Dutch Oven Heaven

We have amazing dutch oven pros in our ward and they graciously offered lessons to anyone who wanted to learn how to cook over (and under!) coals. I love tasty dutch oven dinners and signed up right away. They let us pick the meal, I chose the classic chicken, potatoes, and upside down cake with fruit, we divvied up the ingredients and got together Monday night for the lesson.

Here's my teacher, sweet Sister Johnson. She is SO nice! She taught me how to prepare the coals, how many go on top and on bottom, and even how to stack your ovens to save space. I asked her how much some of her equipment cost and she blushed a little and confessed she didn't know. They've won most of their things at cook-offs. They placed third at the World Championships one year, so they are good...trust me!


Here are our potatoes and onions. As we were peeling and slicing Sister Johnson turned to me and asked, "Do you want bacon on your potatoes?" What kind of question is that...of course I do! So, she cooked some up and threw bacon crumbles in there too. Yummy!


Sister Johnson put thawed Rhodes rolls into the dutch oven, placed the cover on top, and set the whole she-bang into the sun to rise. Clever, huh? I snapped a picture when she lifted the lid to check on the rolls, so they are still a bake in progress here.


The chicken was soooo good. We dipped them in milk, then beaten eggs, and finally in a flour/seasoning mix. After browning the chicken in the dutch oven on a propane grill, we stacked it on top of the potatoes and let it all cook.


Everyone knows dessert should be last, but we all also know that it is the most important part of any dinner, so we cooked it first. We baked the yellow cake in the dutch oven, let it cool, and then frosted it with cream cheese/whipped cream yumminess and topped it with raspberries. Not quite the fruit upside down cake I had envisioned, but I did not complain!




Here's the crew enjoying the fruits (or chicken and potatoes) of our labor. We had corn on the cob too, but we boiled it in a big pot.




Grace didn't make it into the previous picture since she was seated at the kiddie table. She really liked her chicken! We had a wonderful time and now I need some dutch ovens!