A couple months ago, Gordon sent me a link to the Nevada Northern Railway’s first annual Iron Horse Cook-Off Challenge with a message that just said, “Can we enter? Can we? Can we?” Contestants would be judged on three meals: one cooked over an open fire, one on the stove in the caboose, and one on a shovel in the firebox of the engine.
We had never been in a cooking contest before, but we did make engine block quesadillas during a solar eclipse. You’d think those skills would translate pretty well to cooking on a shovel in an 800-degree steam locomotive. Plus, they offered points for dressing in period-appropriate railway attire, so we were guaranteed to get more than zero even if we burned all our food to inedibility. Continue reading
We 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. 
Mountain Man Living 