Camping Tools

We have the coolest cooking "pan" for our camping adventures. It is an old lid from a wash machine. We found out the hard way that they can't be lids from newer machines, but that's another story. Ron uses it exclusively to cook everything we eat when camping. But the fun part is watching him clean it from use to use. Here he is getting started. First he takes a piece of wood and scrapes off most of the grease and whatever else is there. Then he uses a paper towel to clean the heavy stuff off..



Next he puts it on a nice hot fire and heats the rest of the grease up so it is runny. Cleans it with another paper towel, and this time he adds a wad of aluminum foil to scrape it all off. i have no idea why the aluminum foil makes such a big difference but he always uses it. Then he heats up the pan one more time. After all what germs can live under hot conditions?



Then we're ready to cook away! Bacon is the best done on this pan, though we have cooked burgers and brats and potatoes and other vegetables. We have had people we're camping with watch as he cleans this thing up and then refuse to eat any of the food we fix. it does look a bit unsanitary, I guess since we put no soap or water to the thing since we've gotten it. If you used cast iron you wouldn't either, and i don't see that as much different.

We also have this handy little thing, now too. The Dutch Oven. It operates more like an oven than a grill and we're still getting used to it. We fixed meatloaf in it for this trip and that worked right well! Desserts will be a snap in this thing once we figure it all out. our first try with this and we burned a perfectly good pot roast to a crisp. Oh well.