I just heard of “Campsgiving” in the last week before Thanksgiving. Some people actually go camping over Thanksgiving and cook their entire meal outside. Other people try to incorporate something camping related into the their meal, prepare part of the meal outside, eat their meal outside, cook food that was harvested or gathered by them, etc. The idea is to do something to incorporate nature, nature skills, and an appreciation of your food and outdoors into the Thanksgiving meal.
As soon as I heard of this, I thought that it was a great idea, and right in line with what I am trying to promote with IOTN. We happened to be hosing Thanksgiving at our house, so I had liberty to incorporate what I wanted into the meal. I felt it would be a great way to practice outdoor skills and provide a learning experience for the boys and my nephew.
We made Dutch oven cornbread. I want to thank Fresh Off the Grid for the recipe that I worked from and subsequently modified. I made a basic cornbread, opting not to add any cheese or chiles as suggested. I have a slightly larger Dutch oven and was cooking for twelve, so I doubled the recipe. Here is how it worked out:
First, I mixed 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, and some honey with 2 cups of cornmeal, 1 cup of flower, 2 tablespoons of baking powder, and 2 teaspoons of salt. Once all of this was mixed together, I brought it outside along with my Dutch oven.
Next, I started the fire. Despite my backyard firestarting, I opted for charcoal briquettes for better temperature control. Also, since I was using the fire bowl on my patio, I used 30 briquettes as I figured that heat would be lost out of the bottom of the fire bowl.
With the briquettes started, I separated eighteen of them and placed the Dutch oven over the remaining twelve. The Dutch oven quickly heated and I melted 4 tablespoons of butter in the pan.
With the butter melted, I poured the batter into the pan as well.
Next, I placed the lid on top, and arranged the remaining eighteen coals across the lid.
I let the cornbread cook for 20 minutes, then I checked it. I looked pretty good and I let it cook for just a couple of more minutes, it wasn’t more than 25 minutes total. Here was the end result.
That’s a pretty good looking cornbread! It was tasty too, especially good right when I took it out of the Dutch oven. Plus we had fresh, hot cornbread without using up oven space that is a premium when preparing Thanksgiving.
I’m glad that we made cornbread outside for campsgiving. It brought a little bit of the outdoors into our Thanksgiving meal and was a great excuse to practice cooking in the Dutch oven.
Ben