Camping

Blackout Cooking

/ MountainMasha / Leave a comment

To be fair, cooking during a power outage really isn’t that difficult. You can use any camp stove, a solar oven, your barbecue, or anything else that starts on fire (like a fire). But if you have a lantern and a pot, you can cook and light the house at the same time.

We used our lantern to cook Myzithra cheese spaghetti because all you need is enough heat to boil water. And it is made entirely out of ingredients that can last for a while outside of refrigeration. And we really like it.  Continue reading →

Conference Cabin Weekend

/ MountainMasha / 1 Comment

For the past several years, we’ve spent the fall sessions of LDS general conference at Gordon’s family cabin. I love listening to Church leaders in the mountains.

The fall leaves are beautiful, everything smells amazing, the only other noise comes from birds and chipmunks, and no one has cell reception. There are no distractions, and the radio signal comes in loud and clear. If I have anything to say about it, we’ll keep doing this forever.

Of course, there are only eight total hours of conference. That gives us the rest of the weekend to light things on fire, build stuff, shoot targets, and pretend we live in the 1800s. Continue reading →

How to Succeed at Dutch Oven Cooking Without Really Trying

/ MountainMasha / 1 Comment

Gordon and I both grew up with Dutch oven cooking. Many of my childhood memories include pine trees at a mountain campground, dirty knees, and the smell of chocolate cherry cobbler cooking in a Dutch oven. My mother-in-law cooks almost everything in cast iron. We’ve never been intimidated by Dutch ovens because we spent too much time around them as children. Continue reading →

Campfire Paella

/ MountainMasha / 1 Comment

Paella over fireIf you ever need to feed (and impress) a lot of people in a remote location, consider paella. It sounds like a fancy foreign dish (because it is), but it is also easy to make, delicious, and can feed a crowd.

Our campfire paella happened when Gordon’s cousin gave us a three foot paella pan for Christmas (she thought it was funny, and figured it would be fun at the cabin). As soon as we had a long weekend, we took it up into the wilderness to try it out. Continue reading →

Dutch Oven Stand

/ MountainMasha / 2 Comments

Dutch Oven Stand mock-upWe wanted an easy project to test out the DIY blacksmith forge Gordon built at the cabin last weekend, and this dutch oven stand seemed perfect. We had seen similar stands at several mountain man rendezvous and really liked the idea. This stand is easily portable and makes cooking with a dutch oven over an open fire easier. It also gives us more control over the heat under the oven because we can adjust the height.  Continue reading →

Coal-Roasted Steak

/ MountainMasha / 1 Comment

IMG_20150822_201515338We had heard rumors for awhile that you can cook steak directly on top of the coals in your campfire and the juices would keep the steak from getting ashy. So naturally, we had to give it a shot. We figured best case scenario, it would make even more utensils unnecessary on camping trips. Worst case scenario, you scrape off the ashes and the steak is probably still edible. Continue reading →