Picnic at Shafer Park

After our hike, I set up several different types of portable stoves for a picnic - a sterno stove that can be used with fuel or wood, and home-made 'pop can stoves'. 

Each stove has compatible pots, and a specific food that would be cooked in each pot. 

I had a menu - quail eggs and bacon, cornmeal fritters, and rice pudding.  We put pre-cooked kebabs to warm in the ashes near the fire, and I brought along dehydrated tomatoes and tomatillos for a snack.

I mixed up the dry ingredients for the cornmeal fritters at home, then placed them in a Ziplock bag.  At the Park, I added a small can of creamed corn, chopped sweet onion, a dash of red pepper, and additional milk to make the right consistency.  Once mixed in the bag (no bowl to wash), I fried the cornmeal fritters in peanut oil on my tiny, home-made alcohol stove, made out of a pop can.  Each fritter was fried, one at a time, and served with condiments - ketchup, brown mustard, watermelon pickles.  Dried tomatillos, dried tomatoes. 

I also made red Bhuton rice pudding on this little stove, using dried rice flakes, brown sugar, cinnamon and cardamom, coconut milk, currants and pistachios, and pre-cooked red Bhuton rice.  This kind of rice pudding, with a non-hulled rice added, is very chewy and delicious.

The tiny quail eggs were cooked on top of the bacon in a tiny Teflon-lined pan.  I have two of them, together, one on top of the other.  This way, the eggs can be poached in the steam as the bacon fries on the bottom.

All the food was cooked efficiently and served one dish at a time - while hot.