Cooking Chili in the Great Outdoors
Originally posted Sep 22, 2009 on old blog.
Cooking Chili in the great outdoors…
I absolutely *LOVE* cooking with cast iron-ware. Yeah, its heavy, but once properly seasoned it is practically non-stick, healthier than non-stick and you can use those good old metal cooking spoons, ladles and other utinsels without fear of damaging the pot or pan.
The absolute most important thing to remember is to heat your iron-ware first before introducing oil and food into it.
For a good way to cook chili out of doors, see my “basic” Chili recipe earlier in this blog – but replace the large pot with a nice Iron Dutch Oven and the large frying pan with a nice big Iron frying pan.
I use Kingsford coals to heat the dutch oven and a thing called a “Big Kahuna Burner” (and a large bottle of propane) to heat the frying pan. Otherwise, everything is about the same although I might wear an old floppy hat and double my personal intake of beer just to combat the sun. Using that combination – there is virtually nothing I can’t cook outdoors. How about some cornbread to go with the chili? Use a medium sized Dutch oven for that – it only takes about 20, 25 minutes to whip some some good eating!
I’ve also been known to break out the big cast iron Wok to use with the Kahuna burner – stir-fry anyone?
Yeah, we’ve got a 5th wheel with a stove, oven, and microwave built in – but the whole idea of camping is to get outdoors IMO. And anything cooked/eaten outdoors tastes better to me. A hamburger cooked outside is better than a good steak at at Ruth’s Chris restaurant to this old boy.
HINT! You can justify the expenditure for a good outdoor cooking setup by convincing yourself it is part of you family’s emergency preparation gear. I did – and IT IS! 
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Afterthought – never pick up a hot, heavy piece of cast iron-ware until you already know exactly where you are going to set it down and that it will fit there in a safe fashion. (TV trays aren’t safe/stable enough). I like to use inexpensive welders gloves (cheap at Harbor tool & freight) to handle hot iron of any kind.