Lentil Chili

We tried out the lemonade. I was slightly disappointed that it didn't taste special. It was still overly sweet, even after cutting a whole cup of sugar (next time I might cut it to 1 1/2 cups). To me, it tasted like Kool-aid Lemonade. I had expected something that would be like nothing I could get at the store. It's still good and the family thinks it's the best thing ever. Yesterday's menu: Breakfast - grits with just a little butter, Lunch - dinner leftovers, Dinner - spaghetti with homemade sauce (4 slices pepper bacon, 2 cans low salt tomato sauce, onion and garlic powders), salad. I stopped by the store to pick up the pasta since we're not buying it anymore and the family really wanted pasta. Eggs were on sale 99 cents a dozen so I picked up two. My plan was to buy some parmesan cheese but I only had 5 dollars. The pasta was $1.50 and I wanted two dozen eggs since we were starting to go through them fast again and Monday I paid $1.89 for a dozen. That didn't leave me much for cheese and the parmesan was nearly $3. I opted for cheese sticks - 1 mozzarella and 2 cheddar at 3 for $1. It's makes for pricier cheese per ounce but all I wanted was some for dinner as a treat so this worked perfectly. We're not eating cheese right now while we're trying to get my husband off of dairy. I noticed we've really missed it because I bought real butter on Monday (with the eggs to make the lemon curd) and we're going through it rather fast. It didn't help that we used nearly half of the butter in making the lemon curd. I don't have a recipe that I have made this week to share with you. I would have loved to shared my husband's soup recipe but it was really a dump of what we had in the kitchen (I think he used split peas instead of lentils but I haven't double checked). I have shared my lentil chili recipe just this last December so I thought - I'll share the famous Lentil Festival Chili with you. This is an award winning chili that is served every year during the Lentil Festival. They serve it from this huge bowl and it's free for everyone to come eat. It's so good and this recipe, though smaller than what they use, still makes a good vat of chili. Every year they do a lentil recipe contest so you may be seeing some more recipes posted as we try to find the perfect entry. World’s Largest Bowl of Lentil Chili Submitted By: National Lentil Festival -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INGREDIENTS Lentils: 2 2/3 Cups Water: 3 Quarts + 1 Cup Onions, diced: 2/3 Cup Celery, diced: 1/3 Cup Carrots, diced: 1/3 Cup Tomato puree: 17 Oz. Pace brand salsa: 1 Cups + 1 Tablespoon Chili powder, mild: 2 Tablespoon Cumin: 1 Tablespoon Granulated garlic: 1 Tablespoon Granulated sugar: 2 Tablespoons Kosher salt: 1 1/2 Tablespoons Crushed red chili flakes: 1/2 Teaspoon 2/3 Cup water and 1/4 Cup cornstarch, stirred into a slurry Cinnamon: 1/2 Teaspoon Chopped cilantro: 1 Tablespoon Mexican chocolate: 2 oz. Green bell pepper, diced: 1/3 Cup Red bell pepper, diced: 1/3 Cup -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIRECTIONS 1. DO NOT INCLUDE CILANTRO OR CORNSTARCH SLURRY AT THIS TIME. Mix all ingredients together (EXCEPT cilantro and cornstarch slurry), bring to a boil, stir and cook (will take a couple of hours) until lentils are tender. 2. When the lentils are tender and the broth is well blended, add the cornstarch slurry and continue cooking until the chili consistency is very uniform. 3. Just before serving: add the cilantro, stir, serve.

Rice Congee

My mother discovered this dish earlier this week. Congee is a rice porriage sort of dish. The wonderfulness of this recipe is that it stretches a cup of rice into many servings. It's easy to make and since the dish is rather plain it takes on a variety of flavors.
To make congee, add 1 cup rice to 6-9 cups water (we use 6 and it seemed like plenty of water). Throw it in the crockpot on low overnight.
My mother added 3 bananas and cinnamon to the pot and then served it with sugar and milk.
I think it would be better with ginger and garlic. I ended up adding a little sugar to my banana dish and then adding MSG to give it that salty savory sort of flavor.
I, personally, am not a huge fan of sweet rice even though this dish has plenty of opportunities to offer both sweet and savory.
I used brown rice and ended up with a mushy mass so it might be a good way to work brown rice into your diet. Overall, it was tasty and reminded me of wet oatmeal. I plan on playing with the flavors and seeing what goes best for us. I think using apples would still be good - perhaps with some walnuts and dried cranberries to make a breakfast dish.
This is not just for breakfast. I read that many use this as a "sick" dish and I can see the appeal. I would love to have a great dish for when we are all sick and no one wants to cook and this seems like it. Maybe cook it in chicken broth with garlic and ginger - think I'm craving garlic and ginger - maybe some lemongrass. I'd love to hear what you ate with congee.

Chicken and dumplings

We've been experimenting with MSG. I know it has a bad reputation but I have since discovered that, like all "bad' foods, it's just misunderstood. MSG offers a flavor boost with less sodium than salt. It also has nutritents that salt doesn't offer and we can't get from many foods. There's a reason it's popular in Asian cooking but like soy it might now be something our bodies are used to. I'm sharing this because our chicken and dumplings were seasoned with MSG. If it makes you uncomfortable or you don't want to use it - use salt, no big deal. Just note it might take more salt than MSG.

Chicken and Dumplings
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 pound package of frozen mixed veggies (we choose carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli)
water
1 1/2 tsp msg
2 1/4 cups baking mix (homemade unsalted, if not homemade omit msg for dumplings)
2/3 cup milk
3/4 tsp msg
Chop chicken into bite sized pieces. Add to dutch oven or equally sized pot. Fill pot halfway with water. Bring to boil, let simmer for up to an hour. Taste stock, if not very chickeny you can add 1 tsp or so of chicken bouillion. Add veggies and 1 1/2 tsp msg. Let simmer for an additional 30 minutes, adding water as necessary to keep pot half full. Make dumplings - add baking mix and msg to a large bowl. Add milk, slowly, until the dough just comes together. Drop by spoonfuls into soup until all the dough is used up. It's okay if the dumplings touch or crowd. Cook for 10-15 minutes and flip over the dumplings. Let cook an additional 10 minutes. Serve soup with 2-3 dumplings.

Peanut Soup

This is a weird recipe but the finished result is so good that my family just devours it. It's so easy that a kid can put this together and it doesn't take long to cook.

Peanut Soup
2 TB oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
4 lg tomatoes or 13 oz diced tomatoes
6 ½ oz peanut butter
3 ½ pint chicken stock
Sauté onions until tender but not brown. Add tomatoes, cook slightly. Add peanut butter and chicken stock. Cook until heated.

Lentil Chili

I plan on making this family favorite this week. It's easy to dump in a crockpot or cook over an open fire. My son used this recipe for his first Dutch Oven contest.

Lentil Chili
4 cups dried lentils
6-7 cups water (more as needed)
3-4 large tomatoes chopped or 1 pound canned diced tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
1-2 green bell peppers, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
black pepper to taste
Place lentils and 6 cups water in Dutch oven. Bring to boil and let simmer until the lentils are tender. Add chopped tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, cumin, and thyme. Let cook 30 minutes, adding water as necessary. Add tomato sauce, stir and let simmer another 10 minutes. Stir in vinegar and black pepper.
Serve hot.

Holiday Squash Soup

I made this soup last Christmas and it was a hit. The entire family loved the flavor and the texture. This is a crockpot recipe but I made it on the stove and I did not use the blender. I got the recipe from a Joanne Fluke book.

HOLIDAY SQUASH SOUP
2 ten-ounce packages winter squash (the kind that’s in a solid block and already pureed)
½ cup chopped onion
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon beads (or whatever measure it gives to make 2 cups of chicken broth)
2 cups heavy cream
¼ teaspoon pepper
8-oz package cream cheese, unwrapped and softened in the microwave for 1 minute
sour cream and/or parsley for toppings
Cook the squash according to package directions, drain it and put it in a blender. Add the chopped onion and the chicken bouillon beads. Add the heavy cream. Zoop it up in the blender and make sure all the onion pieces are pureed and the mixture is smooth. Add the pepper and the softened cream cheese. Zoop it up again until it’s all smooth and then dump it in the crockpot you’ve sprayed with Pam. Once your soup is in the crockpot, give it a final stir and taste a little bit for seasoning. If it needs more salt, DON’T ADD IT. Add another teaspoon of bouillon beads instead to make it really chickeny. If you want to make your soup sinfully rich, this is the time to cut a half-stick of butter (4 ounces, ¼ pound) into little pieces and throw them in the crockpot. Turn the crockpot on LOW and cook for 4 hours. (This can go an hour or two longer if your company doesn’t arrive on time.) Check for seasonings again right before serving. When you dish it into the bowls, you can top it with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of fresh parsley if you like.
Yield: approximately 4 cups.

Tomato Soup

Tomato Soup has always puzzled me - I love it in restaurants but I hate it at home. I got to thinking about the types of tomato soup that I would get in restaurants and realized it's not the same. The soup I get out is a thin broth with chunks of tomato and a variety of other things, usually pasta. Where the home (canned) version is a thick pasty cream of tomato soup. I decided that tomato soup would be a good use of the ever-ripening pile of tomatoes on my counter. I did a quick search and could not find a recipe that I liked. I made mental notes and headed for the kitchen. What I created, not only satisfied my soup craving, but was so good my son ate several bowls (my tomato hating son). I tried to keep exact measurements but wasn't so successful with the tomatoes. I use cherry tomatoes and cut them in half.

Tomato Soup
1/2 onion, minced
3 stalks celery, thinly sliced
2 tb minced garlic
oil
4 cups chicken broth
4-6 cups chopped tomatoes
2-3 teas. Basil
Cover the bottom of your dutch oven or pot with a thin layer of oil. Saute the minced onion until somewhat translucent. Add the celery and garlic. Saute until tender or you get bored. Add chicken broth. Stir to bring up the bits that may have gotten stuck at the bottom. Add tomatoes and basil. Let come to a boil, then reduce to medium low to simmer. Add water as necessary. Cook until the flavor of the tomatoes have over-powered the flavor of the chicken broth (about 20 minutes). Serve hot.

Potato Soup

I have recipes for potato soup and yet I seem to make it without one every time. Last night's pot was one of the best versions I have made and thought it was worth trying to preserve a recipe.

Potato Soup
4 ears corn
8 smallish potatoes or 4 large, washed and cubed
1 onion, chopped
1/2 stick butter
2 quarts non-fat milk (ours is instant)
3/4 cup half and half
1 cup sour cream
salt and pepper (I actually used cajun seas salt and pepper)

Place corn in a pot and cover with water. Bring to boil and turn off. Let corn cool to handle and cut kernels off (if using canned or frozen then it's about 3/4 cup corn per cob). Melt butter in stockpot. Add onions and stir over med-high heat until starting to turn clear but not brown. Add corn and roast a few moments. Add potatoes and cover with milk. Let cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender. Can season while cooking or wait until just about to serve. When potatoes are cooked, add half and half and sour cream. Stir to melt sour cream. Turn off heat and let set for 10 minutes and serve.

Great with rolls or seasoned breadsticks.

Souppa Avgolemono (Egg-Lemon Soup)

I'm craving soup so this weekend I am going to try this recipe. I've carried it around for years and I like the idea of lemon and eggs. I think it will be a good complement to whatever we opt to make with it.
I, also, plan on making garlic soup since I have several heads of garlic that need to be used. Both soups are filling and rather low cal so that'll be good.

Souppa Avgolemono (Egg-Lemon Soup)
6 cups chicken broth
3/4 cup rice or orzo pasta
3 eggs
1 lemon, juice of (or more)
Bring broth to boil in saucepan, and add rice or orzo. Cover and cook on medium low heat for 20-25 minutes (rice) or 10 minutes (orzo). While the rice cooks, lightly beat the eggs and the lemon juice together. Remove the broth from heat. Slowly mix about one cup of the hot broth into egg-lemon mixture. Add to the soup gradually while stirring. Place saucepan back on the heat, and stir until soup is heated through (DO NOT BOIL).

Taco Soup

Fall means soup. It's crisp cool days that leave you rushing indoors to enjoy something soothing and hot. Here in the Palouse region of Washington, we're still warm. Tomorrow is the first real cool day with a predicted high of 59 degrees. Today we're in the 70's. The amount of rain we have gotten over the past few months hasn't been a good full day's rain. Our trees are still so green and my garden is trying to eek out the last of the summer produce. Apple picking is just beginning. My internal clock can't believe it's October. I'm having conflicting feelings. I want soup but it seems too early in the year. I'm trying to get into the Halloween spirit but my brain still wants camping and can't understand why the public pool is closed.
I'm forcing soup on myself and my family starting with this quick, easy and wonderful Taco Soup. It's open to interpretation so feel free to pull out what you have in your cupboards and try your own variation. We ate this with Quesadillas (cheese melted between two tortillas in a skillet) but it would be great with tortilla chips.

Taco Soup
3 chicken thighs
1 can diced tomatoes (mexican flavor is best but plain is fine)
1 packet taco seasoning
1 can corn
1 can carrots
water
cheese

Peel skin off chicken but leave in bones. Boil in water until fully cooked, for best flavor let boil for awhile and then let sit but not necessary. Remove chicken from broth. Pull meat off bones and chop. Feel through the chicken for cartilege that may have come off bone. Return meat to pot and discard bones. Add taco seasoning, tomatoes, corn and carrots. Swish the tomato can with water and add to pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer until ready to serve. (The soup just needs to be warmed thoroughly before serving, simmering just increases the flavor).
Serve hot with cheese sprinkled on top.

Easy Onion Soup

We're getting to the end of onion season but since they store well the prices will stay moderate through much of the fall. This soup is so simple and tasty. Serve with cheesy toast or a good bread topped with butter.
Use sweet onions to make the soup more appealing to children or hot onions for a spicy winter treat.
I prefer this soup with beef broth. And I saute the sweet onions fairly well to bring out the sweetest flavor possible. Just be careful not to burn the onions.

Easy Onion Soup
2 medium onions per person, chopped
2 Tbs. butter or 1 tbs. olive oil per person
1 1/4 cups liquid per person - wine, beer, stock or varieties
In heavy saucepan, heat the fat and sauté the onions. The colors of the finished soup depends on the carmelization of the onions. Season with salt and pepper. Add the liquid and bring to a boil. Adjust the seasoning and add the thyme. Cover and simmer fiercely for 30-40 minutes. If adding wine or beer to stock, do so 10 minutes before the end.

Gumbo

With the weather changing, I'm starting to crave hearty soups to fight back the growing chill. Gumbo is a great soup and it makes a lot so you can feed everyone. Now the ingredients are extensive and can seem pricey. What I love about Gumbo is that it's really a stone soup sort of dish in that you can throw in just about anything. I always use this recipe as more of a guide than a recipe so I know kind of what could go in the pot. Often I make it with shrimp and sausages. Gumbo File is a "spice" of sorts that helps thicken the soup and give it a distinct flavor. I, almost, prefer my gumbo without it. With Okra - feel free to use frozen which I almost always do.

Gumbo
6 oz unsalted butter
4 TB cornstarch
4 oz onions, diced
3 cloves garlic
4 oz green pepper, diced
½ LB celery, chopped
1 LB okra
1 lb. tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 teas oregano or marjoram
1-2 bay leaves
2 stock cubes in water
1 teas nutmeg
1-2 tbs. gumbo file
1 lb. uncooked prawns
4 sm. crayfish or crab claws
4 cooked/smoked chicken wings
½ lb. ham or sausage
2 lb. rice, cooked
In large saucepan melt butter, mix with cornstarch, stir well, and heat 5-10 min until light brown. Add onions, garlic, pepper, celery, and okra fry ten min. Add tomatoes and prawns, cook for 5-10 min on low heat. Take care not to burn. Add fish, chicken, oregano, bay leaves and stock. Cook for about 20 min. Add ham and nutmeg. Stir well, cover and simmer for another 20 min. Mix the file with an equal amount of warm water and a small amount of sauce. Add to sauce, stir well. To serve, scoop rice into bowl, arrange meat around rice, top with sauce.

Garlic Soup

The weather here has been rainy all week and I thought it's a good day for soup. This Garlic Soup recipe came out of the WSU Alumni magazine. Cougar Gold cheese is made here at Washington State University and is rather famous in a smallish circle. Our family loves the cheese and many restaurants feature a mac and cheese made with Cougar Gold. It's an unusual sharp cheddar, it's made in tin cans. Maybe next week I will give you a brief history of the cheese. It's a fascinating story. Here you can buy a tin for as little at $15 (for about 2 pounds). I hear there are places in Seattle that sell it for over $50. On special weekends the lines at Ferdinands (the local ice cream/cheese shop on campus) wrap around the block and the cheese actually sells out.
When making this soup, remember that hot soups have a tendency to explode in the blender so don't fill up the pitcher and give it a little air now and again to prevent pressure build up. Also, you can skip the blanching if you peel the garlic by hand (I use a cloth designed to help grip jars to peel when I want whole garlic and do the smash and peel when I want minced)

Garlic Soup
2 heads garlic, separated and unpeeled
5 tb olive oil
5 cups chicken stock
2 teas fresh thyme or 1 teas dry
white pepper
3 egg yolks
grated cougar gold cheese (or other sharp cheddar)
blanch garlic 1 minute, drain and peel. Cook but do not brown in half the oil for 10 minutes. Add stock and seasonings. Simmer 30 minutes. Blend the soup in a blender, carefully. Return to saucepan and heat. Beat egg yolks and gradually add remaining oil. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of soup into eggs . Remove soup from heat and add eggs in a thin stream. Stir well. Sprinkle on cheese and serve.

Ham in Not Coke

In March, I shared my Ham in Coke recipe. This was how I have been making ham for most of the time I have been married. It's a great recipe except my family and I have been trying to give up soda and look at giving up all artificial stuff in our food. That created a slight dilemma when it came to cooking the ham I had set aside for a Sunday family dinner. Not one to really faulter in the face of a challenge, I figured it can't be too hard to replicate a soda-like beverage for boiling my ham. What we ended up with was the best ham I have ever made. My husband, who always says he doesn't like ham, said if I made it that way every time he'd be a fan. It was a really recipe and open to a lot of interpretation.

Ham in Not Coke:
1 family sized ham, bone-in
Water to cover ham
1 large onion or two small onions, sliced (I quartered the small onions)
1 cup sugar, brown sugar, honey, molasses, or combination of
1 TB vanilla
Place ham in large pot and cover with water. If ham is pre-cooked then mix "soda" to taste, if not place ham in water after seasoned. Add sugar and vanilla to water until it tastes similar to soda. Add onions. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for a few hours (this really depends on how much time you have and what your plans our). I let mine simmer for nearly 4 hours.
Remove ham from stock and place on baking sheet. My ham had cooked so long that the fat was seperating from the meat. I scraped the fat off and returned it to the stock water. If your fat is not removed, score it to allow the glaze to penetrate.
Make glaze - 1/2 cup honey, 1 TB ground mustard, 1 teas Chinese Five Spice (or a combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, anise and allspice). Spoon glaze on ham. Set under preheated broiler until the glaze has carmelized (about 5 minutes or so).
Slice up and serve. Reserve the stock for beans (currently my husband has black beans boiling in the stock and keeps telling me they taste really good but I am at work while he's making the beans).

Ham in Coke

This isn't technically an Irish recipe but ham is an alternative to Corned Beed and this method is the only way my family will eat ham (except for the occassional sandwich). Buying a good ham is not as easy as it used to be. Look for a "real" ham and not a processed hunk of pork. Real ham has a lot of flavor - skin on is best with the bone still inside. I found this recipe in a Nigella Lawson book. I have even used Cherry Coke which gives a slight fruity flavor.

Ham in Coke
4-41/2 pd bone-in ham
1 onion, peeled and halved
2 liter coke
Cloves
1 TB molasses
2 teas English mustard powder
2 TB brown sugar
Place ham in pot, skin side down if possible. Add onion and coke. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer. Cover and simmer 2 hours or 1 hour for every 2 pounds. Remove ham from stock. Remove skin. Score fat and dot with cloves. Rub with molasses. Pat on mustard and sugar. Cook in foil-line roasting pan at 500 degrees for 10 minutes.

Save the stock and make:

Black Bean Soup
3 cups dried black beans
Coke stock from above and water
Juice of ½ lime
1 teas cumin
1 teas coriander
Cook beans in stock and water (cover over 2 inches) until tender. Let come to boil and reduce to low – cook 1-11/2 hours. Add lime juice and spices. Serve with sour cream.
-can remove 3 ladles of beans and puree with spices before seasoning if desired (I found this to be a pain so we skip this step).

Potato Soup

Potato soup is one of those super easy recipes that I often forget it is a recipe. I, often, treat this as a stone soup sort of recipe because I use whatever I find.
The basic formula is onions, potatoes, milk.
I have made a dairy free version of this with mashed potatoes and a little chicken stock. Personally, I prefer a dairy version even if I have to use soy milk.
For the basic recipe (feel free to double, triple etc)
6 potatoes scrubbed and cubed (keeping the peels on will help the pieces retain their shape and not get as mushy)
1 onion, diced
2 cans evaporated milk (or about 3-4 cups milk of any type)
1/2 stick nucoa
Melt Nucoa in pot (you don't need a very big pot if you are just making this amount). I discovered that making this in cast iron will cause the bottom to stick horribly so I recommend something not cast iron - or stay attentive so it doesn't burn). Saute onion in butter. I prefer a light saute so that the onion doesn't get too brown. Add potatoes, stir a little to coat the potatoes in butter and onions. Pour over milk. Let simmer until potatoes are soft but not mushy. This should take about 15-20 minutes depending on the heat. Stir often to prevent burning.
When I made the soup this week, I added a little chicken gravy that I had made to give it a little depth and to use up some of the gravy.
I like to season the soup with nothing but pepper but that's just me.
You can add bacon to this dish (you can actually use bacon to fry the onion if you like) or clams/oysters. You can top with cheese and green onion. Let your imagination run wild.

Xavier's Dutch Oven Contest

My son entered the annual dutch oven contest for the second year this year (it's also the second year of the contest). Last year he did the one pot competition but this year he strove for the 3 pot division.
I promised I would share his recipes - I have shared the cornbread recipe before and it didn't quite work in the dutch oven (sadly costing him a ribbon) but the other two recipes were well received.
Low Country Boil
6 quart Dutch oven
Serves 6
Ingredients
• 8 teaspoons Bay Seasoning (or to taste)
• 12 red new potatoes
• 6 (4-inch) smoked link sausage (good high quality sausages will add better flavor)
• 6 ears corn
• 3 pounds fresh shrimp, peeled (I prefer peeled shrimp but you can use unpeeled for more flavor)
• 4 quarts water
Directions
Add water to Dutch Oven. Add Bay Seasoning and bring to a boil over hot coals. Add potatoes and sausage. Boil for 20 minutes. Add corn and cook for 10 more minutes. Add Shrimp and let cook for 1-2 minutes or until the shrimp is just done. Drain off water and serve.
*note – you can boil the sausages for 10 minutes prior to adding potatoes to give the water more flavor and then boil them 20 minutes.

*We used Andouille sausage which is slightly spicy but held up really well. Cheap sausages will lose their flavor so use a good quality sausage. Also be aware that shrimp shrinks so you want to use a larger size - we used Thai Shrimp which was a good size shrimp. We also ended up using only 2 pounds since it comes in 2 pound bags and it was plenty of shrimp.

Corn Bread
6 quart Dutch Oven
Serves 6
Ingredients
• ½ stick of butter
• 2 cups corn meal
• 2 teas baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups milk
Directions
Melt butter in Dutch Oven. In a bowl, combine corn meal and baking powder. Add eggs and milk. Mix together. Pour most of the melted butter into the batter, leaving a good film on the Dutch Oven. Pour batter into Dutch Oven. Cover with flat lid and top with coals (should have coals top and bottom, want to replicate a 350 – 400 degree oven). Bake 20 minutes or until Corn Bread is firm to the touch and browned.


Peach Caramel Cake
6 quart Dutch Oven
Serves 6
Ingredients
• 1 box White or Yellow Cake Mix
• 1 can of ginger ale
• 1 large can peaches with juice
• 1 cup brown sugar
• Oil
Directions
Lightly oil Dutch Oven. Sprinkle brown sugar around bottom of pot evenly. Top with peaches. Layer on cake mix but do not stir. Pour over ginger ale. You can press down on cake mix to moisten but do not stir. Cover with flat lid and coals. Set on additional coals (you want to replicate about a 400 degree oven). Bake 45 minutes or until cake is firm. Careful not to overcook the bottom.

*We experimented with this recipe in the oven with a regular cake mix and it worked fine. This past weekend I made a version of this with fresh apples instead of canned peaches and the Betty Crocker gluten-free white cake mix. It worked really well - I had to add a little more soda to compensate for the apples not being canned. It had good flavor and texture, even though the Betty Crocker mix is 1/2 a normal cake mix.