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Tech which makes Sense

For most people, outdoor cooking is synonymous with barbecue, but there are many other ways to cook outdoors. If you’ve been camping, you’re probably at least familiar with portable propane stoves that provide one or two burners similar to the stove burners you have at home. Additionally, you may have also heard of Dutch ovens. However, I’m thinking that most people who haven’t been involved in exploration probably haven’t heard of box ovens.

Last weekend I attended camp with my son’s pack of scout pups. As part of the camp, they worked on their outdoorsman badge, which includes outdoor cooking. The first night of camp all the children made box ovens. We then use the box ovens to cook two meals.

The construction of a box oven is quite simple. Basically, you take a cardboard box, cover it on the inside with aluminum foil (wrap it from top to bottom and glue it on the outside). Build a cardboard lid also lined with aluminum foil. (While cooking, this should be weighed down with some convenient item, such as a stone.) Finally, push the rods made of hangers through the center of the box to serve as a grid to place the food. The box should be big enough to fit a pan inside and big enough for your

Cooking with the box oven is quite simple. The rule of thumb to remember is that a charcoal briquette will represent approximately 25 degrees (Fahrenheit). So if you’re baking something that requires 400 degrees, use 16 briquettes.

In the morning, we bake cookies for breakfast in our box ovens. We use the kind of cookies where you just open the tube, break them apart, and place them on a baking sheet. We use a disposable aluminum pan that we save to reuse for lunch.

We also cook bagged eggs. This is another creative way to cook that allows for easy cleanup. Basically, you take a couple of eggs, break them into a zip lock sandwich bag, add bacon (precooked), cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Seal the bag carefully to remove as much air as possible. Then you drop the bag into boiling water. For boiling water, we use a propane stove.

At lunch, we use our box ovens again to cook “pigs in a blanket” (hotdogs wrapped in biscuits) and cobbler.

For the shoe rack, we reused the aluminum mold from the morning. We took two cans of cherry pie filling, dumped them into the pan, poured a box of white cake mix on top, and then carefully poured a can of 7up on top. There is no mixing involved. Then we bake it until it looks done. Easy as can be, and it tasted great!

Now I’ve been thinking it would be fun to try baking a pizza at the next campsite using a box oven. We could buy one of those pre-made crusts, a jar of salsa, cheese, and pepperonis. The kids would love it and cleanup would be easy.

Speaking of easy cleanup…for Cub Scout Camp, we were asked to bring cleanup kits, and that’s what most of us use. However, if you cook with a box oven and also use disposable plates and utensils, you could easily avoid doing the dishes.

So the next time you go camping, don’t just cook, cook creatively. Whether you use a box oven or some other creative method, you’ll feel better after a long day of hiking or other fun outdoor activities if you have a nice, fun meal when you get back to camp.

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