Crusty Artisan No-Knead Bread

Source: Mel

Ingredients:
3 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (about 17 ounces) (I used her whole wheat version and subbed 1 cup of the all-purpose with white whole wheat flour)
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups room temperature water
2 Tablespoons honey (for the whole wheat version)

Directions:
In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix until the dough is combined and has a shaggy, sticky texture (it's easiest to just get in there with your hands and do the job).

Cover the bowl with lightly greased plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 12-18 hours. It
will get puffy and bubble.

Scrape down the sides of the dough and let it gentle deflate. Turn it out onto a lightly greased piece of parchment paper (I didn't lightly grease mine because it said on the box that it was nonstick or something - I thought that would be good enough, but next time I'll for sure spray a little nonstick spray on the paper because it was really sticky dough) and using your hands (lightly grease them if the dough is sticking too much) pat it into a thick oblong shape.

Fold one of the long edges to the middle. Fold the other long edge over the top, forming a thick log.

Take one short end and fold it in toward the middle and repeat with the other short end - basically like folding up a blanket or towel.

Carefully and quickly flip the mound of dough over so the seams are on the bottom. Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap and let rise until puffy and doubled, about 2 hours.

About 30-45 minutes before the dough is ready, heat the oven to 450 degrees. Place a 6- to 8-quart heavy cast iron pot (like the popular enamel covered ones) (she also mentioned that her aunt uses a pyrex bowl or a crock pot insert - I didn't try them, but it's worth looking into if you're interested - just make sure they're oven safe to 450 degrees!) in the oven as it heats and let it stay there for 30-45 minutes.
When the dough is ready, remove the pot from the oven and take off the lid. Lift up the corners of the parchment paper and set the bread and parchment paper right into the pot. Cover with the lid and return to the oven to bake for 30 minutes.

Remove the lid from the pot and bake for another 10-15 minutes (I did it for 5 because it was already pretty brown and I didn't want it burned black) until the top of the loaf is browned and lovely.

Carefully grab the corners of the parchment paper and remove the bread to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes:
First of all, this bread looks and tastes pretty dang awesome, if you ask me.  It's different than any bread I've ever made, but it tastes much like something you'd get in a restaurant bread basket.  It's really soft in the middle, with a nice chewy/crispy crust all around.  And it looks so pretty!

I admit, I was nervous to try this recipe, even though I really shouldn't have been.  Mel made it seriously so easy (and really, you should go to her site and look at the step-by-step instructions; they're super helpful).  I don't have an enameled cast iron pot, but I do have a lodge Dutch oven (you know, the kind you cook with outside over coals, size 12) and it worked just great.  Also, I've never bought/used parchment paper till now, but it really was a life saver.  My dough was much, much stickier than Mel's looked in her pictures, and it really just turned into an amorphous blob after its rise on the parchment, but you'd never know how ugly it was as dough after it came out of the oven.

Yummo-rama!  This will definitely be making many more appearances in our house, especially on soup Thursdays (which is what we did tonight - paired with a delicious Creamy Chicken Soup with Rice, we had a mighty fine dinner if I do say so myself (and I do)).

Dutch Oven Enchiladas

Source: A man doing a demo at a 4-H day camp many, many years ago

Ingredients:
1 lb. hamburger
1 onion, chopped
2 cans enchilada sauce (or you can make your own here - I used about 3/4 of this recipe to equal about 2 cans)
2 cans tomato soup (there's also a nifty substitution you can use for this)
1 small can diced green chiles
9-12 large flour tortillas
2 cups cheese, grated
salt, pepper, and garlic powder
garnish: shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, sour cream, salsa, sliced olives

Directions:
Season hamburger and onion with salt, pepper and garlic powder and brown over medium heat.  Drain grease.  Add enchilada sauce, soup and chiles to meat.  Cover bottom of Dutch oven with a layer of sauce mixture.  Layer three tortillas, sauce and cheese about 3-4 times - until it reaches the top (I like to aim for 4 layers with 12 tortillas total - it seems to not be quite as soupy that way when it's all cooked up).  Cook for 15-25 minutes until cheese is melted and casserole is bubbly.  Serve with garnish.

Notes:
One day my sister, brother and two cousins and I were hanging out at the Cache County Fairgrounds at a 4-H day camp.  One of the stations or classes that we could attend was about Dutch oven cooking, and since it gave out samples of the finished product, of course we were there!  This was the recipe being demonstrated that day and we were all so impressed and amazed and delighted over its goodness (we had apparently never had enchilada casserole before) we made sure to memorize the recipe (I think we went back to the demo at least twice more, cementing the recipe in our minds) to tell our mom when we got home.  It's been a staple at family campouts and cookouts and Sunday dinners ever since.  We always make it in a Dutch oven, either on the camp chef or with coals if we're outside or straight in the oven if we're home, but really it can be made in any big casserole dish, and we've even been successful with it in the crockpot!

Dutch Oven Stromboli

Source: a little bit of here, here, and here

Ingredients:
1 tube Pillsbury pizza dough (or, even better I think, one loaf frozen bread dough (like Rhodes, but WF works great, too))
1 tube Pillsbury crescent rolls
1 can pizza sauce (or I just use 1 can tomato sauce sprinkled with pizza seasonings - oregano, basil, garlic, onion, etc.)
shredded mozzarella cheese
toppings of your choice (we used pepperoni, but you could do anything that you like on pizza - I even read a recipe for ham, roast beef, swiss cheese and spinach and used a mustard sauce instead of pizza sauce that sounded really yummy!)

Directions:
Spread  ~1 TB vegetable oil around the bottom and up the sides of a 12" Dutch oven.  Open the pizza dough tube and carefully unroll the dough onto the inside of the clean, cool lid.  Use your hands to stretch and form it into a circle the size of the lid (or a bit larger - it doesn't have to be perfect!) and then place the dough in the bottom of the oiled Dutch oven.  Press the dough up the sides a little bit and squish it all into place (if you had a pastry roller, it might be really nice to use for this part!).  Spread the dough with pizza sauce to your liking, then sprinkle with cheese and add toppings.  Open the crescent roll tube and carefully unroll the dough onto the inside of the lid again.  Pinch the pieces together to form a circular shape (again, perfection is not necessary) and place carefully on top of the pizza inside the oven.  Pinch the top crust to the bottom crust to make a pocket.  Cook with most coals on top until the crust is golden brown.  Slice with a pizza slicer and use extra pizza sauce to dip, if desired.

Notes:
At a girls camp planning activity last week, we were deciding on what we were going to eat - the girls called out ideas and we wrote them on the board.  Eventually we had to vote to whittle the menu down to three dinners that we would make at camp.  Stromboli was one of those winners.  I didn't even know what stromboli was, but I figured it could be made in a Dutch oven after I heard the description from one of the girls and leaders.  A quick search online convinced me that, yes, it really was possible, so Gregg and I decided to break out one of our wedding Dutch ovens this weekend in Green Canyon and give it a shot.  Turns out, stromboli in the Dutch oven was most delicious, and really quite simple.  I would suggest that you use high quality coals and make sure you've got plenty of them - that will definitely cut down on cooking time if you've got good, hot coals.  (We ended up having to make a fire next to the pot to supplement the heat, and doing a little rotation thing so the pot didn't get too hot on one side ... but it was worth the wait and hassle!)  I'm not so worried about camp now!  (And I'm grateful for a husband who is willing to eat my experiments!)