“Cooking on a Stick”

When 11-year-old Jordan Herron has gone camping in the past, his meals were pretty plain. 

Herron said, “We’d roast wieners and have chips, trail mix and cereal. That’s about all.” 

But, the sixth grader at HMS Christian Academy in Dittmer, Mo., has a much bigger menu of campfire cooking to pick from now. Last month, he took part in a “Cooking on a Stick” workshop put on by the Missouri Conservation Commission. 

Herron was one of more than 40 St. Louis area kids and parents who took part in two outdoor sessions in the Rockwood Conservation Area in western St. Louis County. The cooking lessons are part of a popular “Wild Wednesday” series that teach children outdoor skills. 

The kids learned three different ways to cook things over a campfire. Some foods you can cook on a stick. But, other foods you wrap in foil and cook right in the fire. 

And, finally, there are those foods you bake in a cardboard oven.

When the instructor talked about the cardboard oven, 10-year-old Luke Dang immediately asked, “Why doesn’t the cardboard burn?” Dang will be at Sperring Middle School in the Lindbergh School district this fall. 

Volunteer naturalist John Schroeder showed Luke and the others how to coat the inside of the cardboard box with aluminum foil so the heat doesn’t get to the cardboard. Rather, the heat is reflected around the food in the oven to bake it. 

Naturalist Keri Lanning then began cooking foods in all three ways at the same time. 

She helped the kids bake biscuits on a stick. At the same time, cinnamon-flavored apples were frying in a foil pouch in the fire and a special kind of pizza was cooking in the oven. 

Lanning said the oven can be used to bake even more elaborate foods such as chicken, cakes and bread. 

She said you can cook breakfasts, lunches and dinners. And the kids even got recipes for cooking desserts. (For complete list of “Cooking on a Stick” menu ideas, see below.)

Michelle Currie is a 10-year-old who goes to Our Lady of Sorrows School in south St. Louis. She said she came to the outdoor class to get ideas she can use on an upcoming Girl Scout camping trip. 

She said she liked the idea of baking the biscuit dough on a stick over the fire. However, she admitted she didn’t cook it long enough and it was still a little “doughy” on the inside. 

Tabitha Hagood is a 12-year-old student at Cornerstone Christian Academy in St. Clair, Mo. She said she most enjoyed the oven cooking. “That was neat and the pizza was good too,” she said. 

Luke Dang was thinking about how to adapt the cardboard oven to family’s his next camping trip. 

Volunteer Schoeder set up the oven by first taking some hot charcoal embers from the campfire and setting them on stones near the main fire. He put an iron grill over the coals. The unbaked pizzas were put on foil on the grill. Then, the foil-coated cardboard box was put over the whole thing like a hood. 

Dang said his family has a charcoal grill they take on camping trips. “We could put the cardboard hood right on our grill,” he said. 

The outdoor cooking class started with a discussion of fire safety in the woods. Then, the kids scouted around the area for kindling wood. 

Lanning and Schroeder showed how to build the fire to get maximum cooking benefit. 

First, they put some charcoal briquettes in the center and built a teepee of small sticks and rolled paper over the charcoal. After lighting the kindling, they put increasingly larger pieces of wood on top.

After the fire burns for awhile, it’s easy to dig out the charcoal with tongs and use those embers inside the cardboard oven for maximum heat.

After the cooking was done, the kids got to sample the biscuits, fried apples and pizza. 

They also got a lesson on the importance of putting your campfire completely out to avoid forest or grass fires. Schroeder also warned about throwing water directly on stones you might have around your fire. 

“They might be hot and throwing cool water on them might make they explode,” he said.
 
 

  Menu Ideas 

Here are the recipes that were used in last month’s “Cooking on a Stick” outdoor classes by Missouri Conservation Commission naturalist Keri Lanning:

For Breakfast 
     Breakfast in a Bag
Ingredients: 
12 eggs
12 pieces of bacon
12 paper bags (seamless)
salt and pepper

Gather the top of a bag with string and fasten to a stick. Place bacon in the bottom of each bag and allow to warm over the coals until sack is coated with grease. Break an egg on the top of the bacon. Roll the bag down in one-inch folds and poke with a stick. Continue to warm over the coals for five minutes. 

     Muffins
Ingredients: 
1 bag of muffin mix
1 orange

Mix the muffin mix with water in a zip-lock bag. Cut an orange in half and remove the orange pulp from both halves, keeping the peel halves intact. Pour mix into one peel half and cover with other half. Put this in foil. Place foil wrapper at the edge of the fire and cook until middle is spongy like a cake. 

For Other Meals: 
    Potato Pouch Mix 
Ingredients:
3 potatoes
mix of vegetables
butter
heavy duty foil

Cut potatoes into cubes and place in foil. Add vegetables, butter and seasonings. Place at edge of fire to warm for 15 minutes. 

    Cozy Dogs
Ingredients:  
1 tube of biscuits
hot dogs

Place hot dog on a stick and wrap uncooked biscuit dough around hot dog. (For a cheese hot dog, wrap slice of cheese around hot dog before wrapping both in biscuit dough.) Warm over the fire until biscuit is golden brown.

    Pizza
Ingredients: 
1 package of English muffins
1 can of tomato sauce
1 package of shredded mozzarella cheese
cardboard oven
raised cooking rack

Cut top and part of one side out of cardboard box. Coat the inside of whole box with aluminum foil. Make sure the foil overlaps all the cut edges of the box. 
Spread the tomato sauce on English muffins halves and sprinkle with cheese. Place mini pizzas on a cooking rack and move a few coals from the fire under the rack. Place cardboard oven over rack and cook for about 10 minutes or until the cheese melts. You can be create and add other toppings if you like!

For Dessert: 
     Cinnamon Brown Bears
Ingredients: 
squeeze butter or melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon 
hot dog buns

Roll hot dog buns in butter and then in cinnamon and sugar. Wrap in foil and place at the edge of fire. Warm for five minutes while turning frequently. 

     Fried Apples
Ingredients: 
apples
butter
cinnamon and sugar mix
foil

Cut out core of apples. Fill core with butter, cinnamon and sugar. Wrap tightly in foil to keep in liquids. Warm over coals for about 10 minutes.