IS IT BETTER TO DIG A SMALL HOLE AND PUT THE COALS UNDER AND ON TOP OR SET IT ON THE HOT COALS ?

Now here's a recipe, time tried and true.
For chuckwagon coffee, a buckaroo's brew.
Add water and coffee in equal parts,
then set on a fire, that's how the deal starts.
Boil hard for two hours, then into it toss,
A well rusted shoe from a clubfooted hoss.
Stare into the pot a few minutes steady,
if the hossshoe ain't floatin', your coffee ain't ready.

Thanks Kathy Lee.

i dont hav no dutch oven si just whip out ma rustlers and put it in the microwave for 2-3 minutes. Damn its tastier than a 3 legged hedgehog with a cone for feet and no eyes.

With spring upon us and summer just around the corner, Cowboys and Cowgirls alike will take for the outdoors performing their own backyard cook offs. Barbecue is surely at the top of the list next to grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. Here's one new way to impress company visiting you and family members that didn't know you had a knack for grilling because you're going to make some homemade BBQ sauce just like they did over 100 years ago from the chuck wagon.

BLACK COFFEE-MOLASSES BARBECUE SAUCE

If you are planing an afternoon or evening BBQ, save a cup of that morning left-over coffee. Lick was commonly used as a term by the cowboys as any syrup and molasses was sincerely a treat added to many dishes the cook always served up. "How good is lick" you might ask? Let's just leave it at "REAL GOOD".

1 tablespoon vegetable oil use can also use left over bacon grease
1 large Onion, diced I use a Texas 10-15 onion as it is sweet.
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup strong brewed BLACK COFFEE shhh-this is the secret ingredient
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup ketchup
1 cup red chili sauce (see note below)
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons Mustard, I use Dijon
2 teaspoons kasher salt

In a saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add in the onion and garlic and saute until softened. Add coffee, molasses, ketchup, Red Chili Sauce, and Worcestershire sauce and simmer. Stir gently for 10 minutes. Add vinegar, lemon juice, mustard and salt. Continue stirring and now simmer for 20 minutes being cautious to not scorch. Puree sauce with a Tami, old fashion strainer that you would work soft vegetables through a screen or just use a modern day blender. This sauce will last for two weeks if refrigerated.

Note: Red Chili Sauce

This is a Southwestern sauce made in the southern region of Texas and New Mexico. Made from using dried chilies this will make a bright red sauce with lots of kick. If you desire not to make this sauce to add to your BBQ sauce, you can modify doing this another way.

3 cups of chicken broth
1/2 onion minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
5 Dried Red Anchos peppers
5 assorted dried seeded peppers, Jalapeno, habanero, hatch or cayenne pepper, but
just a few each for a total of 5 assorted, not 5 each. This adds to the taste of pepper

Bring all the ingredients to a boil in a large sauce pan over high heat. Decrease heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the chilies are soft. Put the chili mixture into a TAMIS and puree. However, modern day, you can just use a Blender as most people do not even know what a Tamis is but it was used long before the food processors can along. Pour back into the sauce pan on low heat stirring until thinned out slowly increasing the heat until the liquid sauce and peppers are fully blended. This sauce will keep for a week if refrigerated.

Modified:

1 cup of water
1 chicken bouillon
3 achos peppers

Add this in the other recipe when called for the red sauce added.

As the Chuckwagon cook, "COOKIE" held many hats of responsibility. None less important than the other. Nevertheless, none more demanding than feeding 3 meals per day to his crew of wranglers and mavericks. Sourdough biscuits was frequently made for crew on the long trail drives moving cattle north out of Texas. However, cookie also baked a bread that requires no leavening and has been around before the birth of Christ. While it is called many things across the world, in South Texas it's known as Pan De Campo and recently signed into law by a bill designating Pan De Campo as the official State Bread of Texas by Governor Rick Perry.

Pan De Campo translates as "Camp Bread" also known as Cowboy Bread. It cooks in the time it takes to cook biscuits and can be done in the Dutch Oven. There are many different recipes available but most often the King Ranch Recipe is used. Annually, during the King Ranch Cowboy Breakfast, held the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Chuck wagon volunteers will be cooking up enough of this bread to feed 6,500 people.

Here's just one way to make the dough as this is my own: However, if you want the KING RANCH recipe, you'll just have to purchase their book.

PAN DE CAMPO:
* 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
* 1/2 cup shortening
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* hot water

Place flour into a large bowl. Mix salt and baking powder in with flour together. Add shortening working it into flour. Add enough hot water to make the dough thick. If you get this to wet, just add more flour.

Now to knead the dough you need a work area. To prevent the dough from sticking, sprinkle some flour out over the surface of your work area, such as the work table on the chuck wagon, but if you don't own a chuck wagon, well that's OK. Use the kitchen counter top or out doors, a large cookie sheet set on top of that ice chest will do so you have a place to work. Once your work area has flour spread out, take the dough and lay it out on the surface. Knead for two to three minutes or until smooth. Don't overwork it.

Separate the dough into two portions. Let it rest covered with a damp cloth for 15 to 20 minutes.
While the dough is breathing, take a 10" inch dutch oven out and grease the inside with lard enough to cover the surface and place above your camp fire to pre-heat. The oven should be about 18" inches above the fire. Do not place the oven in the fire. If you plan to cook this indoors, still use the cast iron oven and preheat the stove to 350 degrees (f).

When using shortening mixed in with baking powder and flour, the shortening will go through a process of leavening "RISE" without using yeast. If the dough does not rise enough to suit you, add another 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder.

After it has breathed take one portion of the dough and roll out round until it is about an 8" inch diameter like a mini pizza and will be about 1" thick. Removing the dutch oven wearing an oven mitt, set aside on a trivet and once more grease the inside surface. Place dough inside the dutch oven and cover.

Outdoors, simply take some coals out from the fire and lay on the ground. About one shovel full, then set the dutch oven directly on top the coals. Now place about half a shovel full on the lid and cook for about 8-10 minutes. Using a lid lifter, it is OK to take a peek after about five minutes to check on the bread. If it appears cooking to fast on the bottom, remove from the coals and allow the lid coals to continue working. Dutch Oven outdoor cooking does takes some practice and can be done right in your own back yard. However, if conventional ovens is more your style, then place the Dutch Oven inside for about 8 minutes or until golden brown.

Once cooked, place out on the table and cut much like a pie. Serve it hot or allow to cool, then take out the second cut of dough and cook another loaf of flatbread.

HISTORY: Flatbreads are the oldest of all bread types. This style of bread cooks fast and can easily be made requiring little fuel to cook over conventional bread loafs. Recipes vary across the world due to resources of grain types and personal taste. The Middle eastern nations call this bread Pita, Turkey it's known as Lavash while India calls it Naan.

Before cast iron, this bread was cooked in a portable clay oven that resumes a dutch oven called Tandoors. The Tandoors can be placed on top coals just as we do today with cast iron and are still used in the middle east. Indians in the New World made corn tortillas very similar to this style bread as the Spanish explored what is now Mexico and the lower United States. I hope you enjoy Pan De Campo and if you just enjoy eating bread, try it with some butter and honey spread over top.

A few years ago the Scout troop I worked with went on a challenging backpacking trip. We had picked a 20 mile trail on the Tennessee North Carolina border and as we always did we invited the parents and boys to come to a backpacking preparation meeting. At it we taught everybody the benefit of packing lightly and including some hearty food. The first days hike of 11 miles ended as hail and rain began coming down. We built fires and leaned over them to keep them dry. My boy and I had brought New York Strip steaks we had frozen and put in zip lock bags. They thawed as we hiked. On the mountaintop, while everybody was getting aingredients together in the hail, we brought out a light grill cover and watched the steaks sizzle. We had salads from a bag and hid in our tent and feasted. A great memory.

I had gone camping with some old friends I had not seen since school and we decided to cook everything on the fire. To my astonishment none of my friends had a clue on how to cook on an open fire. They brought those boil in a bag dinners (which I hate as they taste all the same.) and well let’s just say they struggled to get them warm with out sealing them in the heat. I was fortunate enough to be brought up out do doors but left sorry for my friends struggling with something I think should be giving to everyone.
Needless to say I tried to show them and shared what I had brought with the rest of the guys and we had a good old time.
But what I was wondering was if the same situation is the case over where you are?

That's to bad you don't have a cookbook out for the general public, but thank you for sharing some of your recipes.

Wow looks like some great recipes! Gona have to try them. We are about done building our pond and my dad says he is going to weld some stuff together to make a nice fire pit to cook over out by the pond while we are all fishing once its done! Look forward to trying some of those recipes! Thanks for sharing!