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OKLAHOMA EAT S Outdoor Cooking By Jocelyn Pedersen


ith the temperature gauge hitting the hundreds daily, summer is in full force. Now’s the time to give outdoor cooking a try. Cook- ing outdoors can help keep the heat out of your home during the warmer months and be a tasty alternative to mix up the household routine.


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Oklahoma Electric Cooperative (OEC) member, Pam Bradford who lives near Lake Thunderbird, says when she grills, she does the typical sort of grilling most other Oklahomans do.


“Nothing super fancy,” she says, “we just load up with vegetables. I do the foil thing with potatoes and sweet potatoes.”


Saying that sweet potatoes are “not just for Thanksgiving anymore,” Bradford elaborates on one of her favorite ways to grill them. She says she scrubs and washes the sweet potatoes to get the dirt off. Then she pricks them with a fork and brushes them with maple syrup. Next she rolls them in foil and bakes them outside on the grill. When they’re cooked, she opens the potatoes and serves them with plain yogurt. “It’s kind of like the nostalgic combination of all these different fl avors and making a new tradition with the old by expanding it,” Bradford says. Katie Barwick-Snell of central Norman says she grills occasionally and when she does, she likes to cook asparagus and onion rings. She cooks extra and freezes some of the veggies in a plastic bag for future use in soups. OEC member, Cynthia Hines, says her brother fi res up the grill quite a bit. He grills burgers, veggie burgers and portabella mushrooms. She sug- gests brushing the mushrooms with olive oil and seasoning salt before grilling them on foil. “They are very fi lling,” Hines says. “Just like eating a burger. They’re big and rich. Very rich.”


But grilling rich foods isn’t the only way to cook outdoors. An OEC member from Noble, Robin Stead, has mastered the art of Dutch oven cooking. She says cooking in a Dutch oven is similar to the way the pio- neers used to cook on cattle drives. Dutch ovens are basically cast iron pots and pans. Stead says the pioneers would use a cooking element such as cow patties or wood, but nowadays, people tend to use charcoal. Stead explains that with Dutch oven cooking, coals are placed under the pot and on top of the lid, which has a rim.


“You can cook anything in a Dutch oven that you can cook in a regular oven,” Stead says. She’s even made apple pie and cooked a ham for Thanks- giving in her Dutch oven. She maintains that the number of charcoal bri- quettes used will control the temperature inside the Dutch. The rule-of- thumb is for each 25 degrees of heat needed, two briquettes are needed. One of her favorite things to cook in her Dutch oven is a cobbler she learned to make after attending a Dutch oven class at Little River State Park. This particular recipe requires two cans of pie fi lling—one apple and one peach. On top of the pie fi lling, sprinkle one box of yellow cake mix and pour one can (any kind) of soda over the top. Then, put the lid on and cook until you smell it—about 30 minutes. She says people who don’t even like cobbler like this.


28 OKLAHOMA LIVING OE


Oklahoma Electric Coop- erative member, Robin Stead from Noble, Okla., enjoys cooking in her dutch oven. Stead says she makes everything from main courses to cobblers when she cooks outdoors. See some out- door cooking recipes to the right. Courtesy Photo


“When you smell it cooking, it smells so good, ev-


eryone wants some,” Stead says. “I haven’t effectively fi gured out how to take ice cream on a camp out.”


Whether Oklahomans are grilling or cooking in Dutch ovens, Stead


sums up the outdoor cooking trend: “There’s just nothing like eating outdoors.” OL


Helpful Links with Outdoor Recipes


http://www.food.com/recipes/grillinghttp://www.lovetheoutdoors.com/camping/recipes.htm


http://camping.about.com/od/campingrecipes/u/camping- recipes.htm


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