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Dutch oven cooking is worth the trouble. Truth be told it’s not actually all that much trouble either! Here’s a great introduction to dutch oven cooking in three parts. It is as easy as it looks; use simple recipes, don’t get too overwrought and you’ll have some great eating.
Other Dutch oven information at ScoutmasterCG:
Larry’s Dutch Oven Hints
Dutch Oven Kit
Dutch Oven Videos
Dutch Oven Bread Revisited
Dutch Oven Pineapple Upside Down Cake
It’s not worth the effort until around 6:00pm and you’re standing there with a cold hot dog or Scout meal with a raw burger patty and you see a bunch of guys dipping their ladle into a yummy beef stew or lasagna or savory cobbler!
Be careful with those kind of questions! Those are fighting words around here! Just kidding! Of course slow cooked, savory, and really oh so easy is worth the trouble! Turn the pot every 15 minutes? Sounds like some good knot learning time while you wait. I love eating with the Troop from Cross Plains, WI. They sure know how to cook! PS Cross Plains isn’t even my Troop! ;-D
Asking if Dutch Oven cooking is worth the trouble is like asking if hiking Philmont is worth the trouble — you hike for twelve days and just end up where you started.
Of course it is, as the videos point out. Our Moose Patrol (adults) have some great cooks and D.O. pot roast is one of our staples. I’ve done lasagna, eggs, biscuits, soups. The boys come over and beg when we make pineapple upside-down cakes and brownies in them.
The boys tend not to use them as much due to the trouble, but hopefully we can encourage them to try them more often. It’s more like “adventure” than cooking on a stove, and can involve more boys in more ways.
Dutch oven is worth the effort (not trouble). I have been doing cobblers and mountain man breakfast for my troop for the past 5 years. Everyone loves when I do the cobblers. The troop has 8 DO’s and when I first was going to make a cobbler, they were rusted. I took 4 of them home and cleaned them and re-season them. I was told who cooked with them in the past would put alumiumn foil inside. I have shown everyone that you do not need alumiumn foil. I have nevered burnt a anything in the DO. You do not need to afraid of burning anything, you just need understand to use fewer pieces of charcol. You must check on what you are cooking. Because of my passion for the DO, I have gotten other adults and the Scouts in to cooking in a DO. The scoutmaster was kind enough to build to DO tables, so I do not have to bend over on the ground a lot.
FYI, I did win the prize (BSA Lodge Cast Iron fry pan) this summer at summer camp for the leader DO cook-off. I baked a twice (once for the Troop and once for the cook-off) a Chocolate chip, Cherry Cheese cake. I did the recipe from the Scouting (April) magazine. I was to die for.