Dutch Ovens and Death

This morning we went to a Dutch oven class that was put on at our stake center.  It was a fun class and I learned A LOT.  I'll have to post more later, but needless to say, I want to start cooking in our dutch oven now!

Mark Hansen - The Dutch Oven Master

I had never seen dutch oven cooking tables before, but these were sweet!  No more leaning over a hot fire and scorching your hair and eyebrows off!

Mark talked about the best types of charcoal to use.  Here, a friend of his lit an entire 20 pound bag of charcoal on fire for all of us to use.  He use a huge blow torch to do it!

This group was browning up some sausage.

After the bag burned away, the briquettes just kept on heating up.  You want them to be white like these few before you put them on your dutch oven.

Don't just dump them in a pile...

Put them in a circle under the dutch oven.

After you put your briquettes under your dutch oven (just under the rim), begin putting them on the lid...

But don't just dump them on any which way...

You want to put them in a circle around the edge of the rim.  This way (and the same way under the rim of bottom of the dutch oven) help evenly distribute the heat throughout the dutch oven so you get nice even cooking.  Mark would know...he's won a lot of competitions.  There is a specific formula for getting the right number of coals.  Take the size of your dutch oven (this one was a 12 inch one), subtract 3.  That's the number of coals that go on the bottom.  Then add three and that's the number that goes on the top.  So, for this dutch oven, you would have 9 on the bottom and 15 on the top.  That equates to about a 350 degree oven.

We were in charge of making this deep, dark, rich chocolate cake.  When it was done...

...We flipped it out of the dutch oven onto the lid and used it as a serving plate!  Genius!

Here's Mark showing off his flipping skills...

The finished cake.

Another group made a really good Huevos Rancheros dish.  I wished I could have eaten it, but it had too much meat and black beans in it.

After the class, Linda and I went down to the Honeyville store where I also bought a sun oven.  I am excited to learn how to cook without electricity.  I need to practice though rather than just try doing it when the need arises.

On the way home, just about a mile from the house, we almost got creamed by a huge monster truck.  I had to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid getting mushed.  Luckily, the oncoming traffic was still a bit away so I was able to get out of the way in time.  It was quite scary and I am so glad for the protection the Lord provided us because we had been following the counsel we had been given to "be prepared."

I never looked at it that way until just now, but I really do see now that His hand protected us because of that!