Italian Night: Focaccia Bread

This is our first attempt at a yeast bread at the campground.  We figure that making a yeast bread completely at the campground (mixing it up and raising there) requires that it is decently warm outside so that the yeast can do its thing.

Italian Night: Baked Penne Pasta

Italian Night!  Saturday night at the campground we served up Baked Penne Pasta and Focaccia (post forth coming).

We really enjoyed this pasta recipe- it was simple, but still seemed a bit elegant at the campground!  It went perfectly with the Focaccia bread that we made that night as well.  Nobody went hungry, that's for sure!

Ravioli Casserole

This is a recipe that we make all year long.- inside and outside.  Once the weather warms up, we take it outside for cooking in the Dutch oven over hot coals. 

Actually, that is a good reminder to let all you readers know (and I know there are lots of you), that any of these camping/D.O. recipes can be made at home in casserole dishes.  Most of them cooked for the time specified at 350° F.

Great Food in the Great Outdoors

For Labor Day, we went camping in a state park which happened to be near where some of Matt's extended family lives. We had such a fun time with people visiting us at the campground and heading into town to visit some more.

We made 3 different Dutch oven recipes over the weekend- Baked Spaghetti, Pastel Chileano, and Easy Chocolate Cake. All of them were good (which isn't always the case when you are trying new recipes).

BBQ Nachos and Pizza Monkey Bread

Earlier this summer, we went camping with both Abby and Maple (the dog) for the first time. We've camped a lot, but we've never taken the dog and of course, hadn't camped with Abby yet.

Even though we didn't go too far from home, we still felt like we were able to get away for the weekend. Maple and Abby did great. For those of you who know our crazy dog, that is a surprise. She barks a lot and loves other dogs, but on this camping trip she was SO good. Abby, of course, was a gem- as she always is.

Anyway, getting to the point of things, we tried a couple of recipes in the Dutch oven that were super easy and simple. We figured we would do simple things since this was a first camping trip with the girl and the dog. Both were good, and super easy. Great if you want something simple when in the great outdoors.

Dutch Oven Lasagna

We are big fan's of another Dutch Oven Chef's blog- Mark's Black Pot. We've tried several recipes from his blog site with much success. So far, our favorite one is Dutch Oven Lasagna (http://marksblackpot.blogspot.com/2007/07/lasagne.html).

We first made this when we were camping in 2008 at Glacier National Park in Montana. Who knew that campers could have such a hard time finding ingredients for a simple lasagna? But, we did. We stayed on the eastern side of the park which is shy on services & grocery stores. We ended up finding the stuff we needed in Canada.

First Attempt at a Dutch Oven Pizza

Our first attempt at dutch oven pizza was so good we're afraid that we aren't going to be able to replicate it. Even Abby thought it smelled so good that she had us bring her swing out to watch it cook.