Campfire Chili and Cornbread

Happy New Year to everyone!

We had planned our annual winter camping trip to a heated cabin in a provincial park during the first week of the new year.  Two days before we were set to go, we got a call from the park saying they had to cancel our reservation, as the cabin was infested with bed bugs. There were no alternative accommodations available.  We were disappointed.  We had booked this trip five months in advance and were looking forward to our annual adventure.  However, we did not want to contend with bed bugs, and we realized the park is popular and was fully booked.  The silver lining was that we received a full refund, including the reservation fee.

So instead of hunkering down in the wilderness, we took a staycation at home.  We played board games and went to look at a festive light display by the waterfront.  My daughter and I were a bit under the weather with some lingering coughs, so we passed on the hiking, skating and swimming that we would have otherwise done.  We did get out to do some shopping and errands, and with some of the money we saved from our cancelled trip, we upgraded our camping gear with the purchase of a new fire grill.  It’s a heavy duty raised grill that we can use in our backyard or for car camping.  This afternoon, we tested it out by cooking over the fire.

Last year I received from my husband a cookbook on cooking with cast iron.  I skimmed through the recipes and settled on campfire chili and homemade cornbread.  We have two cast iron dutch ovens between our camping gear and home equipment, so I put them both to work.  I used the chili recipe as a guideline, and added my own ingredients, including a heap of mushrooms, as well as the last of the sweet peppers saved from our garden, and some of our own garlic.  For the cornbread, I followed the recipe in the cookbook, but reduced the sugar.

Once the fire was blazing bright, we knocked it down and placed the new grill over the flames.  I put the chili pot directly over the heat of the flames, and the lidded cornbread mixture off to the side.  I’m pleased that the grill was sufficiently big and sturdy to hold both pots.  I browned the ground beef with the onions and peppers before adding the rest of the ingredients and covering it all with the lid.  The cornbread I rotated a few times, and adjusted the wood and coals underneath so that I thought it had enough heat, but not too much.  I checked on the chili occasionally and gave it a stir each time.  After thirty minutes covered, I checked on the cornbread, too: it was rising, but not quite done.  After 10 minutes more, I looked at it again, then tested it for doneness with the marshmallow fork, which came out clean.  We took the hot pots inside to serve dinner, carrying them with my heavy-duty fireproof oven mitts.  We let the fire burn down, then extinguished it and came in to eat.

The chili was delicious.  The cornbread was good, too, though slightly charred on part of the bottom edge, and very crumbly.  I think that next time, I will try my standard cornbread recipe from a different cookbook, so that the loaf holds together better.  I will also rotate the pot more frequently, and we will manage the fire differently so that the cornbread bakes more over coals than flames.  Overall, we were pleased with our meal, and satisfied that we got our outdoor cooking experience, even though we had to stay home.