Meals during pre-camp

During the first week of the season at Oakland Feather River Camp, staff are on their own for meals. The half-dozen employees that commute from nearby Quincy bring lunch. Debbie and I fend for ourselves. Other than the camp manager, who lives on the property with his wife, we're the only ones living at camp.

The dietary kitchen -- so-called because campers prepare special diets in it -- serves as our home kitchen for the first week. Late next week the cooks begin cooking breakfast and dinner for the dozen pre-camp employees. The sous chef and pre-cooks arrive on Thursday to clean the kitchen and begin preparing meals on Friday.

Sometimes breakfast for dinner is the best meal. Friday evening I cooked bacon (not pictured), cottage potatoes and fried eggs in the Lodge #12 skillet. Sorry, there were no leftovers!

I brought two 12-inch Dutch ovens for use during pre-camp and a couple cook's evening cookouts. Three large Lodge skillets (including the 20-inch skillet I found in Eagle Point, Oregon, in April) were also packed for use in the main kitchen. Pre-camp gives me the opportunity to do a lot of Dutch oven cooking. Once camp opens in mid-June, I'm too busy to cook in Dutch ovens.

Thursday evening, our first full day at camp, Debbie and I visited Moon's, our favorite restaurant in Quincy. Mike and Lisa Kelly are wonderful hosts, and they serve great food. Hickory smoked ribs with rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes and freshly baked garlic bread is my most ordered meal. Debbie enjoys the twice-baked potato. She always returns to camp with leftovers to use for lunch or dinner.

Saturday's dinner was bratwurst with layered cabbage and red potatoes in a Lodge 12-inch camp oven. A layer of sliced red potatoes went on the bottom. Sliced onions came next, then shredded green cabbage. The dish was baked with charcoal briquettes for 350 to 400 degrees for around 45 minutes. Don't forget to season each layer. Adjust quantities of sausages, potatoes and cabbage as needed to feed your group.

Friday and Saturday evenings we cooked dinner in cast iron. You can see the results in the two photographs. I'm planning a busman's holiday cookout for cooks this Friday. After two busy days cleaning and organizing the kitchen, it'll give the cooks time to bond as the culinary team at Oakland Camp. And off their skill. Everyone, along with maintenance and housekeeping staff if they choose to join in, will have fun.

Simple camp meal prepared cast iron skillet and grill

Tonight's dinner began as a way to use some Farmer's Market produce, the country sausage that I prepared last week and a container of crushed tomatoes in the refrigerator. Since the forecast called for temperatures in the 100s in the California Mother Lode, cooking the meal outdoors save us from overheating the house. Except for the pasta, I used my Griswold #10 skillet and Camp Chef Sport Grill to cook the meal.

Here's the menu:

• Spaghetti with country sausage tomato sauce and garnished with toasted bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese
• Grilled summer squash marinated in a balsamic reduction
• Sliced cucumbers with sherry vinegar and extra virgin olive oil

To prepare the tomato sauce, I sauteed about 1 pound of country sausage with 1/2 chopped onion until the sausage was cooked. I then poured a 1/2 cup of Madeira wine over the sausage and cooked it until most of the wine had evaporated. About 2 cups of crushed tomatoes and 6 tablespoons of half and half were then stirred into the skillet. The sauce simmered over low heat for about 30 minutes. Since I let the sausage season the tomato sauce, no additional seasoning was needed.

I served the sauce over a plate of cooked spaghetti and garnished it with toasted bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese. The bread crumbs added an interesting contrast in texture to the pasta dish.

To prepare the balsamic reduction, I simmered 1 cup balsamic vinegar, 2 tablespoons honey, 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard and 4 fat cloves of minced garlic in a saucepan until reduced by half. I then stirred in 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley and 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil. Two sliced summer squashes were then marinated for several hours in the refrigerator.

I grilled the squash until browned and tender on a Camp Chef grill box. While the grill box doesn't give food traditional grill marks, it does give food great flavor.

Fresh country sausage

Here's the recipe for fresh country sausage. It's based on Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's recipe for Fresh Master Sausage in Charcutery: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing by (Norton & Company: New York, 2005) (found on (page 117).

I worked out a flavor profile that appealed to me. Cumin and coriander are among my favorite spices, along with chile peppers, cilantro, garlic and thyme. These herbs and spices, along with the wine, give the sausage a pleasant taste. The wine (I used pinot noir) adds flavor and brings all the ingredients together.

FRESH COUNTRY SAUSAGE

"It's very important to keep your meat as cold as possible during the sausage making process," cautions Ruhlman and Polcyn. "Sausage that gets too warm can 'break,' meaning the fat and the protein will separate from each other when cooked." Instead of enjoying a firm, juicy sausage, where the fat evenly coats each bit of meat, you'll be eating something that's dry and crumbly.

Keep the pork and chicken in the refrigerator while you prepare the other ingredients. Also place the wine in the cooler. Cold ingredients reduce the chance that your sausage will break. And, "always grind the meat and the fat into a bowl set in ice."

3-1/2 pounds pork shoulder butt, diced
1-1/2 pounds chicken or turkey thigh meat, diced
1-1/2 ounces kosher salt (about 3 tablespoons)
2 jalapeno chiles, minced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup good red wine, chilled

Mix pork, chicken, salt, chiles, cilantro, thyme, garlic, cumin, coriander and pepper together in large bowl until evenly mixed. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to blend flavors.

Grind mixture through small die (1/8-inch) into a bowl set in ice. Transfer mixture to mixer bowl (5-quart or larger). Mix on low speed for 1 minute. Add wine while mixing on low speed; Increase speed to medium and mix 1 minute more, or until liquid is incorporated and meats looks sticky.

Sausage making venture

Yesterday I set out to prepare a five-pound batch of country sausage. My sausage making venture promised to be the ideal project for a lazy Saturday afternoon at home. My goal was to stock the freezer with several packages of bulk sausage and then publish the recipe on the blog.

Armed with a mug of coffee and Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie, I penciled a draft recipe for the sausage. A mixture of pork shoulder and chicken or turkey thigh meat appealed to me. I figured the right combination of cumin, coriander, cilantro and jalapeno chile pepper with a nice red wine would give the meat a pleasant taste. Confident that my recipe would meet the flavor test, I drove off to the meat market.

My plan was simple: Buy a large pork shoulder from my local meat purveyor and have him grind it through an 1/8-inch die; return home to place the meat in the refrigerator; and then finish shopping at the supermarket. I contemplated wrapping up the project by 3 or 4 p.m. As you'll soon see, my plan didn't survive the first stop on the itinerary.

The butcher's meat grinder was a key element in my plan. Even though I purchased a Kitchenaid stand mixer with a five-quart bowl some 15 years ago, I never saw a need for the grinder attachment. Until yesterday, my vintage Climax No. 50 meat grinder efficiently ground cooked meat and vegetables, mostly for hash. I wasn't confident of it ability to grind raw meat.

For the butcher to grind pork, I learned that I must call ahead to order. The lady at the counter said that he only grinds pork and other meat in the morning. Since that wouldn't help me (and the fact that the shop is only open four day per week), I decided that I must try the hand cranked grinder. I purchased the pork, chicken and remaining ingredients at the supermarket and returned home. (On reflection, I should've asked the supermarket butcher to grind the meat.)

Once home, I quickly diced the pork and chicken meat. It went into the refrigerator while I prepared the spices (cumin, coriander, kosher salt and pepper) and aromatics (cilantro, garlic, jalapeno chile pepper and thyme). I pulled the meat out of the refrigerator, mixed in the spices and aromatics and then returned it to the chill box for a two-hour rest.

Next came the most challenging step in my sausage making process. I had to figure out how to run five pounds of seasoned pork and chicken through the narrow hopper and dull blade of the meat grinder. I gave up after 10 minutes. The grinder mashed the meat instead of cutting it, probably because the die has never been sharpened.

I knew that I had to change direction at that point. I returned the meat mixture to the refrigerator while recovered my largest knife from my knife roll. The heavy blade of the 10-inch chef knife helped me chop the meat, a task that I had to accomplish quickly in order to keep the meat cool.

The remaining steps went quickly (mixing in the Kitchenaid mixer and incorporating the wine into the sausage). Since Debbie and I ate dinner earlier, I elected taste the sausage -- and hunt for a Kitchenaid grinder attachment -- today. The sausage passed its taste test this morning at breakfast. It has a pleasingly fresh taste, perfect for a country breakfast sausage. The flavors blended for a bright, fresh example of charcuterie. And, even with two jalapenos in the mix, there's barely a hint of spiciness.

Oh, I couldn't locate a grinder in my home county this afternoon. If a search yield nothing tomorrow in Sacramento, I'll order one from Amazon.com. I should be able to post the recipe by next weekend. In the meantime, I'll freeze the sausage in one-pound chubs and grind it as needed.