Open Air Kitchen

by Elizabeth Kelly

Last week, my kitchen move outdoors when I went camping. Camping, you ask, in October? Yes, indeed. I needed to get outdoors for a while and decided to camp. It was cold and rainy, offering many opportunities for interesting meals.

Before I left, I made Split Pea Soup, split peas, carrots, celery, and onion. To that I added some spices and pureed it until it was smooth then stirred in some cooked quinoa. After dividing in into serving sizes I dehydrated the soup by serving. Any bean, after being cooked, dehydrates well and was counting on this. It turns out that quinoa doesn't dehydrate well and I had to soak the soup quite a in hot water to soften it. However, it was good, hot, and filling, the perfect soup to snuggle down with on a cold day.

By far the best meal I cooked was over the camp fire. This is my favourite way of cooking when camping but not easy to do. However, since it was so cold on Friday, I got a camp fire going early and by dinner time had a lot of good, hot coals, perfect for cooking. I cut a chicken breast into bite size pieces and placed it on two layers of tin foil large enough to wrap around everything I was going to add. To that I added a small potato, quartered; baby carrots, halved; a half an onion, coarsely chopped; and cauliflower flowerets. I cupped the foil up to make a rough bowl, drizzled in some oil and then added a generous sprinkling of basil and garlic power. I wrapped everything tightly and added another layer of foil over the top and wrapped underneath then placed in on the fireplace grate, over the hot coals.

I have no idea how long it took to cook, I just turned it over periodically and eventutally opened everything and gave the potatoes a poke. The nice thing about this meal is the pot became the dish. It was done, steaming, hot, with all the different aromas rising out of the foil at once, and the vegetables perfect, having steamed in the juices from the chicken.