreciated, thanks in advance! Of course with 11-year olds, easy to cook and easy to clean are big considerations... 

In general I am interested in more dutch oven recipes, so I will spend more time reading in this section. Channel 5's summer time outdoor program had a really good stuffed pork chop recipe, but that was way too much work. Share your ideas, it seems like the forum gets a little slow this time of year, maybe recipes is what we should be focusing on.


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## Loke (Sep 7, 2007)

What kind of cooking equipment do you have? Grills, Camp Chef, ovens? In my experience, the more simple the better with the 11 year old scouts. Tin foil dinners are a good bet. And make them there, don't have mom make them and send them with the kids. Breakfasts are an adventure when cooked on the grill. Ham, eggs, and hash browns all mixed together is always a hit. And even more fun when the kids are doing the cooking. This can be done in a dutch oven over the fire, too.


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## Al Hansen (Sep 7, 2007)

Tin foil dinners would be a great idea for dinner. Breakfast burritos (eggs, hash browns, sausage all cooked together) they can serve themselfs and no plates or plastic ware to wash.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

This might be too late, but I am guessing others will be taking their scouts out.

One of my boys' favorites are pizza pockets in pie irons, or sometimes called hobo irons. We take a couple loaves of bread, a jar of spaghetti sauce, some shredded cheese and some pepperoni, sausage, and whatever other toppings the boys want. Be sure to butter the pie irons or hit them with cooking spray first. If you have 4-5 of the pie irons, it works out pretty well. 

Breakfast favorite - Boiling bag omolettes. Take some quart size freezer zip lock bags. Eggs, shredded cheese, and the usual things you'd put in an omolette - we like chopped onions, peppers, chopped ham or cooked sausage, mushrooms, whatever. Crack two eggs into the bag and and mix them up by squishing it around. Add whatever stuff you want to it. Press the air out of the bag and zip it closed. Put bag into a bot of boiling water and let it sit for about 8-10 minutes. Perfect omolette every time. We usually take a package of flour tortillas and dump the omolette onto the tortilla to eat. - Hint - more than two eggs will take forever to cook - don't go there. Make two, 2-egg omoletts instead of a 3 or 4-egg - it works better. Also - make notches in the top part of the bag - above the zip part - to show who it belongs to.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

As a side note - I've been our troop scout camp coordinator for several years now. We do our own cooking at camp every year. I'd be glad to share our menu (with shopping list) as well as our duty roster (a must have) and any other suggestions to improve your camp.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Gary,
Anything would be great, the irons is a good idea, especially since I have some that I don't think I have ever used. I just have the smaller ones, which I guess would be just smaller than the smallest pieces of bread, which I guess would work, right? For breakfast, I am going with Loke, gots to have the hash browns. We take a Camp Chef with the Camp Chef griddle, which has the really tall sides to keep it all on the griddle. We have found that the best way for hash browns is to buy the pre-formed frozen patties, they cook much faster and don't end up in the bottom of the Camp Chef.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

We do the hash brown patties quite a bit as well. And bacon. Using the camp chef changes things. We do that for about half of our campouts, and certainly for our week-long scout camp. We've had trips where breakfast was just bacon and the hash brown patties. Pancakes sounds attractive, but creates more mess than you can imagine. Too much to clean up when the syrup gets spilled in the bottom of the food box, and dealing with the batter is a mess. 

One of our biggest challenges is getting the parents (mothers) let the boys pack their own packs and food. :roll: 

One other hint out there - for pack stoves, go to Smith and Edwards and pick up those little Esbit Tab stoves. They are back in the surplus part of the store and cost about $3. They are a little bigger than a deck of cards, but are absolutly perfect for a scout to cook on. One fuel tab will cook up ramen noodles, a couple of eggs, a can of soup, or boil water for hot chocolate or oatmeal. One box of fuel tabs is 50 cents and will last through an overnighter.


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## Chaser (Sep 28, 2007)

We did some pretty sweet stuff when I was a scout. Try hard boiling eggs in paper cups on the fire.  It sounds stupid, but the water keeps the cups from catching fire, and it does a great job of boiling the eggs. Plus its fun when the boys see the novelty of the whole thing.

Tinfoil dinners are always good. Try taking oranges, cutting the top off of them, like you would a pumpkin, dig out the pulp and eat it, then drop those cheap biscuits from the cans that pop open into the hollowed out orange, put the "lid" back on it, wrap in foil and throw them on the coals for a few minutes. Makes orange flavored biscuits. Just bring tongs or something to fish them out of the fire.

There are a million different little things like this that would require each of the boys to do their own cooking and cleanup. If you get out the dutch ovens and stoves, you're gonna have lots of clean up on your hands.


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## SingleShot man (Dec 24, 2007)

Sorry, a bit off the subject here, but...

I've been itching to join a non-denominational scout troop here in Murray. Scouting was a huge part of my life when I was younger, and I learned a great many things. Anyone in the Murray area know of any non-denominational scout troops that could use some help? I've got TONS of camping/cooking gear, fishing gear, etc. etc. I've also worked as a substitute teacher for three years with great success. Kids don't get me wrankled very easily.
If anyone knows of a troop that could use an extra hand, PM me.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Here is your source http://www.gslc-bsa.org/council/contact-us/. They will do a mandatory background check, for obvious reasons.


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## SingleShot man (Dec 24, 2007)

Thanks, Huge.


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## ACHY (Oct 18, 2007)

There have been some great suggestions here already, but if you are looking for simple preparation and easy clean-up you might want to try a dutch oven pizza. Line the dutch oven in aluminum foil, put a ready-made pizza crust in the bottom, top with sauce, cheese, meat, and anything else you might want on a pizza and cook until the cheese is melted. It is super easy, and with the aluminum foil clean-up is a breeze. And what kid doesn't like pizza?


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## lifetime hunter (Sep 7, 2007)

love the pizza ideas but we use pita bread slice one end off, put pizza sauce and all the pizza toppings in and wrap in tinfoil and cook just like a tin-foil dinner, so easy and all the toppings can be prepared before hand and put in plastic bags, so no clean up needed.
and also the boiled omelets are a huge hit, but we don't put the cheese on until they are cooked.
but any individual thing you do MAKE SURE to mark the bags! a black sharpie works great on most all plastics & tinfoil.
another easy thing is spaghetti just buy the sauce and cook the noodles up there 
taco soup is another favorite, can make ahead or just throw it all in a pot up there.

depending on how much participation u want the kids to do, I have some D.O. recipes that require just putting it in the fire and stirring every once in awhile, or some that u have to keep watching, let me know what kind your looking for and I'll pass them onto you


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

I tried the pizza in the irons and I had a revelation of the disaster it would be with 8 11-year olds who can't listen to anything. So, I think we will do hot dogs and some sort of simple D.O. recipe, please send along what you have, I am always interested in a new recipe. I got the new preformed foil liners for the oven, so it will be very easy clean up.


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## Loke (Sep 7, 2007)

You only have eight? It's not fun until you have fourteen of them.


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## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

Huge29....my best results have come from canned chili......easy clean-up and chili always taste better in the outdoors. With hot dogs sliced or made into a chili dog, with pre-shredded cheeze, onions, pepperoni, etc. It really can make a good meal. It also provide's good nightly entertainment for the troops...


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Do you trust 11-year olds with a lighter though?


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## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

Huge29 said:


> Do you trust 11-year olds with a lighter though?


Good question... :mrgreen: .....Not after dark...


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## Gumbo (Sep 22, 2007)

The problem with most DO recipes is they are disgusting: add a can of this, a can of that, etc. Blecht!

Take what you like--or what the kids like, and cook it. I cook pastas a lot for scouts. Or you can buy a lot of the pre-made meals at costco, like chicken cordon blu, etc, and heat it in a DO. Orange chicken is good, fried rice, jambalaya, etc. Cook what you like to eat!

And if I hear anyone mention "hobo stew", I bring my own food!


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Gumbo,
Where is your sense of adventure? Hobo stew mmmmmmm


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Well, the scout camp was a great success, thanks for the help! Here is one recipe that you might like; that of Peach Cobbler, likely the easiest recipe in the world and for sure the healthiest (no 8 lbs of butter in this one) and best IMHO:

1 can of peaches, cut them in half in the dutch oven
1box of yellow cake mix
1 12 oz can of red cream soda

In that order. Cook at 350 (12 briquettes on top and 10 on bottom, correct?) for round abouts 25 minutes, you can tell by the cake being in the form of a cake and yellow vs white and powdery. Top with whipped cream. One addition that worked really well this trip was to use the preformed tin liner, especially with the cobbler, which is normally very tough to clean out with all of the sugar.


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## .45 (Sep 21, 2007)

That's what I cook up when I can.....what's with the red cream soda ? I've never used that before... :?


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Red cream, I think it is just a reason to buy it, it is good stuff. I don't really know, just one of those traditions as taught me by my bishop from scout camp, I'm sure that you could test some alternates, probably want it to be sweet. We did a double batch on Friday, only had one can of pop, which made it a little dry, a few clumps of plain cake mix, the peach juice did not make up the difference.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

The soda can cobbler. A classic. Variations I've enjoyed:

Apple pie filling with yellow cake and sprite
Apply pie filling with spice cake mix and strawberry-kiwi shasta is VERY good
1 can cherry pie filling, 1 can pineapple chunks - cherry 7-up or shasta strawberry-kiwi
1 can cherry pie filling, 1 can blueberry pie filling - sprite

For a BYU-Utah Football party, we did two cobblers -
2 cans cherry pie filling, yellow cake, and cherry-7up for the red cobbler
2 cans blueberry pie filling, white cake mix, with shasta grape soda for the blue cobbler

Is all good.


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## lifetime hunter (Sep 7, 2007)

k here is a simply and tasty dessert

1-2 can's apple pie filling
1-2 refrigerated tube (uncooked) cinnamon rolls

dump in pie filling, arrange cinnamon rolls on top put lid on and coal on top & bottom, cook until done.. 10-15 minutes then drizzle frosting on top


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## JAT83 (Sep 9, 2007)

I would definitely go with a Tin foiled dinner and/or something in a Dutch Oven (Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler is sooooo good!!!)



I only have two scouts in my troop, may have 3 by august when we have the week long camp. I am also trying to plan it out so it is a good first scout camp experience!


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

lifetime hunter said:


> k here is a simply and tasty dessert
> 
> 1-2 can's apple pie filling
> 1-2 refrigerated tube (uncooked) cinnamon rolls
> ...


THAT does sound good!! Can you deliver a sample right away?


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## widgeon_whopper (Jul 26, 2008)

I know that your camp is way over but one dutch oven recipe taht everyone in my troop likes is dutch oven pizza. You get the un-cooked loaves of bread and put some (all depends on how thick of crust you want, and it rises a LOT) in the bottom of the oven. and then you just put whatever toppings you want on it and let it cook until all the cheese is melted and the crust is golden brown.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

I have seen that done before; but what is your specific type of dough/bread?


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## widgeon_whopper (Jul 26, 2008)

I am pretty sure that its just frozen un-cooked loaves of white rhodes bread.


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## HighNDry (Dec 26, 2007)

I remember cooking corn on the cob (with the husk ) right in the coals. If I remember right, we soaked the corn in water before burying it in hot coals. I remember making bread dough and twisting it on a stick and baking it over the coals. Fun stuff.

I think my favorite was making ice cream in cans. We put the ingredients in a small can and sealed it, then we placed the small can in a larger can, like a coffee can, put ice and salt around the small can, sealed the large can and then rolled the cans around the campsite for a while. Can't remember how long, but after dinner we opened the cans and ate freshmade ice cream.


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## BIGBEAN (Apr 16, 2008)

I have made the pizzas several times and they turn out great. I normally use just the rhodes bread dough. I press it out in the dutch oven while the dough is still cold (I pack it frozen). I coat it with olive oil garlic salt and parmasean cheese. I let it cook for about 10-15 minutes then I put on the sauce and toppings and let it go from there. I haven't had great success without pre-cooking the crust.

Here is a recipe that I have used for several years now and it is great:I premix all the dry ingredients and pack it one bag so I don't have a bunch of containers to pack.

Fiesta Chicken With Black Beans
2 (15 oz.) cans corn; drained 3 Tbs. ground cumin 
2 (15 oz.) cans black beans; drained 2 Tbs. chili powder 
2 yellow onions; halved and thinly sliced 2 tsp. salt (to taste) 
2 green bell peppers; cut in strips 1-2 tsp. coarse ground black pepper (to taste) 
6 cloves garlic; minced 8 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves; cut in strips 
1 (30 oz.) can whole tomatoes; drained and chopped Emeril's Southwest Spice* to taste 
2 (6 oz.) cans tomato paste 1 lb. pepper jack cheese; grated 
1 (8 oz.) can diced green chiles; drained 2 lb. cheddar cheese; grated 

In a 12" Dutch oven combine corn, black beans, onion, bell pepper, garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, chiles, cumin, chili powser, salt and black pepper; stir to mix well. Taste and adjust for seasoning. Season chicken with Emeril's Southwest Spice then add to Dutch oven contents; stir to mix in. Cover oven and bake using 8-10 briquettes bottom and 14-16 briquettes top for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until chicken is cooked thru and no longer pink. Spread cheese over top replace lid and bake for 5 additional minutes until cheese has melted.

Serve with warmed flour tortillas or over rice.

*The recipe for Emeril's Southwest Spice seasoning can be found on my recipes page under Seasonings.

Serves: 10-12


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

We did the pizza last night; had time to thaw the dough, but not enough time to rise, so the dough rose to be about 4-5" tall in the oven leaving a really tall crust against the edge and a little soup of toppings in the middle, the crust did turn out really nicely.


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