Just because you’re camping doesn’t mean you have to suffer; you don’t have to eat Kraft Dinner, canned tuna and powdered milk for days on end. Outfitters know this. And they cook to impress. Black Feather’s mid-trip lasagna is a meal to absolutely die for. Here’s how they do it.
First off, you need to pack a Dutch oven along. Sure they’re heavy, but worth every ounce. Along with the Dutch oven, pack along about 20 charcoal briquettes. Yeah, those things you pile in a Weber barbecue. You’ll heat those up on a fire-heated grill while you get everything else prepped.
While your briquettes are heating up, start working on the sauce. Basically, you’re making amazing spaghetti sauce. All the usual stuff should go in here; onion, garlic, carrots, celery, peppers, tomato paste, mushrooms, basil, oregano, meat. If you are on a long trip, you can dehydrate a bunch of this prior to your trip.
Photo: Colin Field
For the sauce, it’s good to go more watery than not. Because you’re using no-boil noodles, you need this moisture to hydrate the noodles. Once the sauce is ready, start arranging in your Dutch oven.
Start with a layer of sauce, then it’s up to you; layer some cottage cheese, some noodles, some more sauce, some more noodles. The main rule is you want sauce on the bottom and the top. The layers in between don’t really matter. And of course on the very, very top, put some cheese for the melty, gooey good top layer. Put the dutch oven lid on.
Now your lasagna is ready to bake. Place some tinfoil on a flat, non-flammable surface. Depending on the size of your Dutch oven, place about nine briquettes on the tin foil (tongs will help with this maneuver), then place your Dutch oven directly on top of this. Put seven or so briquettes on top of the Dutch oven lid, then wrap the whole thing in tinfoil.
In about 45 minutes to one hour, you’ll have a perfectly cooked lasagna. Bon appetit!
Photo: Colin Field
What You’ll Need:
Dutch Oven
Tinfoil
Briquettes
No-boil noodles
Ricotta
Cottage Cheese
Mozarella
Cheddar
Parmesan
Onion
Garlic
Carrots
Celery
Peppers
Broccoli
Can stewed tomatoes
Can tomato paste
Basil
Oregano
Great Recipe……… we first did this on Atlin Lake in Northern BC. The lake was cold enough to keep some things ‘refridgerated’ but you still need to be cautious. We packed mozzarella cheese slices to keep the weight down, parmigiano reggiano cheese wrapped in cheese cloth for shredding and all the veg & ground beef was dehydrated. We took no cans, sauce was the ‘tube’ kind that is dble thick and dehydrated sun-dried tomatoes. You can also pack peppers and sun-dried tomatoes in oil for use in other things too. Again, for weight we use a GSI Halulite pot. Many of these ideas are so adaptable it makes tripping fun.