A missing Ingredient

Wow! It's been a long time since I blogged. Sorry. I hope you had a great Dutch oven Thanksgiving. and you are getting ready for Christmas. I am going to share a couple of great Christmas recipes next week but today, I'm starting a contest.



I have a great chicken recipe that I made for 300 people at a church group a week ago and it was delicious. Well, it would have been if I had the right ingredient. I found a substitute but its just not the same. Every once in a while I get out the food processor and try to duplicate it but I just haven't got it yet. It would be so much easier if I could find a source of the sauce I use. I can't find it in stores here. I will give a way a prize to someone who can find a source. the bottle looks like this:

The Brand is Sagawa and it's called Sweet and Sassy sauce.

Okay get on your marks, Get set, Shop ... I need to know a close source, a distributors address, or website. if your source checks out, I will award a coveted Dutch oven cooking prize. Leave your comments.

untill then, Get your pots ready for Christmas. and lets make it a Dutch oven Christmas.

A Full Pot

By Keith Fisher

Have you ever seen a MACA twenty-two-inch Dutch oven? I compared my three-year-old once. She could’ve taken a bath in it. MACA, a casting company out of Springville, Utah, makes thick, deep, Dutch ovens. They offer many smaller sizes too, but they never made a shallow pot. The size and thickness of the casting is great for even heat, but every one is heavy.

I own several MACA’s. From eleven-inch to fifteen, with an oval thrown in, I don’t need a home gym. I could go outside and get a great workout lifting Dutch ovens. I love using my fifteen, because I can cook large roasts and feed many people, using one pot.

Which brings us to the point. Several years ago, while attending a Dutch oven gathering, I watched a man attempt to roast a large piece of beef. It was about 20 lbs with the bone inside. He placed it in a big MACA oval at five p.m. We waited most of the night for it to cook.

A few years ago, while cooking at girl’s camp, I attempted to make a big pot of spare ribs in my fifteen-inch. Because it was taking so long, I ended up using two smaller pots and transferring them into the big pot, to simmer in the sauce.

The thing that neither of us took into account is mass. Sometimes it’s better to use more, shallow pots, in order to get everything cooked right. Big pots are wonderful, but it’s hard to stir several pounds of spareribs. And the larger the piece of meat, the longer it will take. Even at home on the range.

Every spring, we make beef stew, corn bread, and cobbler for the fourth grade in the school where my wife works. As part of their American history unit, the kids study the nineteenth century migrations and finish up with a day of period games, crafts, and Dutch oven cooking. It’s a great honor for us to be part of it.

Because of the number of kids, I’ve learned to appreciate large ovens, but I’ve also learned to make the stew in layers. I start with the onions, when they are done, I add meat chunks. Sometimes I use extra pots because I don’t want to overwhelm the oven. When the meat is done, I set it aside and start cooking the vegetables in the juices from the meat and onions. When the pot comes back up to temperature, I put the meat back, and add spices and make a roux, if needed.

The points are, I try not to let cold ingredients cool off the pot, and I cook in stages. Then, in the final step, the stew simmers for the better part of an hour. (The longer, the better.) The flavors blend just as well as if they had been sitting in the pot together the whole time.

A word of caution, however, If your guest list is small, you might want to cook less food in a smaller pot. That is, of course, unless you want to build up your muscles and have a freezer for the leftovers.

And yet another word, CampChef and lodge make a sixteen-inch, shallow pot, that can fill the need. The capacity is similar, and the area exposed to the heat, allows you to cook several pieces of meat at the same time.

Passing It On

By Keith Fisher

Okay I’m back again. I won’t apologize for not keeping up. I did that before, and at this point, you’re probably saying, all talk—no action.

I was working in my weed patch . . . I mean garden, the other day. When I came in after dark, I found a mess in the kitchen. Apparently, my daughter felt inspired to make something. She looked in our collection of Dutch oven recipes and set about making pizza bread from a recipe given to us by one of our friends.

We have a problem with our oven in the house, so I was given the charge of baking the bread in a Dutch oven. It went into the fridge over night, and I waited for her to come home from school. She had fun making it, but I don’t think she had much fun baking it.

As Dutch oven Cook off competitors, We used to look to the next generation for new competition. We had a desire to see the skills, we’d learned, passed on. It’s always gratifying to see a team of young people enter a cook off. We watch them, hoping to see them win the World Championship some day.

When my daughter was two, she often watched while I cooked, in my Dutch ovens. The little, gray things under the pots fascinated her. I warned her against touching them. I told her they would burn, and she knew what the word burn meant. It became a ritual, with me keeping an eye out, so she didn’t touch the coals.

One day, she was in the house. I went into the garden to get an onion. When I came back to my pots, she’d come outside and she touched a coal with the tip of her finger. She learned a lesson and she never touched the coals again. It broke my heart to see my little girl cry, but I also worried she would avoid Dutch oven cooking because of that one bad experience.

When the Lodge Manufacturing Company stopped making their original 5-inch Dutch ovens, and they became valuable, I put mine in my office to protect against theft. My daughter kept telling me it was hers, probably because it was her size.

Later, while attending a Dutch oven event, My daughter won the door prize and took home a brand new CampChef Dutch oven cast especially for a national retailer. Hers is one of the first ones. I use that oven but she reminds me it’s hers, and I know I’ll have to relinquish it when she grows up and moves away.

But one day, right after she received it, I convinced her she had to cook in the oven. We made Easy Baked Beans. She was proud to serve those beans to our guests and I thought she was hooked. Since then, however, she hasn’t shown much interest in it. I suppose because her old man is always cooking, why would she?

When she made bread the other day, my hope was renewed. When she went in to do her homework and left me to bake the bread, I went back to wondering.

I know that she knows how to cook, but I’m not sure she will ever compete. Her interest will come, around a campfire, while cooking for her family, and remembering her dad. In that day, we will be able to renew our connection and share a love of the old cast iron.

I’ve often joked that I’ll have my enemies serve as pallbearers . . . and I want to be buried with my extensive Dutch oven collection. Really though, I’ll leave them to my daughter with the instruction that if she doesn’t use them I’ll come back to haunt her. I kind of look forward to the time when I can look down and watch her use skills she didn’t know she had. Skills, she learned while watching me.

What's For Dinner

By Keith Fisher

The weather is cooling. Not many days of summer left. Some folks are planning their last big camping trip, or they’re thinking of having the in-laws over for dinner on the holiday. Just because it’s Labor Day doesn’t mean you have to labor.

I’ve been cooking in camp since I was little, and I’d used Dutch ovens many times before. Outdoor cooking at home, however, consisted of the propane barbecue, until one Saturday when my wife had to work. I wanted to make dinner for her, but I didn’t want to give up my gardening time.

I pulled a venison roast out the freezer, put it in the microwave to thaw, and retrieved our Dutch oven form the camping stuff. I set it in a wheelbarrow, and started the roast cooking. I dug some onions from the garden and added them. I dug some potatoes and added them. I dug some carrots and added them. I finished it off by picking corn on the cob, breaking them in half, and adding them to the top of the pot.

When it was done, there was way too much food for the two of us. I called my brother and my dad, and we had an impromptu party. We had loved entertaining in our backyard, but I found that when I invited people to a barbecue, some of them would come. When the invitation was for Dutch oven cooking, I rarely had anyone cancel.

It was all down hill after that. We got involved in competition, and ended up winning the World Championship in 2005.

The point here, is entertaining doesn’t have to be a big production. Put food in a Dutch oven and let it cook. Now, before you ask, “what do I cook”, I will tell you a basic secret. Many of my recipes start with two things. Onions and bell peppers. Dice them, and add them first. You may need a dab of olive oil to get started, but only a dab.

These vegetables contain water that cooks out, leaving moisture in the pot so the meat doesn’t burn, and they add flavor.

Here is a simple recipe.

1 white onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
6 chicken breasts cut in half
1 can cream of chicken soup
Dried rosemary to taste

With bottom heat only, (No coals in the center), sauté vegetables until translucent. Add chicken breasts and stir with the vegetables. Cover the pot, and let the meat cook. Stir occasionally. In 45 minutes, change the coals to fresh, hot ones. This is the time you add the soup. (You might want to use a second can.) Add rosemary and let simmer 45-minutes.

You will be amazed that you can eat the meat with a plastic fork. It will be a bit dry, but so tender. Spoon the sauce on the meat and the baked potatoes.

Next week I’ll tell you how to do potatoes.

What an Honor

By Keith Fisher

One of the ladies in my writer’s critique group got married yesterday. It was a joyous event for the bride and groom, and for all of us close enough to know how happy she is. Our good friend Kim Thompson is now Kimberly Job. She will be writing under her new, last, biblical name, and I think that’s great.

As part of the wedding, My wife and I were asked to cook a wedding dinner for the bride and groom and their guests. It was an honor. We cooked Pineapple glazed ham, Cheesy potatoes, Baked beans, Corn on the cob (in a water cooler), and Homemade Rootbeer. We planned to make cobblers, but the couple bought a cake and we didn’t want to compete with that.

Here is a taste treat:

Sauté’ d Mushrooms

Fill a 12-inch Dutch oven with large whole mushrooms. ¼ cup water, salt and pepper to taste. Then slice two cubes of butter into pats and place on top of the mushrooms, in the oven.
Place pot on twelve coals in a ring, (nothing in the center). Cook until tender, about 20 minutes.
Serve with steak, beef, and any meat. Or serve on the plate alone. Try leaving in the pot as appetizers and give your guests a toothpick.

Keeping a Promise

By Keith Fisher

A week ago, I promised to post a picture of the Pioneer day party I cooked for. As you know I was so busy, there wasn’t time for taking pictures. My friend was having an extended family party and took a couple. Unfortunately, he didn’t get a shot of the large group of people. He did get two shots of me.

Before you ask, Yes, I was cooking barefooted. No, I don’t recommend it. You could drop coals on your foot or do like I did, and drop your windscreen on it. (If the steel had been thinner, it might have cut my foot off.) I cooked barefoot, because the grass is heavily watered turning it into a swamp if you stand in one place too long. I had to take my shoes off last year too. But this year I wore shorts so my pant legs wouldn’t get wet.

As I said, I don’t recommend cooking without shoes, however, My feet were so comfortable! The swamp provided cushion. The water kept my feet cool, and by extension, me. I recently cooked a large meal with shoes on and my back hurt, my feet hurt, It was terrible. I know—I’ll get Harry Potter to cast a spell of protection on my feet . . . Hmmm, It could work.

Win a Dinner with the Author

Win dinner with Mark L. Shurtleff at the Market Street Grill and a free copy of "Am I Not a Man? The Dred Scott Story"

Valor Publishing and Mark L. Shurtleff, Utah's Attorney General and the author of "Am I Not a Man? The Dred Scott Story" are excited to launch the following contest:

The first paragraphs in the "Am I Not a Man" The Dred Scott Story" echoes the cry of the oppressed and enslaved:

"To him, the river sang. It intoned but one word, repeated with every ripple, and lap, and tide. One word that began with a gurgle far to the North, crescendoed through the heart of a nation, and climaxed in the Deep South with such force that no power on earth could hold it back. One word that bled from every pore. One word: FREEDOM!"

The "Father of Waters" sang, not with the splash of waves lapping against the levee, for the Mighty Mississippi was wide, and thick, and slow. It slid like a solid mass of glacial mud that had been moving toward the sea since before the Fall of Adam. It was ancient by the time Moses led the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. No, its melody was something more profound and ancient, and it harmonized with something deep inside Dred, and filled his very being so that he was powerless to ignore it. He turned toward the river, closed his eyes, and whispered the song of the slave."

To enter, please submit a 600-word essay on the concept of Freedom. Pay attention to your spelling and punctuation, and email your entry to the contests link at http://www.valorpublishinggroup.com. Our Selection Board will review the entries and select the winner, which will be announced here on our website on October 1, 2009 by 5:00 p.m. MST.

Prize: The winner will receive an autographed and personalized SPECIAL LIMITED FIRST EDITION of Am I Not A Man? The Dred Scott Story along with dinner for two with Mark L. Shurtleff, Utah State Attorney General, at the Market Street Grill in Salt Lake City, UT. (If the winner is located out of Utah, or otherwise not able to attend the dinner in Salt Lake City, a gift card will be awarded for a local restaurant.)