Tin Foil Dinners in the Fireplace

We haven't been camping in a while and the kids were jonesing for camping food. I prepared a nice bed of coals and we tossed some tin foil dinners in to the fireplace.

We layered sliced onion, sliced potatoes, sliced carrots, hamburger, sprinkled with some Lipton onion soup mix, and topped with half a can of cream of mushroom soup. We double wrapped them and let them cook for 15 minutes (flipping every 5 minutes.)

They were perfect. The kids devoured them and declared that we need to add this menu to our rotation. Of course we will do the cooking outside when burning season is over.

I am now trying to figure out how to cook pizza and bake bread...

You're making me veeery hungry!

Sounds good... Lovin' the stone on your fireplce!

I refuse to take the tin foil off of my head so I can cook dinner.

How about a cast iron Dutch oven on them coals. You can cook all kinds things in them.

You can put a pizza board right on your coals to bake bread/pizza. Get a nice one, not a cheapo on, that will withstand the heat:

http://www.surlatable.com/product/PRO-1005842/Sur-La-Table-Square-Glazed-Cordierite-Pizza-Stone

Thanks. It is Eldorado Stone, Mountain Ledge, Silverton. It was the only option the builder had and it did come out pretty well.

There is a Sur-La-Table close to us. I may have to go pickup a stone. It will give my wife another opportunity to just shake her head at my "antics". But hey, as I keep telling her, head shakes and rolling eyes are the currency I deal in.

Just last week she sent me an the kids out to pickup our new chest freezer. While I was out I picked up a 6' two-man cross cut saw I saw on Craigslist for $60. I knew I should have had the cameras rolling when I pulled that baby out of the back of the truck. She keeps threatening to take away my allowance, but I think she secretly enjoys my foolishness.

beautiful hearth, VI....beautiful idear on the food, too! Let me know how that pizza stone works out, I may try that in my Napoleon NZ3000 fireplace!!

Dammit now I'm hungry too!

Maybe put a few firebricks on the bottom to elevate the pizza stone. Leave coals around the perimeter and add a few small (1" square) maple splits at the sides while cooking the pizza to brown the top. Let the stone heat up for a while and throw some cornmeal down to prevent sticking. Pizza can be cooked anywhere from 500 on up. Fire that baby up and try it, you may be surprised.

Pics please if you do. I am sucker for wood fired food.

I have a Dutch oven and I occasionally cook in it in my stove. I have the Napoleon style with the raised lip so you can add coals on top. Meats and stews are really good, I have done roast pork and lamb. I will try a whole chicken next time, and maybe smoke it over some alder for a half hour at first.

Damn, now I am combining threads here and thinking of making a bacon wrapped fattie in the Dutch oven in the wood stove.

Bacon, its the gateway meat for vegans!

Hmm, now I am thinking of putting my pizza stone on top of my dutch oven in there... pizza would be easy that way. Alder smoked pizza... with bacon on top!

You could also wrap corn cobs in foil and put them on the pizza stone.

If you get a stone designed for a grill, not just an oven, they are great on the coals. I have a lot of experience with open hearth cooking for 14-18th century historical re-enactments and have tweeked the methods for my wood stove. If you have a pizza stone already and you are not sure of it's good for a grill or oven, use a spider (a big trivet with longer legs)to prop it up over the coals or good old fire bricks as someone mentioned on each side will work too.

Go to your local library and check out 18th century cooking methods and cookbooks, or just google it. You will be cooking up all sorts of things in and on top of your stove for sure! If you dont have one already, get yourself a good sized cast iron dutch oven. From beef stew and soup to apple pie, it is a versitle vessel for just about anything you can fit insde!

Have fun and keep posting photos!

I have a couple of dutch ovens. My concern is that the feet will accelerate the deterioration of the firebricks. Not like I will be moving the dutch oven around much.

Using firebricks as a platform for the pizza stone is a good idea. I'm sold, I am going to get a stone. Let's hope the store has one in stock. Then I will make a run to Tractor Supply and get some bricks.

I do enjoy smoking food. My current smoker can fit 12 chickens in it (16 if I am willing to crowd them.) I always fill it when smoking. We take them to friends and neighbors. Any that we don't have a use for I sell to my friends. It is fun to blast out an email and see how quickly people respond. They all know that 3-day weekends are my favorite time to break out the smoker so they monitor their email closely. One time 8 chickes were claimed in less than 15 minutes.

Last year I took a chicken to our new neighbors and they shyly asked me what was going on at my house. The parade of moms in minivans parking on the street and coming into the house carrying a pot and cash in their hands had them a bit concerned. I guess we did slightly resemble a crack house.

Sounds like a recipe for hot head.