Post Trots

OK, I’m back and I’m, well, I’ll survive.

There is nothing worse than camp cramp.[1] Getting the trots when you’re out “on campaign” (as Bigglest Boy calls it) is not even close to fun.

Before I managed to do what I did to make myself violently ill[2], we had a great time looking for evidence of prehistoric life[3], pine cones[4], and rocks small enough to throw but big enough to make a splash[5].

I contributed three items to the Saturday Dinner, courtesy of my mom: Red Hoppin’ Chicken, Rainbow Cole Slaw and 7-Beans.

Red Hoppin’ Chicken

3 lbs cut-up chicken thigh meat
1 cup unsalted butter*, softened
1 lemon
3 cloves minced garlic
5 cloves garlic
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
6 whole onions
4 carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces
4 stalks celery, chopped
6 potatoes, peeled
3 tablespoons paprika
3 or 4 fresh rosemary sprigs

Prepare Dutch oven (grease the Dutch Oven, dig hollow in the ashes, set Dutch oven in it, get hot coals ready**).

Rinse the chicken and drain. Zest the lemon. Slice remaining lemon into quarters and place to the side. With hand mixer combine butter*, lemon zest, minced garlic and 1 tablespoon paprika.

Smear it all over the chicken meat. Shake some of the salt, pepper and paprika on it, squeeze the quartered lemon.

Pour chicken into prepared, Dutch oven, add sliced vegetables, cover with rosemary sprigs and whole garlic on the top. Slowly roast under slow-to-medium coals** for about an hour.

* I used shortening, as we were roughing it. My mom had it as butter AND pork lard. That’s how the Midwestern Peoples won the war.

** We had a meat/oven thermometer. We’d keep it at a slow simmer.

Rainbow Cole Slaw

2 cups cabbage, sliced very thin*
2 cups (total) carrots, red cabbage, broccoli, sliced very thin*
1 cup mayonnaise
½ cup red vinegar
¼ cup sugar
2 tsp celery seed

Mix it all together before you go camping, put it in the cooler.

* Of course I cheated and used the kind already cut-up in the produce section. I took Shop Class, not Home Ec.

[1] OK there are lots of things that are worse. That Ebola stuff doesn’t sound too nice, and your run-of-the-mill flesh eating bacteria sounds like a bitch. Still.

[2] I think we narrowed it down to the wassail: a deceptively powerful punch-like concoction of apple juice and fruit, well, chunks. It was on a low flame, in a large pot; alcoholic, with both fermented cider and distilled something-I-can’t-pronounce, that sounds like “cognac.”

[3] None confirmed, although all science party agreed that the site was probably thoroughly picked over by previous scientific teams.

[4] 35. Most were categorized and returned to the field.

[5] At least three dozen rocks were discovered. There will be a report to Monsieur from the Two Bigglest Boys concerning ballistics, weight ratios, and water-dispersing properties.