Dutch oven cooking !

I love to cook in the Dutch oven !!! It is something that my dad has passed down to me. I will post recipes from time to time, but here are a few pictures of some times enjoying Dutch Oven cooking.

Here is my dad helping me with the dutch oven when they were visiting us in Arizona. They had just bought me this Dutch Oven for my birthday.

Here is Tyce enjoying some Chocolate Lovers cake. It turned out really, really good !!!

In fact here is a link to the Recipe :)

http://papadutch.home.comcast.net/~papadutch/dutch-oven-recipe-choclovers.htm

Elk hunt 2009

In October of 2009, I was finally able to go on a hunt for elk. I had put in for 4 years, and finally drew for elk. That is a drawback to living in Arizona......It is much harder to get a tag for elk or deer than in my home state of Idaho. If you think about it.....with so many people living in Phoenix 3 hours away....they all put in for the same hunts. There you go, makes it harder. Anyways, my wifes grandpa has lived here all his life, and he was my guide. I won't put the whole long story of how I got the elk on here, but I shot it within an hour of daybreak. Very awesome experience. Here are some pictures.

Here is the meat hanging to cure. Great feeling knowing all that meat will be feeding your family. I had some summer sausage and Jerky made with the meat. It was amazing !!!

My little boy didn't know what to think.

Tired after a day of hunting, skinning, and hauling a huge cow elk out of the woods.

Aprils Grandpa and I. This guy is just a stand up guy !!

I don't know if any of you have seen the show. "The Wild Within" It is on the Travel Channel on Sunday nights. It is about a guy who travels the world in search of food for his family. He hunts and gathers. He stated that we are losing touch with our own way of getting food. I agree with him on that statement. There is not much more grattifying than filling up your freezer with a bunch of meat that you hunted.

Banana boats !!!

So I'm sure that we have all had Tin Foil dinners camping. It is an awesome tradition I have started with my family camping. Well, I found a dessert that kind of goes along the same idea. Banana boats !!!! We did this last night in our oven in the house. It is really quite simple and very delicious. It can also be done on the coals camping much like a tin foil dinner.
Ingredients needed:
Banana
Marshmallows
Chocolate (Choc. Chips work best)

Slice banana lengthwise, but do not cut all the way through bottom. You want to make a sort of "bowl" shape. Seperate slightly. Add marshmallows and chocolate chips. Wrap up in Tin Foil, and cook for 15-20 minutes on coals, or in oven at home.
Kids will love this.

The best Salmon dip you will ever eat !!!!

My brother in law has become quite famous in our family for his smoked salmon dip. I am not a huge fish eater.....yes I know kind of funny as I am a huge fisherman....which is why I mainly do catch and relase. I do keep fish if I know somebody will eat it.

If you read my posts, you will soon realize that I go off tangents often....but I always will get back to the main point :)

I am not a huge fish eater, but I love this salmon dip. It is like caviar (sp?) of the northwest. The best part of making this recipe is to smoke your own salmon :) I smoke my salmon with hickory wood chips. The entire process takes about 8-12 hours depending on the thickness of your fish. I took some of this dip into work this morning, and the office loved it. My boss just texted me telling me that it was almost gone. One of my favorite things about cooking, is watching other people enjoy the food.
Here is a link to the recipe:
http://sixhotmamascookin.blogspot.com/2010/06/darins-famous-smoked-salmon-dip.html

Here is some salmon I smoked this last Saturday. You might think it looks overdone, but inside it is as juicy and moist as can be :)

Here is the finished product. Soooo Good.

Fishing Silver Creek

I am so blessed to live in the beautiful White Mountains of Arizona. I live in the middle of the largest concentrated stand of Ponderosa pine trees in the world. Anyways, I never feel that I get out and enjoy this blessing as much as I should. I have tons of lakes, creeks, and rivers in very close proximity to me, and I never utilize them as much as I should.

Now back to my post. My friend Jared lives in Mesa, and had spring break. Him and his family came into town, and he asked me if I wanted to go fishing with him. I had mentioned to him one time about Silver Creek being pretty good fishing. I have lived here almost six years, and I have only been here 3 times. This creek is known all over the state for it's fly fishing.....and it's only a 15 minute drive from my house. So, I jumped at the chance to go fishing with a friend. We had been experiencing some warm weather that week, so we decided to get to the creek at sunrise. We started fishing....and it was COLD. In fact the eyelets on my fly rod froze as you can see on the picture below.

I know this is not that uncommon...but I guess that I just was too ready for spring. I did not even have a hit on the fly rod, nor did Jared. Jared was smart and brought his spinning rod as well. To make a long story short, Jared landed a rather large rainbow about 22 inches long, and I got skunked. I was not too bummed however. In my opinion...there is never a bad day when you are out enjoying the outdoors.

Here is Jared with his trout.

Jared was so stoked when he left that he wanted to go back the next day. I was on call for work the next day, and could not go. He did still go, and got another large trout the next morning. Jared posted some pictures on facebook, and said that he will come back for sure. This made me realize that I need to enjoy what is close to me more often. Come April 1st Silver creek will go from catch and release to a 6 trout bag limit. I hope to go back in the next couple of weeks, and bring home some bacon....or trout I guess :)

Just getting this going

I have been wanting to put some sort of a blog together for sometime now. For a while I thought of doing a Dutch oven cooking blog, then I realized how many of those there are already. I still havn't decided what exactly I want to blog about. I'm thinking it will be a broad variety of all of the things that I enjoy to do in the outdoors. I enjoy all kinds of things in the outdoors, and just want to share my experiences with people. I enjoy doing all things outdoors such as: Camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, dutch oven cooking, archery, mountain biking, fly fishing, etc. Pretty much everything outdoors. I am going to try to post pictures and stories both past and present as I have the time. I hope to keep up on this blog, and share my experience of "Living Life in the Outdoors."