Quantcast

Dutch Oven Summer Cooking

Outdoors_Cooking_B
Author Bruce Tracy
Author Bruce Tracy
Author Bruce Tracy

Make your favorite Dutch oven foods in your own backyard. Dutch oven cooking is as quintessential to the summer months as camping and fireworks. Although you can find use all year long for a good, sturdy seasoned Dutch oven, there is something special about the utility of cast iron ovens in the lazy dog days of summer. A tasty recipe can create the finishing flourishes to a backyard party or weekend at the lake.

This collection of recipes and cooking tips from Bruce Tracy’s Backyard Dutch Oven Cooking teaches you how to cook Dutch in your own backyard, any time of the year. Tracy’s recipes give the cooking temperature instructions for cooking outside over hot coals or inside in your oven.

This cook covers all your recipe needs from desserts to the dinner plate, no-fuss breakfast to a fancy Sunday dinner.

Bruce Tracy’s "Backyard Dutch Oven Cooking" book
Bruce Tracy’s “Backyard Dutch Oven Cooking” book

Intuitive, easy-to-follow instructions is the name of the game for Dutch oven users, and none know it better than the award-winning chef Tracy. Tracy has been competing in Dutch oven cook-offs since 1993. His delectable, easy recipes are accessible enough for novices and savory enough for vets.

This book, and his first book, Dutch Oven Baking, are available online and in bookstores.

From the pages of Bruce Tracy’s Backyard Dutch Oven Cooking:

Mountain Man Breakfast #1
Serves 6-8

This dish was my favorite dish when I started cooking in Dutch ovens. It is still a family favorite. The original recipe was written by the late Val Cowley and Marie Cowley of Logan, UT.

12-inch oven
8 coals underneath and 16 on the lid (or 350 F in your home oven [optional cooking method])
1 lb bacon, diced to ½-inch
1 stick butter, melted
1 medium yellow onion, diced small
½ loaf bread, any kind, cubed (the drier the better)
2 cups shredded cheese (your favorite)
8 eggs
2 cups milk
2 tbsp mustard powder
½ tsp salt

Fry the bacon in a 12-inch oven over 12 coals until barely crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Discard all but about 1 tablespoon of the grease. Add the butter and onion and cook until just soft.

Add the bread and cheese and toss until coated. Combine the eggs with the milk, mustard and salt. Pour evenly over the bread/cheese. Evenly sprinkle the bacon over the top.

Cook with 8 coals underneath and 16 coals on top for 20-30 minutes, until the eggs set.

Reprinted with permission.