_bread And Horse Wrecks Recipes

MEDIEVAL HORSEBREAD

Steps:

• Place barley in a jar and cover with water. Seal jar and let stand 24 hours.
• Drain, saving the liquid, rinse and place back in the jar. Cover with a towel and let stand, turned upside down, overnight. Repeat the rinse / drain process three times more, saving the water each time.
• Wash dried yellow split peas and place them in a medium sized bowl. Cover with water and leave overnight to soak.
• Mix together the starter, flours, salt and 350 mL barley water (drained from step 2) until a thick wet dough forms. Leave in the fridge, covered, overnight. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour to warm up before proceeding.
• Drain split peas and add to a food processor with the barley. Pulse to coarsely chop, set aside.
• Knead rested dough for 10 minutes with the dough hook or 20 minutes by hand, adding flour as necessary to achieve a slightly sticky, but not wet, dough.
• Knead in the chopped split pea mixture.
• Form into a ball and place on a heavily floured tea towel.
• Place towel-wrapped loaf in a basket, bowl or banneton and leave to rise 24 hours at cool room temperature (don't try to shortcut this step - it's a heavy loaf and needs a *long* rise).
• Place a large baking tray or pizza stone in the oven and heat oven to 450F (preferably convection).
• Turn loaf out onto a parchment lined rimless baking sheet or pizza peel and transfer to the hot pan or baking stone.
• Score loaf with a sharp knife and place in the oven.
• Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven to 425F (preferably convection) and bake another hour.
• Turn out on a wire rack to cool.

_STEW

Steps:

• My pocket dictionary defines stew as "to boil slowly" or "a dish of stewed meat and vegetables served in gravy". So even for those folks whose cooking talents are stretched by just trying to boil water, they only have to add some meat and veggies to make a stew. In other words, beginning Dutch oven cooks and stews were made for each other. Someone with a new Dutch oven, wanting to cook something, is just like a student pilot landing an airplane. Any landing you walk away from is good, some are just better than others! For first time Dutch oven cooks, that translates to if your dinner guests do not leave the supper table in search of immediate medical attention, it must've been okay! As with flying and many other things for that matter, the results usually improve with a little practice.You can make a stew as simple as Tony Latham's "Warden Stew" or create a masterpiece containing exotic vegetables and spices. If you're bored with just plain old cooking and you want to try "ethnic cooking" there is no better place to start than with a stew. For example, take your Great-great-great Grandmother's stew recipe which she brought West in a covered wagon and add some oriental vegetables and seasoning to create a stew with a distinctive, new taste.Most of us who hunt big game, when rummaging around our freezers, leave those packages of meat labeled "stew" until everything else has been used. At least the way I cut up my animals, the amount of stew meat always exceeds what I'd call prime cuts.Though you can't cut chunks of elk shank with a fork when fried in butter, to me it's no reason to leave it till last. Cooked slow in a Dutch oven with your favorite veggies and spices, an old elk shank will produce as many oh's and ah's as tenderloin sauteed in butter and garlic! A good mathematician could fill a fair sized room with nothing but stew recipes by calculating all the combinations and permutations of possible ingredients for stew. So if you fancy your self a creative person, take your new Dutch oven and a "Stew" recipe and create a master piece! Around my house or camp, stew tends to end up as a "kitchen sink" dish. i.e. everything except the kitchen sink is likely to be thrown in the pot. As a result no two are the same. Besides being easy to make, nothing tastes better when one comes in from the cold than a steaming bowl of stew and a chunk of homemade bread. On more than one occasion the last night in camp, dinner consisted of some leftover meat and everything else left in the bottom of the camp box with some baking powder biscuits to soak up the juices. What ever the occasion, whether at home or in camp, A Dutch oven stew will fill'em up and keep'em smilin'A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Camp Chili, Stews, Soups and Sauces

_HOW TO COOK A COOT

Steps:

• If you're not a duck hunter or married to a duck hunter, just skip this recipe. Personally, I've never tried to cook a coot, primarily because I've never even shot at an "Ivory Billed Mallard". Remember, this is the guy who will eat every thing except grits and green lima beans. In this modern age, it seems to me, too many people blame events in their childhood for the mistakes or failures they make as adults. Some rightly so, but I can't help but feel a lot of it is over done!So where is all this leading, you ask yourself? Yup! you guessed it, my childhood. Since my dad first took me duck hunting at age three, the list of things I've done in life longer than I've duck hunted is fairly short. Memories of those first duck hunts are still vivid. Back in that distant past, I learned that the preferred duck of those who wait at home while others duck hunt, to be mallards. Those of the green headed variety! My dad, being a pretty fair hand with a shotgun, seldom got skunked in those days. He'd been there before, but it was a new experience for me, just four years old. About the only thing flying in the marsh that day were coots, which Dad had several different adjectives to describe. I didn't understand why dad didn't shoot them as they patterned by. At that time I obviously thought-ducks are ducks! Wrong! How long I pestered Dad to shoot them, I can't remember. What I do remember is him saying, "Mother didn't like any kind of ducks except those with green heads" and it wouldn't be very smart to take something home she didn't like. Though I was just four years old, that part I understood! I'm sure Dad first passed this recipe on that day. Over the years, Dad repeated this recipe so many times I've memorized it without ever having cooked it.A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Fowl & Fish

_LAS PIEDRAS

Steps:

• For those of you who didn't take high school Spanish this translates to 'The Rocks'. Las Piedras Ranch owned by Dwain and Sandy Riney of Montgomery, Texas, is aptly named. Located in Real County, WNW of San Antonio, Las Piedras Ranch exemplifies the Texas 'Hill Country'! Their ranch, though not large by Texas standards, supports a healthy population of native wildlife and is also host to numerous exotic species. These wild, free ranging exotics escaped from neighboring ranches years ago. Dwain and Sandy recently invited me down to cook for some of their hunters. This particular hunt is a 'special hunt' for both the Riney family and the hunters. Once a year Dwain and Sandy donate a hunt for exotic species at Las Piedras to the Montgomery County Cattle Barons' Ball and benefit auction. The money raised from this annual event benefits the Montgomery County Unit of the American Cancer Society. In the course of my visit Dwain pulled out the 'ranch recipe box' and selected several favorites of his and Sandy's that he thought I'd like. In addition Sandy has since called me with a couple of other old family favorites. We hate to think of family heirlooms disappearing, but it happens when you prepare these recipes. My thanks to Dwain and Sandy for sharing them and inviting me down to share their corner of heaven in the Texas Hill Country!Spiced with More Tall Tales - Appetizers

_BROTHER-IN-LAW DUCK

Steps:

• Throw the mud duck in a roaster that was last cleaned out by your hound dog. Mix all of the ingredients, except caster oil and beer. Stuff the duck with this mixture. Give the duck a good dose of castor oil and then pour beer over all. (Beer is very important since brothers-in-law go into a frenzy when they smell it.) Cook in oven on low heat for 1 hour. Garnish and serve piping hot. If this does not stop your brother-in-law from coming to your house and drinking up all of your beer or asking for seconds or thirds, there is only one sure ingredient that you can add next time. It is illegal and you may have to do some time for it, but it probably would be worth it. Add ARSENIC! LOTS OF ARSENIC!!A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Fowl & Fish

_GAME WARDEN SCRAMBLE

Steps:

• Start with the local rancher giving a domestic goat to a subject. Have the subject skin the goat in his yard. Stir in a nearsighted informant who sees the subject skinning the goat. Have the informant find the game warden and advise him of subject skinning a deer. Let the excited game warden stew for 4 hours waiting for search warrant.Once game warden has received a search warrant and is thoroughly stewed, let him serve it on subject and find goat.Mix all together and you have a wasted day. Put egg on game warden's face.THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "A game warden can always be relied upon to waste a day trying to get your goat."A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Meat in Camp

_BREAD AND HORSE WRECKS

Steps:

• One might think these two topics have little in common and under most circumstances such an assumption would be valid. However, on one occasion I observed the first cause the second! Here is how it happened. The last couple of days of August finds the trail heads into the Middle Fork busy, as sheep hunters head in to set up camp and do some last minute scouting before the season opens on September first. In order to kill two birds with one trip, so to speak, I planned to trail in with four head of stock and work sheep hunters for a few days. When finished, I'd leave two head with an outfitter and pick them up later during elk season. With miles to drive and ride, I left home before the grey light of dawn. When I pulled into the trailhead and unloaded my stock, two fellows, already there, were sorting gear and making up horse packs. They had two saddle horses and two pack horses in various stages of undress. As I unloaded gear, they hustled over for a little conversation. It took just a few minutes to learn they were headed for Waterfall Creek. They told me they hoped to make it to Pole Creek that night and on into Waterfall Creek the next.I'll never be a unanimous choice for the "Packers Hall of Fame", but it didn't take an old hand to see these two guys qualified for "Pilgrim" status. (Volume Two of this series will deal with "Pilgrims" in greater detail.) Anyway, they were still within sight of their truck when the first of several wrecks occurred. I watched them try to balance and jury rig the two outsize loads so they'd ride. In order to give them a head start I made up my packs and ate a lunch of sardines and crackers before I packed up and headed out.Going down the old two-rut road, I saw signs things might be unravelling for these guys. In two different places the tracks showed they'd stopped and re-set their packs. I don't like to bet on someone elses misfortune, but this for sure didn't look like a good bet! For anyone who's ridden the Camas Creek Trail, they already know Big Dry Gulch offers the only real good spot to horse camp in the fourteen miles from the trailhead to the mouth of Camas Creek. I caught up to these guys about a half mile short of Big Dry Gulch. Where I caught up to them, the trail was not wide enough to get my string past, so I pulled up and waited. Trying to repack kitchen boxes in the middle of a trail on a buzzed up pack horse will try the patience of any saint. Suffice it to say none of the adjectives or adverbs from the conversation between those two belong in a cook book. I watched as one fellow rearranged canned goods while the other tried to tie a flatland version of a diamond hitch. Among the canned goods, I could see several "cardboard tubes" of store bought, taste like homemade, ready to bake biscuits. These guys knew they were holding me up and were hurrying as best they could. Within about fifteen minutes they were ready to head out again. As they took off I held back a little ways just for a cushion in case they had more problems. Even from a distance I could hear the canned goods rattling in the bottom of their pack boxes. They'd packed their kitchen on a bay horse who, it appeared to me, had little experience as a pack horse. He kept trying to walk wide of the trail and get up next to his buddy. Within about 200-300 yards of Big Dry Gulch this old bay horse again went wide of the trail, it having slipped his mind, with his load, that he was now a couple feet wider than normal. When the off-side pack box smacked a big granite boulder several things all started to happen at once. He'd hit so hard he stepped sideways into the horse he was trying to pass. This horse, being ridden by the owner of the offending pack horse, responded by jumping ahead into the rear of the pack horse in front. The chain reaction continued to include the lead horse as well. Now, both riders began screaming various adjectives, adverbs, and non-complimentary nouns!Up to this point, things weren't too bad. Within seconds, control appeared to be within their grasp. Then the second stage ignited. The horse, who started it all, had just about calmed down when those biscuit-bearing cardboard tubes spontaneously began to explode. I'm not sure what it sounded like to this old horse, but whatever it was, he decided it wasn't in his contract to haul. Every time another tube gave up a load of ready to bake biscuits, this old horse would buck a different direction. For the minute or so it took him to buck the whole load off, he looked like he belonged in a rough stock string on the rodeo circuit! Not to be outdone, the other pack horse got in the spirit of things and both loads ended up scattered over a fairly wide area. For the first five minutes after the dust cleared, the only word I heard either guy say which could be printed here is "you"! Fortunately, no visible injuries were suffered, but I suspect if those two guys ever get ahold of this cook book they'll suffer flashbacks or latent mental trauma for awhile. Anyway... I pulled off at Big Dry Gulch, tied my stock up and gave them a hand. The pack box, which formerly contained the pressurized biscuit bearing cardboard tubes, now held an amorphous blob-like mixture of raw biscuit dough, eggs and egg shells, orange juice, maple syrup, and soy sauce covered cans. We dumped this mess as far off the trail as we could. If only the next party down the trail had been a film crew shooting special effects footage for a sci-fi horror film. In this case a picture would have indeed told a story worth a thousand words. It honestly looked like a quivering, glistening, gob of mutant protoplasm from an alien planet.An in-depth analysis of this situation might well yield several "morals to this story". i.e. Don't pack pressurized containers on a green broke pack horse if you do pack such containers, make sure to pad them so they won't release their contents prematurely, or if you want fresh bread in camp, pack the ingredients and bake it once you get there! A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Bread in Camp