Hold Warm

One of the routines, that my wife and I have developed while camping, is the morning camp fire. Primarily it is for warmth after a cold night in the tent.  But there is something very calming about watching the flames over one's first cup of coffee.

It is something I remember a family friend doing.  He maintained a camp fire all day, and would sit and read beside it.  It was not until I was much older that I learned he usually had a roast buried in the coals.

I would like to try that one day.  In fact, I would love to cook an entire meal in the coals of the camp fire.  But thus far my experience have mostly been stuff you can cook on a stick over the flames. Although, I did experiment a little while we were camping last week.

As I mentioned in my post "Thank God For Tetris", my wife and I have a car full of gear when we go camping.  One of the things we do not carry is an abundance of cookware.  We have a pot, a kettle, and a frying pan.

So last Monday, when I cooked my first ever hot breakfast while camping, I had to improvise a little. The sausages, hash browns, and eggs all needed to be cooked in the frying pan.  So after I cooked the sausages, I wrapped them in tin foil and laid them on the grate over the fire.  A process  I repeated once the hash browns were done.

I used the fire like a microwave on hold warm.  It worked much better than I expected as well.  Both the sausages and hash brown were steaming when I unwrapped the foil.

Well, at least it is a step closer to cooking in the coals.  They sat on the edge of the grate as opposed to being on a stick.