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How To Make Sausage

August 15, 2021

Big batch of Andouille at The Farm Table

In 2010, when I was 25, I began a little company called Smokey Ridge Charcuterie. I made hand-crafted fresh and cooked sausages, pates, bacon, duck confit, and other specialty charcuterie products. It started with an apple sausage recipe that I launched out of a little farmstand in an area of Northern California called Apple Hill. After the farmstand closed for the season that first year, I expanded the sausage varieties and products that we offered and began selling them at regional farmer’s markets. We gained quite a following and launched a club where several hundred loyal customers could give us their credit card numbers to make 6 packages per year filled with whatever types of sausages and charcuterie I felt like making at the time. This arrangement was a chef’s dream. For 10 years I made sausage by hand for club members, customers, and restaurant goers. Between 2010 and 2020, I hand twisted over 100,000 lbs and sold around $1 million of sausage, and I have developed several dozen tried-and-true sausage recipes. My secret to the best sausages is simple: high-quality meat, well-trimmed of any undesirable bits, fresh ground spices, fresh herbs, and 7 grams of salt per pound (unless it’s a chicken sausage).

In 2020, the restaurant closed, a casualty of the Covid Pandemic. And like millions of chefs and restaurant workers everywhere, I took this as a cue to exit an industry that I’ve had a love-hate relationship with since I was a kid working my first job. Long story short, I have a bunch of amazing beloved recipes and years of know-how that are no longer being used commercially and I want to share them with the world, starting here with this in-depth guide to sausage making – my way.

I’ll go into detail about these steps below but here’s a cheat sheet for quick reference.

EQUIPMENT

Before I get into the steps of sausage making, I want to spend a second on equipment. Sausage making is fairly intensive when it comes to equipment. If you are planning to make a small 2 lb batch of bulk sausage – go ahead- buy already ground meat or use the grinder attachment and mix with your stand mixer. If you plan on making batches of sausage bigger than 5 lbs, you really should invest in some equipment. These are my recommendations for economical home-grade equipment suitable for 10 lb batches (all my recipes are 10 lb batches):

Cimeter

A cimeter is a long curved knife that is really handy for breaking down cuts of meat. Something about the curve of the blade lets you easily separate whole muscles without cutting through them. I recommend a 10-12 inch cimeter for breaking down pork butts. A Victorinox is a decent economical choice.

Grinder

I recommend a stand-alone grinder, not an attachment to your stand mixer. I have this one from butcherpacker.com. It costs $160, has 3 grinder plates, and can grind 10-20 lbs of meat fairly quickly without overheating. It came with attachments for stuffing sausage which you could definitely try out to start. I prefer a separate sausage stuffer but if you only make sausage a couple of times per year, this one machine would probably suffice for grinding and stuffing. It also grinds breadcrumbs, tomatoes, etc.

Mixer

I recommend a hand crank mixer like this one with a 20lb capacity for $180 from homedepot.com. You may be tempted to use your household stand mixer but I would strongly advise against it. A stand mixer can only handle about 2 lbs of sausage at a time and is prone to overheating. If you are making a 10 lb batch that would be about 25 minutes of hard work for your mixer and you’ll risk blowing out the motor.

Stuffer

If you plan to make sausage regularly, I highly recommend a vertical sausage stuffer with a 5-15 lbs capacity like this one. There are several brands to choose from and several capacities. I used to use Cabela’s in a 20 lb capacity when I was just getting started, before switching to a hydraulic sausage stuffer that could stuff hundreds of pounds in a day. The smaller the capacity the more you’ll have to refill it, this can be a pain if you are doing really large batches. These stuffers have gears that help press the meat through the canister and out the sausage tube at the bottom. Look for one with all stainless steel parts.

Whatever you do, do not get the old-fashion cast iron manual stuffers. These are really hard to use, especially with drier sausage types.

Other things you’ll need:

Sheet pans to contain the links when twisting.
Mixing bowls- for dry spices, for fresh ingredients, for liquids, and for meat.
Casings
Sausage poker (can use a needle)
Lots of fridge/freezer space to store ingredients and to cool equipment parts.
Lots of clean, sanitized counter space.

HOW TO MAKE SAUSAGE

1) Select the Meat

The general rule of thumb is to aim for 25-30% fat in your sausage meat mixture. You can make leaner sausage and you can make fattier sausage, but 30% fat is the standard. Fat is essential in achieving the bind (more on that later) and pork fat is the best. Pork butt (which is actually shoulder, don’t know why they call it butt) with a 1/2 -1 inch fat cap is perfect for sausage all by itself. Or you can mix lean and fatty cuts like pork loin with pork belly. You can mix different types of meat too, for instance, venison with pork belly or pork back fat.

It’s possible to make all-beef, all lamb and all venison sausages, but in my experience, it is difficult to get the perfect texture without using pork fat. Pork fat is softer and makes for a better bind and better final texture. It is also more cost-effective. Unless you are avoiding pork for religious purposes, I highly recommend using pork belly, pork back fat, or plain old pork butt as the main source of fat for your sausage.

If you want to make leaner sausages without sacrificing the bind and texture, you can make the standard 30% mix and then use a substantial amount of diced or course ground lean as an internal “garnish” folded in.

For poultry sausages, use boneless skinless chicken thighs with some fat left on them, duck breast with fatty skin on or a mixture of fatty duck or goose with leaner poultry like turkey, and chicken breast (as in my Turducken Sausage – recipe will be posted soon). Poultry fat is less saturated than pork fat and tends to liquefy and separate from the meat when cooked. To improve the texture I add dry-milk powder to all my poultry sausages at a rate of 1-3 grams per pound.

Can You Use Frozen Meat?

Yes! Ideally, you would only be using the highest quality fresh meat for sausage making and charcuterie. However, if you are using your own harvested meat trim or buying specialty meat products like duck breast, chances are you will be using frozen pieces. I have made tons of sausage using frozen meat products with great success. If you are making raw cured sausages like saucisson sec or salami, you should only use pork that has been commercially frozen to kill trichinosis.

The important thing is to make sure the meat has only been frozen one time, is well-sealed, and was frozen at a low temperature. Properly frozen meat is frozen at temperatures of -10 F or lower. Commercially frozen meat from the grocery store or a food service vendor is frozen at these low temperatures. A high-quality, high-efficiency, newer chest freezer will freeze and hold food around -10 F, provided you are not overloading it with room temperature foods to freeze all at one time (in which case it will slowly pass through the 32F- -10F and freeze with large ice crystals, damaging the cell structure of the meat). Jamming 10 lbs of venison into the small freezer section of your kitchen fridge will not freeze at these low temperatures and is not recommended. Snow-like ice crystals and pooled icy liquid indicate freezing and thawing and refreezing and is no bueno. Also bad news is white freezer-burned pieces of meat. Small amounts can be cut off, but if a large portion of the meat surface is freezer burned it will taste oxidized and cardboard-like.

2) Trim the Meat

Thoroughly trimming the meat is, in my opinion, imperative to a high-quality sausage. I think most people believe that sausage is where all the undesirable scrap pieces can go. I know for a fact that many butchers take this position. I do not. In my process, meat trimming takes up about 30% of the entire sausage-making time in the kitchen, followed by about 15% mixing and grinding and 55% filling and twisting casings.

Meat should be trimmed of glands. These are located in the shoulders and legs in triangular pieces of fat between muscles. In the legs, it is just below the bottom round. In the shoulder, the gland is located between the coppa (aka cottage roll) and the rest of the shoulder flap. If you are buying pork shoulder or Boston butt in the grocery store, chances are it has already been trimmed of glands. However, if you are buying cases of primal or subprimal cuts of meat from a food service vendor or are butchering your own animals, you will need to do this yourself.

Meat should also be trimmed of bone fragments, thick tendons, connective tissue, and excessively bloody veins and arteries. Run your hands over the cut of meat to feel for small bone fragments that were left behind during butchering and remove these if present. If using boneless shoulder cuts or boneless legs, sometimes there will be a small piece of bone left where the shoulder blade or hip was removed. For chicken thighs, feel around the perimeter of each thigh to remove small pieces of chicken bone. Chicken thighs are the most tedious piece of meat to debone and the main reason why I made only a little bit of chicken sausage despite it being constantly in high demand.

Thick tendons should be removed. You can get away with being a little lax on this if you are making a finely ground sausage, after all, unlike glands, there is nothing inherently gross about tendons (aka collagen). However, if you are making a course ground sausage or medium ground sausage, the tendons will result in unpleasant crunchy bits that make the eater wonder “what is this?”. Which is never good thing to wonder when you’re eating sausage.

3) Scale the Recipe

All my recipes are from my commercial recipes that were developed for 100 batches. My “Master Recipes” have been scaled back to 10 lbs of meat, primarily, because this is an easy number to scale. In my opinion, if you are making links, any lesser amount would not justify the set-up, clean-up, and effort. Furthermore, 1 standard hog casing uses roughly 10 lbs of sausage mix. However, if you are making bulk sausage, a two-pound batch is totally acceptable in which case, simply multiply all ingredients by 0.2. Or use my pre-scaled “Small Batch” Recipes which are scaled and adapted for 2 lbs and include volume measurements (instead of weights only). The Small Batch recipes are less precise and I do not recommend scaling these to larger amounts. Use the Master Recipes if you want to scale it up.

Unless you are buying meat already ground, expect to scale the recipe as the amount of meat you end up with after trimming is almost guaranteed to be off by 10-20 %. If you end up with 8.5 lbs of meat after trimming, simply multiply all ingredients in the recipe by 0.85. If you end up with 12 lbs of meat, multiply all ingredients by 1.2. When scaling a recipe, do the math all at once and write it out. That way you don’t run the risk of scaling all ingredients except one, because it just slipped your mind. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this happen in the kitchen.

Master Recipes

Bratwurst
Apple Breakfast Sausage
Andouille
Duck Apricot Bourbon Sausage
Mild Italian Sausage
Maple and Sage Breakfast Sausage

Small Batch Recipes

4) Prep your Spice and Liquid Mixes

When making sausage, you will end up with 1)a bin of meat, 2) a container with dry spices, 3) a container of fresh ingredients like garlic and fresh herbs, 4) a container of liquid and 5) a container of casings soaking in water (if using). These components can be prepped ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator.

The dry spice component will include salt, sugar (sometimes), and dry spices. Whenever possible spices should be fresh ground. Buy spices in whole seed and grind them at home for the best-tasting sausage. It really makes a huge difference. Even better, toast them first in a dry pan. Bulk spices can be bought for cheap at sfherb.com, and other online retailers or bulk foods store. Once the dry spices are all measured out, you can go ahead and combine with the trimmed meat bin. It saves space in the fridge and lets the flavors soak in.

Keep the fresh ingredients separate from the dry spices until ready to grind. Otherwise, the salt will pull liquid out of these ingredients and wilt the fresh herbs and make the mixture wet. These are things like garlic cloves, fresh onions, and fresh green herbs. If you are grinding with a medium or fine die you can leave the garlic cloves whole and other vegetables coarsely chopped. However, if you grinding through the large die, you will want to mince everything beforehand.

Combine the liquids in a separate container.

If you are planning to make links with natural casings, soak the casings with water in a separate container.

5) Grind

It is very important that the meat stays cool during grinding and mixing. Cool all removable parts of the grinder in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes prior to grinding. If you are making sausage in a powerful commercial grinder this is less of an issue because you are doing such a large amount of meat and the meat moves through it so quickly it just doesn’t have a chance to warm up. However, if you are making sausage at home, some grinders are painfully slow. Motors get overworked and hot and this can become a major issue for your sausage making.

Most grinders come with a fine, medium, and course die. It is really a personal preference which die you use though some sausages are traditionally done with one or the other. The medium die is good for most varieties of sausage including bulk breakfast, bulk Italian, and bratwursts. Course die is good for the sausages that you see with the big chunks of pork belly/fat studded throughout like Andouille. Course die is also good for grinding meat to be used as an internal garnish folded into a finer mix. The fine die is for smoother types of sausage, like bockwurst or hot links.

NOTE: You can buy ground pork or other ground meat if you want to take a shortcut. If you do this, I recommend getting it from a butcher shop and specifying the cuts and fat ratio that you want.

6) Mix

Mixing is the step that transforms your meat mixture from a ground hamburger-like texture to a juicy sausage by creating the “primary bind”. This is a bind between meat protein, fat, and salt. This is the most important and most fraught part of sausage making. This is where things can get really f’d up. The good news, it’s hard to over mix and easy to err on the side of caution.

Return all your meat to the fridge or freezer to get it nice and cold. It could even have some slightly crunchy frozen bits on the top. This is especially important if it took a long time to get through the grinding process.

Place your seasoned meat and fresh ingredients (if the recipe calls for any) in the mixer, turn the mixer on, and mix for 1 minute. Slowly add the very cold liquid and mix for another 4 minutes. The meat mixture should look tacky and sticky. This indicates the bind has formed. Keep mixing until this happens.

You can mix by hand if you don’t want to invest in a mixer. Make sure your meat is very cold as your hands will warm it up. This works for quantities of 5 lbs. or less. For large batches, this becomes a real workout and the coldness of the meat on your hands will test your toughness.

If you undermix the sausage or if the meat gets warm during this process, you will ruin the texture of the finished product. I’ve done it before with a 100 lb batch and it’s a really sad thing when it happens. You cannot really overmix sausage (unless it mixes for so long that it gets warm), but you can under mix it!

Now You Have Bulk Sausage

At this point, you have bulk sausage. Think Sausage patties, spaghetti sauce, stuffed mushrooms or peppers, scrambled eggs, and soup. Bulk sausage is a versatile ingredient to have on hand in a variety of flavors. There is nothing wrong with stopping here. Simply bag up your sausage in user-friendly quantities and freeze until ready to use. Alternatively, you can fill and twist links.

7) Twist the Links

To make sausage links you will need 1) your casings 2) your sausage stuffer, sanitized and set up with the nozzle that fits your casings and 3) lots of completely cleared and cleaned counter space and couple of sheet pans or 2 inch hotel pans. Links can be ordered off of butcher-packer.com or sausagemaker.com as can all of your equipment.

Types of Casings

Natural Casings: These are the only kind of casing that I use. I like the tradition behind them…. and I like the pop. Natural casings are made of intestine, bung or stomach. They come either packed in salt or in brine. If packed in salt, they need to be soaked in water for a minimum of 30 minutes though more time is better up to 12 hours. Change the water out a couple of times. If packed in brine, rinse the casings before use. Either way, you will want the casings stored in fresh water while you are making sausage so they don’t dry out and become fragile. If using another kind, simply follow the directions for that specific kind of casing.
Collagen: Comes in either Fresh Collagen for fresh sausages or Smoked Collagen for smoked sausages. The fresh collagen is more fragile and doesn’t hold up to smokehouse hanging so if you use these make sure to purchase the right ones for the type of sausage you are planning to make.
Fibrous: These casings are most often used for Summer Sausage, Salami and Mortadella types. They are not edible. You will remove them prior to eating the sausage. Fibrous casings are very tough and durable. You can fill them to capacity without them breaking and will end up with a sausage product of uniform diameter.
Alginate (vegan): As the name implies, these casings are made from algae. They are vegan friendly. Which begs the question, Why? As it happens, I just learned about alginate casings when I was cooking up a package of store bought brats that were encased with an unrecognized gelatinous thing. It’s unusual that I encounter something in the sausage sphere that is entirely new to me so I was intrigued. However, the gelatinous alginate casings had no pop, which is in my opinion, the best part of a brat.

2) Fill the sausage stuffer with the sausage meat mixture.

3) Place the casing on the nozzle so that about 4 inches overhang Begin slowly pressing the sausage meat out of the stuffer. Once the sausage reaches the end of the nozzle and begins to fill the casing, pause, tie a knot in the casing, then continue pressing until the casing is completely and evenly filled or the sausage stuffer is empty.

4) Now it’s time to twist the sausages. Start with the knotted end. The other end should have no knot in it yet. Using your thumb and index finger on each hand, squeeze the casing at the length of one sausage. Twist it. Now, skip the length of one sausage and pinch off the 3rd sausage. Twist it in the same direction as the first. Continue twisting every other sausage in the same direction. When you get to the last sausage in the link, tie a knot.

It will take a while to get a feel for this. If you fill the casing too tight it will pop when you twist. The slower you press, the tighter the fill will be. If you fill it too loose, it will require a lot of twists before it is tight and will end up much shorter. Gauging how fast you should press and how long your sausages should be based on how tightly your casing is filled to achieve uniformed sausage lengths is an art that comes with lots of practice.

If the casing pops while twisting, just pull out the meat from that one popped sausage and continue twisting. The meat can be added to the sausage stuffer for the next casing or set aside for bulk sausage. You’ll trim out the empty casing segments later.

5) Pop the air bubbles. You can buy sausage pokers at butcher-packer.com or sausagemaker.com or you can use a needle. Just prick each sausage all over quickly. Go all the way through. Don’t be timid about this, you won’t hurt them. Some air bubbles you cannot see.

6) Hang the sausage in the fridge or your freezer. This tightens and dries the casings. If you don’t have space to hang the sausage, you can lay them out flat over a rack on a sheet pan. If you are vacuum sealing your sausages, freezing them beforehand keeps the meat from being pulled out of the casing during the vacuum sealing process. You can also poach or smoke sausages before packaging them and freezing them.

8) Package or Cook Your Sausage

To store sausages – pack them tightly into a quart size freezer ziplock bag and squeeze as much air out as possible. Then freeze until ready to use. Alternatively you can vacuum seal or wrap with plastic wrap and butcher paper.

Fresh uncooked sausage is good for 3-5 days in the refrigerator. Poached or smoked sausages are good for up to 7 days in the fridge, or 4 weeks if vacuum sealed.

For tips and tricks for cooking sausages, check out this post. How To Cook Sausage Links Perfectly

The best way to use Garlic Scapes…Pickle Them!

July 21, 2021

Spring-Early Summer at the Missoula Farmer’s Market

Years ago, when I started pickling garlic scapes at the restaurant, scapes were virtually unheard of. Today they are commonplace at Farmer’s Markets and CSA’s during the spring and early summer. Which is good news for shoppers because they are versatile and delicious.

Garlic Scapes are the flower blossom and stem of hard-neck garlic. Soft-neck garlic does not produce edible scapes. If you grow garlic and would like to have this lovely springtime produce as well, you will need to make sure you are growing hard-neck garlic.

Garlic scapes can be sauteed, steamed, blanched, made into pesto or vinaigrette, chopped up in soup, minced like chives as a garnish, used in place of regular garlic (it is much milder), and pickled (my favorite). The entire thing is edible, however, depending on what stage they were in when picked they can be a bit tough and stringy. I usually trim the very tip of the flower blossom which dries out quickly, and then I either cook these by blanching for 5-10 minutes and then sauteeing, or I pickle them. I love the sweet mild garlic flavor, the beautiful curly shape, and the light and dark green color variation of garlic scapes. They jazz up any dish.

Pickled Garlic Scapes

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Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide

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Description

Pickled garlic scapes are beautiful and delicious. Perfect for eating out of the jar, garnishing a bloody Mary, or serving as an accouterment to a meat and cheese platter.

Ingredients

Scale

4 lbs garlic scapes

8 cups white vinegar

8 cups water

4 Tablespoons Salt

4 Tablespoons Sugar

Per Quart Jar (4 Jars in total)

1 1/2 teaspoons dill seed

1 1/2 teaspoons whole mustard seed

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

2 whole bay leaves

1 dried hot chili (optional, more if you like it spicy)

1/4 garlic scape minced

sprigs of fresh dill or tarragon (optional)

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Instructions

Fill a water bath with water and the quart jars and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a smaller sauce pan, add water and the jar lids and bring to boil.

Combine the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt in a pot (5 quarts or larger) and bring to a boil.

Clear off and clean your work surface. Round up a town for the counter, jar tongs, the magnet lid lifter (if using), a clean tea towel, and a wide mouth funnel and ladle or a pitcher for pouring the vinegar into the jars.

Trim the ends of the garlic scapes if they look dry. Thinly slice one garlic scape and divide it into 4 equal portions, one for each jar.

Once the vinegar mixture and the jars have come up to a boil, reduce the heat on both to low.

Using the jar tongs, remove one jar from the canner and carefully pour out the water. Place it on the towel on the counter. Add the chopped garlic scape, mustard seed, dill seed, fresh herbs, bay leaves, and dried chili. Pack the jar with scapes (about 1 lb per jar).

Using the wide mouth funnel or the pitcher, pour the vinegar mixture into the jar leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Insert a butter knife all down the side of the jar and pull the handle of it towards the center to remove air bubbles. Repeat this a couple of times. If the liquid level dropped add a little more.

Dip a corner of the clean tea towel into the boiling canner and then wipe the rim of the jar. Using the lid magnet, remove a lid from the boiling water and place it on top of the jar. Put on the ring and tighten until just barely finger tight (when it just barely meets resistance, see note).

Prepared Jars of Pickled Garlic Scapes ready for the canner.

Set the prepared jar aside and repeat with the rest of the jars. Once all the jars have been prepared, place them in the water bath canner. They should be covered with at least 1/2 inch of water. Add more water if needed. Turn the heat back up to high and bring it back to a boil. Once it has reached a boil, process for 25 minutes (at sea level, adjust for elevation). See canning altitude chart.

Carefully remove the jars from the canner and place on a towel on the counter. Do not touch the jars until fully sealed and cooled.

Notes

NOTE: Air needs to be able to leave the jar as it is heated in the canner. This is how the vacuum is created. If the lid is too tight the air cannot leave and the jar may crack in the canner. Tighten the ring just until you feel the start of some resistance, the minimal amount needed to keep the lid in place.

NOTE: If you have never canned before I highly recommend this tutorial. Water bath canning is simple to do but there are some important food safety issues you should be aware of. Most importantly – you can only water bath can products that have a PH of 4.6 or lower.

Simple and “Healthy” Blue Cheese Vinaigrette

July 15, 2021

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.

Ah, blue cheese. A broad category of cheese that ranges from buttery and spreadable to crumbly and dry, approachable to assertive, grassy, earthy, and funky, to spicy or sweet. Blue cheese is perfect for showcasing on a cheese platter. Some varieties are fit for dessert with a drizzle of balsamic reduction or honey and candied nuts. Blue cheese complements fruit, especially pears, figs, and cherries. It also complements beef, which is pretty much the opposite of fruit. For an ingredient so versatile it’s somewhat of a shame that only one dressing comes to your mind when you think of blue cheese dressing – that gloppy, creamy, tangy mixture found right next to the bottles of Ranch at the grocery store.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that gloppy, creamy, tangy blue cheese dressing. And there’s something noble about a dressing that takes a somewhat risky ingredient, a cheese that attracts the most adventurous and “sophisticated” eaters when purchased on its own at a cheese counter, and makes it accessible to every dude in a Sports Bar noshing on crispy chicken wings and celery sticks. But in this salad dressing landscape dominated by one version of blue cheese dressing, there are possibilities for this amazing ingredient that have been forgotten.

This Blue Cheese Vinaigrette is one of those possibilities. Blue cheese salad dressing has been unjustly given its reputation as the “most unhealthy” dressing. It doesn’t have to be this way. This blue cheese vinaigrette is light and dainty. If you are one of the millions of people eating salad for health reasons, this healthy blue cheese salad dressing won’t completely counteract all of your sacrifices and hard work. Years ago, while working at a French Restaurant in Missoula, I made and served a similar dressing with a salad of mixed greens, avocado, pear, and candied walnuts. It was lovely.

The Best Blue Cheeses for Dressing

Some blue cheeses are soft and spreadable and some crumble well. For this recipe, I recommend a blue cheese that crumbles well. In the restaurant kitchen, I have used Roquefort and Point Reyes Blue for this dressing. Both of those varieties will add a little creaminess to the dressing while still holding some shape to the crumbles. I recommend these blue cheeses for this dressing:

Stilton
Danish Blue
Forme D’Ambert
Roquefort
Point Reyes Blue
Maytag
Gorgonzola / Gorgonzola Piccante

Blue Cheese Vinaigrette

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Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 2 1/2 cups 1x
Category: Condiment
Method: mix
Cuisine: french
Diet: Gluten Free

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Ingredients

Scale

1/4 medium onion, minced/chopped

1/2 garlic clove, spicy green sprout removed from middle

1 cup white wine vinegar

3/4 cup canola oil

1 1/2 – 2 cups crumbled blue cheese

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika (or plain paprika)

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram (or sub oregano)

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

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Instructions

In a blender, combine all ingredients except the oil and blue cheese. Blend until very smooth.

Turn blender to medium-low speed. Very slowly add the oil in a slow steady stream until fully incorporated.

Add the blue cheese crumbles and pulse a couple of times until the blue cheese bits are the size of peas or smaller. The dressing will get slightly creamy as some of the blue cheese is dissolved into the vinaigrette.

Transfer to a container with a tight-fitting lid and store in the fridge until ready to use. The dressing will keep for weeks refrigerated.

Equipment

| Vitamix Explorian Blender, Professional-Grade |

Buy Now →

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 Tablespoon

S’more Pancake Mix Recipe | Just Add Water

July 6, 2021

This Just-Add-Water Mix is perfect for busy mornings and back country breakfasts.

This Just-Add-Water S’more Pancake and Waffle Mix is perfect for busy back-to-school mornings and backcountry breakfasts. Toasted marshmallows on top transforms this quick and easy breakfast into an extra special morning treat.

I’ve been playing around with Just-Add-Water Mixes lately. Partly because I have big ambitions for camping trips this summer and am always on the look out for the perfect back country meals that are 1) easy, 2) shelf stable and 3) require very little dishes and clean-up. Partly because I need a morning meal for my 7 year old that I can make with one hand, while holding the baby on my hip with the other, in less than 10 minutes start to finish. Or better yet, a morning meal that my 7 year old can whip up on her own!! Partly because breakfast is and has always been my least favorite meal to cook and I require super easy options in the morning for my own sanity. Before kids, this was the meal that I would outsource to restaurants. Now I look for make-ahead breakfast options because there is no worse way to start the day than with a sink full of dirty dishes!

These S’more Pancakes are made from a graham cracker batter and studded with marshmallow and chocolate chips. If you want to keep it simple, a generous spread of salted butter is all that these pancakes or waffles require. However, if you want to take this breakfast to the next level, try out these fun toppings:

S’more Pancake Toppings:

Graham Cracker Crumbs
Toasted Marshmallow (campfire, stove top or torch)
Brown Butter
Caramel Sauce / Sweetened Condenced Milk
Whipped Cream
Nutella

How to Make Fluffy Pancakes

For fluffy thick pancakes, make a thick batter. Preheat your griddle and then immediately reduce the heat to medium-low once you add the batter to it. Thick fluffy pancakes take a while to cook, about 4-5 minutes per side. This recipe calls for 1 cup dry mix to 3/4 cups water. This will make fluffy pancakes. You may be tempted to stretch the mix by adding more water to it, and this is fine, but you will get less fluffy pancakes that cook quicker.

For waffles, make a thinner mix of 1 cup mix to 1 cup water.

S’more Pancake Mix Recipe | Just Add Water

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Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 10–12 servings 1x
Category: Breakfast
Method: Mixing
Cuisine: American
Diet: Vegetarian

Print Recipe

Description

A simple and delicious Just-Add-Water Pancake and Waffle Mix for busy mornings.

Ingredients

Scale

3 cups flour

1 cup Graham Cracker Meal *

1 cup Dry Milk Powder

2 Tablespoons Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer

2 Tablespoons Baking Powder

1 cup Mini Dark Chocolate Chips

1 cup Mini Marshmallows, chopped

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Instructions

A day or two before making this mix, open your bag of marshmallows and leave them out to dry. This will make it easier to chop them into small pieces.

Make the graham cracker meal by grinding the graham crackers with a mortar and pestle or in a food processor. You could also put the graham crackers in a bag with the air removed and roll a rolling pin over them.

In a large mixing bowl, add all ingredients and stir well. Transfer the mix to a bag or an 8 cup mason jar and store at room temperature until ready to use.

To Prepare the Pancakes:

Preheat your griddle, or pan.

For each cup of dry Pancake & Waffle Mix, add 3/4 cup of water and mix well.

Butter (or spray with oil) your griddle. Ladle out the batter. Reduce the heat to medium and cook until golden brown on one side and bubbles are visible on the top. Flip and cook until the other side is golden brown.

Top with your favorite toppings and serve.

For Waffles:

Preheat your waffle iron

Use a 1:1 mix:water ratio

Spray waffle iron with oil and cook to desired brownness

Top with your favorite toppings.

Notes

1 cup of dry-mix makes about 3 medium-sized pancakes.

For 4 people use 3 cups of dry mix and approximately 2 1/4 cups water.

For 2 people use 1 1/2 cups dry mix and approximately 1 cup plus a couple of tablespoons water.

QUICK TIP | How to keep fish from sticking to the pan

June 19, 2021

Nothing, I repeat, nothing is more frustrating than preparing a beautiful meal and then having the main attraction stick to the pan and ruin your presentation. Whether you are cooking for yourself, cooking for friends and family, or cooking “on the line”, this is one of those soul-sucking kitchen moments that we have all gone through. Fortunately, I have a really simple “secret” solution that can be used when all else fails.

When writing any posts, I generally poke around on the web a little bit to see what else is out there. If a topic is well covered by other food blogs, I usually will choose to focus on a topic where I could offer something new to the conversation out there. There are a lot of tips out there on how to keep fish from sticking to the pan, however, I was surprised to find that my super simple technique was not among them. This technique works great for fish fillets, as well as chicken, pork, and steak.

How to Keep Fish (or Steak, Pork Chops, or Chicken) From Sticking to the Pan

First things first, these steps below are all good practices and are the tips that everyone else on the blogosphere recommends for preventing fish or meat from sticking to the pan.

Pat the fish fillet with a paper towel until well dried and season it with salt and whatever else you would like. Or better yet, leave it uncovered in the fridge for a day or so to dry the surface.
Preheat a dry pan. I recommend stainless steel or ceramic non-toxic non-stick. Cast iron is great if it’s your designated fish pan (flavors can permeate) AND it is well seasoned. Teflon non-stick really are not meant to be heated while dry (plus, I hate how the coating flakes into food with wear and tear). Why preheat while dry? This keeps the oil from smoking and burning and creating off-flavors.
Add 1-2 Tablespoons oil. I prefer oil with a high smoke point like canola.
Gently add the fillet of fish and immediately give the pan a little shake when you put it in. If it sticks, don’t worry. NOTE: if the fish doesn’t sizzle when it hits the pan, the pan and oil are not hot enough. Test a corner before gently sliding the fillet in.
At this point, you can turn the heat down to medium or medium-low to reduce the splattering of oil and slow the cooking down for more even cooking and a better sear.
After at least 3-5 minutes or when the fillet is visibly cooked halfway through, using a fish spatula or thin metal spatula (this is key here), flip the fish over and repeat on the other side. If it sticks, give it 30 seconds and try again “it will release by itself when it’s ready.”

Indeed, these are all good practices for achieving the perfect sear. However, every chef knows that sometimes your fillet will still stick. It just will. And sometimes, the amount of time it takes for the fish to “release by itself when it’s ready” is longer than you want to cook it for. For example, sea scallops cooked medium. If cooked for 3-5 minutes on each side, the amount of time for the sear to be fully formed and release on its own, the scallop would be well done. If the fish (or steak, chicken, or pork) sticks after doing all of the steps above, or if your window for “perfect doneness” is about to pass you by, here is my no-fail secret tip to unsticking the fillet from the pan…

Remove the pan from the burner and let it sit for 1-3 minutes. Physically remove it, don’t just turn the heat off. The fish fillet will release from the pan when the pan cools and the skin and the sear will still be crispy (as long as you don’t forget about it for 10-15 minutes). The release will happen faster if you put the pan directly on a stainless steel or granite counter than if you put it on a drying rack or hot pad because the heat (or in this case, the reduction of heat) will be more quickly transferred. Factor this “quick release” carry-over cooking into your timing if you are trying to achieve a specific level of doneness other than well done.

When trying to sear a fillet of fish or other protein, it does takes time to achieve a good crust and a natural release from the pan. This lends itself to thicker cuts of meat and will be difficult to achieve with anything thinner than 1 inch (unless you want it cooked well-done).

OTHER TIPS FOR PAN FRYING FISH

If the fillet is long and thin or you are pan-frying whole small bone-in fish, press down on it with a spatular when you first put it in the pan and when you flip it. This will help it stay flat, and stay in contact with the oil for a good crust or sear.
If you are cooking small or thin pieces of fish, seafood, or other meat, dusting them with flour helps prevent sticking by forming a layer between the protein and the pan.
For small pieces of fish, seafood, or meat that you want to be cooked to below well-done (say medium or rare), make sure the pan is super hot.

Let me know in the comment section how this tip works for you and if you have any questions on how best to cook specific items, I am happy to share my suggestions there as well.

Fancy Oven Rice Pilaf Recipe | For Catering and Entertaining

June 9, 2021

An easy-to-customize side dish for any occassion.

This toasty delicious baked rice side dish is versatile, economical, and easily adapted to accommodate allergens, dietary preferences, and regional cuisines. The optional addition of carrot, dried fruit, nuts, different spices, and fresh chopped herbs make this dish visually appealing, fragrant, and fully customizable to any party menu.

This dish is especially handy for catering and dinner parties because it can be prepped up in the morning and stored at room temperature (instead of trying to cram it into an already packed fridge). An hour before the meal, simply mix the broth with the rice mixture in the hotel pan, cover it with foil, and pop it in a preheated oven. There’s no need to heat the broth first (unless you are trying to expedite the cooking time). This dish is pretty forgiving and stands up well to sitting in a chafing dish. Unlike other types of rice dishes, rice pilaf isn’t prone to mushiness or stickiness.

Try These Variations

Gluten Free – Sub out orzo/Israeli Cous Cous for rice

Dairy-Free – Use duck fat, olive oil or vegetable oil instead of butter

Vegetarian – Use veggie stock

Middle Eastern – Dried Fruit, pine nuts or almonds, caramelized onion, za’atar spice blend

Greek – Garlic, lemon zest, black pepper, rich chicken stock, fresh dill and parsely at the end.

French – garlic, black olives, herbs d’provence spice blend

Indian – Onion, carrots, peas and curry powder

Chicken and Rice Comfort Food – Onions, Carrots, Celery, Rich Chicken Broth, Butter or Duck Fat, Parsley/Sage/Thyme and Chicken Thighs nestled on top.

Catering Large Parties or Cooking at Home

This recipe makes one 2″ 1/2 hotel pan (at home that’s equivalent to a 4-quart casserole pan or brazier) and serves about 15 people. Use the “Scale 2x” option to scale for a full-size hotel pan that serves approximately 30 people (or 8 quarts).

This recipe calls for baking the pilaf at 400 F for 1 hour (that’s on convection). This assumes the broth is mixed with the rice mixture while cold or at room temperature and the pilaf is cooked in a mid-grade home oven. If you are using a high-powered commercial oven – expect this dish to cook 15 minutes faster or reduce the heat to 375 F. You can cut the cooking time by about half by bringing the broth to a boil first.

The basic version of this recipe costs around 60 cents per serving (California Retail Prices 2021)! For professional caterers with access to wholesale pricing through their vendors and for Home Cooks living in less expensive states, you can expect the cost per serving to be even less!!

Fancy Oven Pilaf | Catering Recipe

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Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 50-60
Total Time: 0 hours
Yield: 15 servings 1x
Category: Side
Method: Baking
Cuisine: World
Diet: Vegetarian

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Description

This toasty fragrant rice dish is the perfect party side dish and is easily adaptable for dairy-free, gluten-free, and vegan preferences.

Ingredients

Scale

2–4 Tablespoons Oil or Butter

2 1/2 cups Long grain rice (Basmati)

1 1/2 cups Orzo or Israeli Cous Cous or vermicelli*

1/2 cup Quinoa (red or black adds visual appeal) **

1 cup diced onion or shallot

1–2 Tablespoons minced garlic

salt to taste

7 1/2 Flavorful, well-seasoned broth (chicken, veg or other)***

1–2 Cups Garnishes – dried fruit, pine nuts, walnuts, shaved almonds and/or diced carrot. (Optional)

Herbs and spices (Optional)

Chopped Fresh Herbs to sprinkle after cooking (Optional)

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Instructions

In a saute pan with oil or butter, toast the Orzo, Israeli Cous Cous or Vermicelli until golden brown all over. Transfer the pasta to the hotel pan or oven-proof dish.
Add a little more oil and saute the onion and garlic. Add the rice and cook for another 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until well coated in oil with some grains of rice toasted. Transfer this batch to the hotel pan.
Add any optional spices, herbs, vegetable ingredients, or dried fruit to the hotel pan.
At this point you can either 1) cover the hotel pan with a layer of parchment and tin foil for transport and place the broth in a separate container. Or 2) Add the cold/room temp broth, cover the hotel pan with parchment and foil and bake at 400 F for 50 minutes. Carefully lift a corner of the foil for a peak. Watch out for the steam. If it’s still pretty wet, cook for another 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven and keep covered for 5-10 minutes. Fluff the rice up with a spatula or serving spoon. Taste and season with salt and pepper if needed and sprinkle generously with fresh herbs.
Serve.

Notes

* To Make Gluten-Free – replace the orzo or Israeli Cous Cous with rice

** If you don’t have quinoa, you can replace this with rice.

*** The broth makes this dish. I recommend good quality home-made broth that is heavily seasoned.

NOTE: If scaling this recipe up for a large party with multiple full-size hotel pans (say for 100 people) – follow steps 1-2 but dump all the rice, quinoa, toasted orzo/couscous, and sauteed onion and garlic into a large mixing bowl. Then transfer 10 cups of this mixture to each full-size hotel pan.

Just-Add-Water Cornmeal Pancake Mix. Perfect for Camping and Cooking with Kids!

May 12, 2021

Just-add-water Cornmeal Pancake Mix makes for an easy backcountry breakfast.

Cornmeal pancakes (aka Johnny Cakes) are a fun take on the regular run-of-the-mill pancakes and waffles. We eat a lot of pancakes and waffles at my house. I like to change it up. I developed this easy prep-ahead pancake mix for camping, busy weekday mornings, and for kids cooking in the kitchen. My 7-year-old can now whip these up for herself! Without needing me to get all the ingredients from the high shelves, and then leaving my kitchen a mess at the start of the day😩. This dry mix comes together in just a couple of minutes. When ready to cook up a batch of delicious cornmeal pancakes, simply add water at a ratio of 4 mix: 3 water plus or minus a little bit to your liking. I like cornmeal pancakes with brown butter, honey, and fresh fruit. That’s my favorite sweet combo for breakfast. I also like these savory, with green chilis and cheese for a midday snack or dinner side, or with a poached egg and hot sauce on top for breakfast.

There’s a couple of ingredients you may not have in your kitchen but are worth picking up. Dry Milk Powder is available in the baking section at the grocery store. It is worth having on hand. I use it in Sourdough bread sometimes. It is great for baking cakes and cupcakes. Use 1/4 cup dry milk powder and 1 cup of water for each cup of milk called for in a recipe. I also use Dry Milk in coffee or tea when I’m camping or backpacking. It’s used in my Backcountry Oatmeal Recipe. And if I’m desperate at home for some milk and haven’t had time to run to the store, I’ll mix up some milk from dry milk for the kid’s cereal (though my oldest is getting harder to trick this way). Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer is a non-egg-based powder that helps with thickening and richness and contains a little bit of baking soda for additional leavening power. If you want to make this recipe without purchasing this product, you could substitute a mixture of cornstarch and baking soda. I would do 3 T cornstarch and 1 T baking soda for an 8 cup batch. If you have an egg allergy at home, this recipe is egg-free.

VARIATIONS AND SERVING SUGGESTIONS:

IDEAS FOR SWEET PANCAKES OR WAFFLES

Stir into the mix: banana, mashed cooked pumpkin, apple sauce, cinnamon or pumpkin pie mix, citrus zest, lavender sugar, and/or chopped fresh fruit.

Top With jelly, honey, brown butter, whipped cream, sweetened creme fraiche, fresh fruit or preserved fruit, and/or chopped nuts.

For added richness – substitute water for buttermilk or milk. Add 1 tablespoon vegetable oil or melted butter or coconut oil per cup of dry mix.

Add sourdough starter – 1/2 cup sourdough starter discard for every 1 cup dry mix in addition to the water.

IDEAS FOR SAVORY PANCAKES

Stir into the mix: such as green onion, corn kernels, cooked peppers and onions, bacon or chopped ham, green chilis, and/or cheese.

Top With creme fraiche/ sour cream, butter, red or green enchilada sauce, poached eggs, and/ or hot sauce

For added richness – substitute water for buttermilk or milk. Add 1 tablespoon vegetable oil or melted butter or coconut oil (or bacon or duck fat) per cup of dry mix.

Add sourdough starter – 1/2 cup sourdough starter discard for every 1 cup dry mix in addition to the water.

COOKING TIPS

Once you add the water, let the mixture sit for 5-20 minutes for the cornmeal to soften up a bit. You don’t have to do this, but I like to if I have the time.

Heat the griddle or skillet (or waffle iron) before adding oil or butter. Once the skillet/griddle is hot, reduce the heat to medium.

Add the butter or oil just before adding the batter

Just-Add-Water Cornmeal Pancake Mix

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 1 review

Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
Prep Time: 5
Total Time: 5
Yield: 8 cups dry mix | 64 pancakes 1x
Category: Kitchen Staple
Method: mix
Cuisine: American
Diet: Vegetarian

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Description

This easy make-ahead pancake mix is perfect for camping, cooking with kids, and busy mornings. Simply add water, stir and cook!!

Ingredients

Scale

CORNMEAL PANCAKE DRY-MIX

3 cups fine cornmeal

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups dry milk powder

6 T Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer (Or 3 T Cornstarch + 1 T Baking Soda)

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons baking powder

6 Tablespoons sugar (optional)

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Instructions

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and stir until well combined. Transfer to a 1/2 gallon jar, a large ziplock, or another container. Store in a cool dry place for up to 6 months.

To Make the Pancakes

For 8 medium-sized (4-5 inch diameter) pancakes, mix 1 cup of dry mix with approximately 3/4 cups of water. Whisk until there are no clumps. Let this mixture sit for 5-20 minutes (if you have the time, not required). You may want to add a little more water or dry mix to achieve your preferred consistency.

Preheat your griddle or skillet. Once hot, add your butter or oil and pour in the batter. Reduce the heat to medium/low. When bubbles start to appear on the surface, flip the pancakes over and continue cooking a couple of minutes.

Notes

NOTE: I do not add sugar to my dry mix. I think pancakes are sweet enough when smothered in honey, or maple syrup. I also like having a versatile mix that can be made into savory things. That being said, if you like a sweet pancake, I have recommended a sugar amount in the recipe as “optional”.

Simple Buttermilk Dressing from Scratch

May 4, 2021

A simple spring salad of Snap Peas, Chive and Rosemary blossoms, and Buttermilk Dressing.

This is a delicious and versatile creamy salad dressing that can be made from scratch simply by shaking all ingredients in a jar. I love this buttermilk dressing in the Spring with fresh snap peas, chive, and rosemary blossoms (pictured above). It also compliments tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, cherries, grapes, beets, roasted root vegetables, and can be used as the sauce base for chicken salad, pasta salad, and potato salad.

Variations

This basic recipe is great on its own or jazz it up with your choice of variations.

Buttermilk Ranch – Add fresh dill, parsley, chives, black pepper, onion, and garlic powder, and a dash of Worcestershire.

Creamy Lemon and Herb Dressing – Add minced chives, tarragon, parsley, shallot, black pepper and 1-2 teaspoons dijon mustard.

Sweet Buttermilk Dressing (ideal for fruity salads) – Increase the amount of sugar by 1-2 teaspoons or add 1-2 teaspoons honey.

Mayo Free Buttermilk Dressing – Substitute the mayonnaise for creme fraiche, yogurt, or sour cream. Note, you may want to make half the quantity as the shelf life will be shorter.

Simple Buttermilk Dressing Recipe

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star No reviews

Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 cup 1x
Category: Condiment
Method: Shake
Cuisine: N/A
Diet: Gluten Free

Print Recipe

Description

This simple dressing is a great accompinent to fresh and roasted vegetables, fruit, and prepared salads.

Makes 1 cup | approx. 16 servings

Ingredients

Scale

1/2 cup (100 G) mayonnaise

1/2 cup (100 g) buttermilk

1–1 1/2 (3–5 g) teaspoons salt

1 1/2 (5g) teaspoons sugar

3 Tablespoons (30 g) lemon olive oil (or Good Quality Extra Virgil Olive Oil + zest from 1/4 lemon)

1 Tablespoon (10 g) Rice Wine Vinegar (or white wine vinegar, or white balsamic vinegar)

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Instructions

Add all ingredients to a jar or bottle with a tight-fitting lid and shake until smooth. Alternatively, whisk everything together in a bowl.

Serve immediately or store for up to 1 week.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 Tablespoon

Miner’s Lettuce. The best salad green is wild and free.

April 28, 2021

Miner’s Lettuce, aka Claytonia Perfoliata, is a tasty wild salad green that grows from British Columbia to Guatemala and as far east as the Dakotas. It is prevalent throughout the foothills of California, below 6000 ft, during the winter and spring. This wild edible is high in vitamin C and it is said to have prevented scurvy in the miners, hence its moniker. It also goes by the names of Winter Purslane and Indian Lettuce. All portions of this plant are edible raw and cooked: stem, leaves, and flowers. Miner’s lettuce has a cousin, claytonia sibirica, that grows in Russia, Eastern Europe, Canada, Alaska, and the Western US. It is also edible.

Miner’s lettuce was the first culinary gem I discovered in California. My husband and I moved to the foothills in March of 2009 to help out on his family’s farm. We had recently graduated college and spent most of that year on the road, traveling the US, Honduras, and Guatemala. In other words, we were totally broke by the time we arrived in California. We moved into a “studio” strawbale barn with no indoor plumbing (we would spend the next 4 years there🤣) and started settling into our new life together.

It was the last year before the start of a 7 year drought and it rained non-stop for the entire month of March. When the rain finally subsided, a lush carpet of this Miner’s Lettuce popped up in the fertile nitrogen-rich soils where an old chicken coup had once been behind our barn. The leaves were the size of oranges. That spring, as we searched for jobs amid the Great Recession, we feasted on Miner’s Lettuce, morels, and the “feral” lamb from the family’s property that we butchered on a block and tackle outside our barn. I was thankful for this unexpected bounty that year. Every year when the Miner’s Lettuce comes out, I am reminded of our first spring in California and how much of it we ate!

How to Identify Miner’s Lettuce

Habitat

Miner’s Lettuce is most commonly found in cool moist shady areas. In cold hardiness zones of 7-9, that’s January through May. In colder climates, miner’s lettuce can be found throughout the summer and fall in shaded areas.

Miner’s lettuce grows in wetland and non-wetland environments in a range of soil types from sand and loam to rocky cracks on cliff-sides. The leaf size and flavor varies greatly depending on the soil nutrients. In soils lacking nutrients or a lot of water, the leaves can be as small as dimes and the stem only 2 inches long. In fertile rich topsoils, the leaves will be the size of teacup saucers and the tender stem 12 inches tall or taller.

Features

When young, the stems terminate in an elongated oval/spearlike leaf.
As the leaves mature they grow into triangular-round disk-like leaves at the end of the stem.
As the plant continues to mature, the leaves become perfoliate, the stem passes through the middle of the leaf and terminates in a cluster of small white-pinkish flowers.
Seeds are tiny, black, and shiny.
The stem is tender.

How to Grow Miner’s Lettuce

You can buy seeds for Claytonia and plant them in successive plantings in the fall and late summer for continual harvest. I prefer, however, just to encourage it to grow naturally by allowing some of it to go to seed. It is a prolific self-seeder. As the plants go to seed, I pull them out and shake the seeds of the plant in the area that I want them to grow next year. My lawn is becoming more edible every year.

This patch of Miner’s Lettuce, Chickweed, and “Yard Chard” (escaped from it’s garden bed) is Aila’s favorite spot. It’s amazing how she instinctually gravitates to this patch of vegetation for her outdoor snacking. Then again, she regularly scavenges for “floor scores” inside too….

Culinary Uses

Miner’s Lettuce tastes like a mix between spinach and butter lettuce. It can be used raw, which is my go to method for it. It can also be cooked like swiss chard or spinach, by blanching or sauteeing. A simple salad of Miner’s Lettuce, lemon olive oil OR walnut oil, and shaved parmesan is one of my favorite preparations for this beautiful green. You can mix it into other salad greens mixes. It makes a perfect garnish to dress up any dish.

Miner’s Lettuce salad with smoked demi-dehydrated beets, blue cheese and balsamic reduction.

9 Pro Tips and Recipes for Camp Cooking

April 20, 2021

With this warm weather, I have camping on the brain and am gearing up for my first trip of the season. Camp cooking is my thing! I have catered weddings for 100 people in the backwoods with no running water or kitchen to speak of, and have been responsible for keeping food safe for large crowds while transporting and storing it in coolers. Now that I am more or less retired from the catering biz, I put all that energy and thought into planning a trip’s menu, delegating who brings what, and how to keep food safe 4 days in after the ice melts. Here are my tips for cooking in the woods.

9 pro Tips for Camp Cooking

Keep it simple.
Prep the food ahead of time as much as possible.
Plan and pack strategically.
Extend Ice Life
Eat fresh, ready-to-eat foods first.
Keep a clean camp
Incorporate Wild Foods
Choose the Right Cooking Method For Your Trip
Understand Basic Food Safety

Keep it simple

One thing that I learned early on in my catering career is that, you may want rare beef tenderloin for dinner but if you’re serving it out of chafing dishes at a buffet, it ain’t gonna be what you want it to be. It’s better to adjust your expectations to the realities of your cooking set-up, budget and event logistics and choose items that will work well with what you have to work with.

Depending on what type of camping you are doing you may have single jet burner or a full camp kitchen with a grill over the fireplace and multiple gas burners. No matter what, you will be limited in “refrigeration space.” Whatever your setup, you want to make sure that the dishes you plan and prepare will work for you.

If you have a single jet burner, you should only be cooking meals in one pot, or 2 pots if they are really quick. Breakfast should consist of boiling a pot of water that you use for coffee and oatmeal. If you have a larger camp setup you will have more options but you should still do yourself a favor and keep the preparation as simple as you can so you can spend more time relaxing, because that’s what its all about.

Prep the food ahead of time

I can’t stress this enough. It always seems like there is so much to do as you are preparing to get out of town for a long weekend that it is natural to want to throw everything in the car and deal with it when you get there. But trust me, you want to take the time to prep your food as much as possible before you leave your house. Veggies should be cut and bagged up. Ingredients should be measured out and grouped by meal. Raw meat should be cut and seasoned and very carefully double-bagged in the cooler. Eggs should be cracked and put into mason jars. Pancake mixes should be made. Burritos should be filled, rolled, and wrapped in foil. Tinfoil pouches should be filled and sealed.

You want to do this food prep ahead of time for 3 reasons: 1) to have more time drinking beer, fishing and relaxing around camp 2) to cut down on what you need to bring, 3) for food safety.

Prepping food at camp will never be as efficient as prepping at home. Plus, it takes a lot of stuff to prep food, stuff that you are likely to forget (at least on thing) as you are rushing off – cutting boards, knives, mixing bowls, tongs, whisks, multiple pots and pans, all different seasonings, measuring cups, a sink with running water, and soap. You can leave most of this stuff at home if you prep your food there. If you are prepping raw meat or cracking eggs at camp, it is really hard to wash hands and sanitize cutting boards and surfaces without hot running water. Prepping all ingredients ahead of time means less mess around camp to attract critters, flies, and hornets.

Plan and Pack Strategically

Make a packing list ahead of time, when you are not frazzled. Sit down in a quiet place with a notebook and walk through every meal you are going to make in your head. I use to do this for every catering job I was planning. What will you need to cook and serve it – spatula, tongs, large pot, small pot, frying pan, burner, fuel, grill plate….? What about salt and pepper to finish seasoning it, hot sauce, a squeeze of lemon. Write this all down in list form.

When planning your meals for the camping trip you will want to consider how long your ice will last (probably 2-3 days in an average cooler if you are careful) and bring a mix of shelf-stable snacks and ingredients like dried sausages or jerky, chips, pasta, rice, tortillas, dry soup mixes, dehydrated meal kits, canned beans (if you’re not worried about pack weight), dry milk powder for coffee. If you have space you may want to bring vegetables and fruit that can be held at room temperature for several days (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, squash, cabbage, avocado, and most fruit).

Drinks should be packed in their own cooler so you don’t loose the cold in the food cooler every time someone grabs a drink. If the overnight temperatures are in the 40s or lower, you could go without a drink cooler altogether and just keep the drinks in the shade during the day. They might not be the coolest come evening, but hey… you are roughing it.

Extend Ice Life

One trick I have learned over the years is prepping and freezing meals and using those frozen meals as ice in the cooler. This works great for chili, gumbo, chowder base (minus the cream), breakfast burritos, hotdogs/sausages, and meat. Place these frozen meals in the bottom of the cooler for the 2nd, 3rd or 4th night of your trip. This is especially handy if you don’t have a YETI. If you do have a YETI, you want to be a little careful not to load the cooler up too much with frozen stuff as it may freeze your fruits and veggies.

In the morning, check on the meal you plan to cook for dinner and pull it out as needed to thaw.

Also, don’t buy ice cubes for camping. These are pretty much useless as they will melt in 1-2 days and are not suitable for putting in your drinks. I repeat, do not use the ice floating around in the cooler for your drinks, that’s gross. If you do want ice for your drinks, put cubes in a ziplock back and use them only for that purpose. Use ice blocks instead of cubes. They last way longer. You can also save some money and make these yourself by freezing water in empty juice jugs ahead of time. This way, they won’t leak water all over your food. (If you’ve been reading this blog you probably know by now that food floating around in water is a food safety nightmare of mine).

Eat Fresh, Ready-To-Eat Foods First

In the restaurant industry, ready-to-eat (RTE) foods are considered the riskiest for food born illness. These are foods that will not be reheated and often contain things like mayo, cooked eggs, meat products, or dairy. Think potato salad, egg salad, ranch salad dressing, cut vegetables, sliced turkey, sandwiches, etc. When we are camping, we tend to rely on these dishes because we want to eat fresh foods (not just canned beans and jerky), and we don’t want to cook every meal. Plan on eating these fresh RTE foods in the first and second day of the trip while cooler temps are optimal and save those items that can take a little abuse for the 3rd and 4th day and beyond. Things like salsa, yogurt, cheese (esp. hard), hard salami, fermented and pickled things, and butter will be ok for 1-2 days of non-optimal temperatures so long as they are not contaminated with germs from your hands, surfaces, utensils, other foods or yucky lukewarm germ-filled cooler water. Make sure to check the cooler temperature. It should be under 41 F (industry standard), but you can get away with 45 F for 1 day. RTE foods that are at or above 45 F for prolonged periods should be discarded. You can buy a thermometer to put in the cooler and I recommend you do. I bet you will be shocked by how fast a cooler warms to the danger range, unless you have a YETI, because those things stay cold!

Anything left in your cooler after the trip is done should be discarded unless the cooler maintained a temperature of 41 F or less the whole time.

Keep a Clean Critter Free Camp

This is much easier if you do the bulk of your food prep at home before the trip. But no matter what, there will be dishes to clean, food packages, garbage, the smell of food cooking over the fire…. All these things attract flies, hornets, mice, raccoons, coyotes, and bears.

To keep a critter free camp:

Cook and wash dishes away from the tents. Preferably 100 ft or more. Your eating space and cooking space should be separated from your sleeping space.
Dump sink water as far away from your camp as possible or clean your dishes in streams, rivers or lakes away from camp, at least 100 ft.
Wash your hands and face before you go to bed. Did you know bears can smell over a mile away? Some estimate that they can smell over 10 miles away! You don’t want to smell like your dinner as you are laying in your tent asleep.
Store all food (including that granola bar in your day pack), and garbage away from animals. Either hang it in trees (don’t forget the rope and carabiner), in bear-proof canisters, in the trunk of your car, in bear lockers if the campsite provides them, in your bear-proof Yeti, or in your boat – pushed offshore.
Burn all your paper garbage and food scraps in the fire. Scrape plates after the meal into the fire and make sure everything is burned by the time the last person goes to sleep and puts out the fire. Don’t burn plastic or cans. Those should be the only thing in your garbage bag.
Wipe any counters or food prep areas and remove all scraps (to the fire), and all food to the bear-proof containers.
If you are in an undeveloped camp with no bathroom, go do your business away from camp by preferably 100 ft or more and bury that shit by at least 6 inches. Don’t forget the shovel. It doesn’t hurt to cover it all up with a big rock if available.

Incorporate Wild Foods

One of the best things about camping is catching and gathering wild foods. It fills the days between meals and keeps the kids busy and entertained. Huckleberries, thimbleberries, blackberries, wild strawberries, morels, turkey tail mushrooms, miner’s lettuce, chickweed, salmon, trout, clams, mussels, and crawdads are all great scores. I highly recommend picking up a book on edible plants in your area and taking it with you. Make space in your meal plan to work these items in but don’t rely on them. For example, pack sausage gumbo and if you are lucky to catch a bunch of crawfish, add them to the meal. Or plan on making pesto pasta and if you catch fish or clams, incorporate those into the dish. If not, no one will go hungry.

Rice, Gumbo and Crawfish on Camp Chef Stove

Camp Gumbo with fresh caught crawfish.

Choose the Right Cooking Method for your trip

Some factors to consider are your skill level, your menu, how big your group is, how far into the woods you have to haul your stuff, what kind of fuels are allowed where you’re going.

CAMP FIRE COOKING

Campfire cooking is the most rewarding method and it requires you to bring the least amount of stuff, however, it also takes the most skill. If you have never done it, practice in your back yard a couple times before your trip. The possibilities are endless with campfire cooking. You can grill, bake, smoke, rotisserie and cook with pots and pans. Some of these methods are pretty advanced and require elaborate set-ups at camp. However, grilling and cooking in a pot over coals is something everyone can do.

When cooking with a campfire the most important thing to remember is you do not want to cook over flame! You want to get the fire burning ahead of time to make a bed of coals, spread the coals out and place your pots and pans or grill rack over the coals. You should start your fire at a bare minimum, 1 hour before you plan to start cooking and factor in extra time during cooking too. You also want to rig the cooking set up so there are hot spots, medium-heat spots, and low-heat spots. You do this by piling the coals up high and close to the grill grate for the hot spot and letting them taper off for the medium and low-heat spots.

If you’re camping in California/the West you may run into fire restrictions which is definitely a consideration. If you are free to have a fire and gather wood for it, make sure that you are clearing adequate space around the fire ring. It should be bare dirt for 5 ft or more. You can use your foot to sweep away pine needles and dry leaves. Make sure there are no tree branches immediately above your fire ring. And don’t make a fire bigger than it needs to be. A slow steady fire will require less wood gathering and will last longer.

Charcoal Grills

I never use them. In my opinion if you are going to cook over charcoal you might as well cook over a campfire. That being said, I know a lot of people do use them and if that’s what you are comfortable with and you have space for the charcoal and the grill, by all means, have at it.

Propane burners

I have used a 3 burner Camp Chef to reheat food for parties of over 100 people and camping trips for 10. This stove breaks down pretty small relative to its capacity, requires one standard propane tank, is really easy to use, can accommodate large pots, has the ability to both simmer and crank the BTUs. You can also stand while cooking instead of being hunched over a single burner on the ground or a fire ring, which is an added bonus. For groups of 10 or more, I highly recommend this method. This stove requires you to be able to drive a car or boat to your camp site.

Propane camp grills

These are easily portable grills that accommodate either burners or grill grates and use small propane tanks. These are great for groups under 10 when a 4 quart pot is the largest pot you will be using. For larger groups you will need, or wish you had, more than one of these and if you’re going to bring more than one, you probably have space to bring a Camp Chef instead.

Single Burners

These are used primarily for backpacking as they are small and lightweight. I have used an old Coleman single burner stove that uses white gas for decades in the back country. I don’t think they make my model anymore. As I have been slowly upgrading my camping gear over the years, this is one item I haven’t switched out for the newer lighter more efficient technology. It is heavy compared to the featherlight backpacking stoves but you can adjust the heat from low to high which for me, is really important. Many of the other lightweight stoves just blast the heat and are meant to boil water for dehydrated backpacking meal kits or coffee and not much else.

UNDERSTAND BASIC FOOD SAFETY

There are a couple of food safety protocols that every camper and camp cook should know. Here they are:

Avoid Cross-Contamination

Cross contamination happens when germs/pathogens from one person/surface transfer to another location. When it comes to food, the classic example is cutting raw chicken on a cutting board and then cutting raw salad ingredients.

There are many less obvious examples. For instance, many people carry the bacteria staph. aureaus on their skin. On your skin, it is benign. When this bacteria is able to grow and reproduce under the right circumstances (RTE foods at room temp. for prolonged periods of time), it can cause violent severe illness. If you have this bacteria on your hands and use your hands to touch RTE foods, and those foods hang out in sub optimal temperatures for hours, you could ruin your whole party.

Also, if your camping and prepping raw meat and don’t have the ability to wash your hands with soap in hot running water for 20 seconds (industry standard), then you probably have some potentially harmful bacteria under your fingernails. When you reach your hands into the water in your cooler from melted ice, you have transferred those bacteria to your cooler water. Now, the exterior of every single container that is in contact with that cooler water is contaminated with those pathogens and when you grab them to make lunch, you transfer them to the foods you are touching.

Now, don’t freak out! There are a couple simple solutions. 1) Don’t use your hands to touch RTE foods and never submerge your hands in cooler water (drain it as the ice melts) or any other liquid that contains food (pickles, etc). Use utensils! 2) Wash your hands the best you can and use hand sanitizer. 3) Prep raw meat at home and use tongs or gloves to handle raw meat at camp.

KEEP RTE FOOD COLD

It is especially important to keep foods that will not be cooked and are not acidic (like pickles) out of the danger zone 45F-130F.

Germs like lukewarm to warm moist environments. That’s their happy place. That’s where they grow and multiply and some reproduce and create harmful toxins in that environment.

KEEP THINGS DRY

Germs don’t jump (at least the common food born pathogens don’t), they swim. Puddles of water, wet foods and meat juices are the method that these germs use to move from one surface to another. Let your dishes air dry. Hang your cooking utensils using a string tied between trees in your camp kitchen, or a low branch. Drain cooler water as the ice melts. Avoid leaving anything in pooled water.

When in doubt – cook it longer

Most of the world relies on cooking, not refrigeration, to make food safe to eat. If you have travelled to Central and South America, Africa and Asia and been to the open air food markets there, you likely saw chicken meat and sides of beef covered in flies at tropical, humid, warm temperatures all day. Stacks of eggs are commonly kept at room temperature. These aren’t the eggs to poach or make aioli out of! These are for scrambling or baking cakes. And perhaps you know the safest foods in these places are soups and street foods, cooked right in front you and hot of the grill. It is commonplace throughout much of the world to make a big pot of soup for the week, leave it on the stove top and reheat it every time you want to eat it. Our health guidelines in the US do not recommend this. You can get ill from cooked food held in the danger zone for prolonged periods of time that are not reheated thoroughly.

If your cooler gets too warm, all is not lost. Just make sure you heat your food thoroughly!! Planning ahead will ensure that the foods left in cooler at the end of your trip are foods intended to be reheated. Even botulism, the scariest and hardest food born illness to control for, can be prevented by holding food above 180 F for 10 minutes. The boiling point is 206-220 depending on altitude. In the absence of a good, accurate thermometer, rely on boiling as your temperature gauge and boil your food for 10 minutes.