Its a good life. I really miss it.
OK ppine - your menu passes - happy to join you on a trip! 
Lot of the same stuff on our menus. A dinner favorite is fried fish with Maine Guide Potatoes (boiled potatoes and onions served with lots of butter - left over potatoes are home fries the next morning).
The go-to breakfast is called āegg-in-a-holeā, which is pretty easy on the stove or the fire. The Brit in our group always adds tomatoes.
I love to bring my Dutch Oven, although mine is cast iron. For breakfast Dutch Oven french toast is great, and all kinds of frittatas - this is potato, bacon and cheese.
For dinner lasagna is always a favorite, and chicken pot pie. We do muffins, cookies, brownies, cinnamon rolls. It can be kind of a pain to lug along, but nobody complains when the food it ready.
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You guys are sick. I can feel the heat, and the food smells mingling with the wood smoke. Its 5:30 in the morning and no campfire around. Nothing like bacon or sausage fat dripping direct onto a slight bed of coals. Kids loved the eggs in a basket and enjoyed making their own hobo meals with ground beef or ham steaks. Finishing the evening with canned peaches and bisquick in the dutch oven.
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You guys pushed me over the edge and gave me an idea. Iām putting a circular ground pit off the side of my stone fire pit patio for dutch oven cooking.
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I regularly cook dinner at home in my dutch ovens or in my skillets on coals or wood. For one, its a great way to perfect your on the river meals, but also my family prefers some things I prepare outside to how it comes out in the oven, like my pot roast or my baked pork chops or chicken.
Regardless of the size of you boat, there is usually sufficient room to carry enough to make a quality meal. We spend way more than we admit to our spouses on boats and gear, but then go out and eat freeze dried slop out of a foil pouch? Donāt think so.
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All outdoor people should have a place for a fire and space to cook with Dutch Ovens.
I like to cook on the ground. I used some cinder blocks and some sheet metal to make a comal, for keeping things warm, cooking tortillas, etc.
I added some pine trees and furniture to make a campsite in the backyard. It is quieter and more private than any organized camp ground.
agreeā¦ But just doesnāt fit into my canoe tripsā¦ We also like to smoke meat year round at home. A dutch oven is perfect for baking bread anyplace. I use one at home to bake bread of all sorts
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There is one time when I would prefer freeze dried to fresh - when I need to carry it on the portage trail.
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@ppine That sounds awesome. Iāve used my reflector oven to make homemade apple pie. With the right equipment you can cook anything that you would make at home on the river. The biggest difference. As my children always say, āeverything taste better on the river.ā
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Lately I have been making hamburgers pretty much every trip. If you check out the trip report on the Neches River I posted yesterday you will see me cooking the burger over coals. I pack the lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion, cheese all in separate bags in my ice chest. I always enjoy a good burger. If it is a multi-day trip, I usually have burgers the first day, so my buns do not get smushed.
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Always keep a little rack in your dutch oven. That way you can bake and brown evenly without having a big mess to clean up. Works great for biscuits and pies. Also a DO lid makes a great all purpose fry pan. Cook your breakfast biscuits inside the DO , then put the lid on the coals, and cook your bacon. The grease runs to the middle of the concave lid making a perfect pool for a fried egg to go swimming.
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Regretting that I never tried bread in the dutch oven!
Commence to bakin bread
Oh Man, nothing better that hot cinnamon rolls on a cold morning.
I bet it would make a great cinabun desert using flattened refrigerator rolls, with butter, sugar, cinnamon rolled and baked with a glaze. Home is the best place to play with it. If you burn it, you can easily get replacements.
Thatās how the rack comes in to play. You put your rolls on that 6" or 8" shallow pan that came with your cook set that you never use because its too thin and every thing sticks in it if you use it on a stove (or you can keep an 8" cake pan in your DO too). Then put the pan on the rack. It wonāt burn on the bottom and it raises the pan closer to the lid, so there is airflow all around like a real oven. Everything gets brown and the DO stays clean.
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Sweet!
You all are making me want to trade my kayak in for a cavernous canoeā¦
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Be careful or yourāll end up with a boat loaded like thisā¦
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Yāall have inspired me to supplement my normal ācans of slopā for my upcoming weekend trip with, at least, bannock fixins. In my slight defense, in a kayak, and solo, things like Dutch ovens are no-go.