Our first six teardrop meals

D

DonSue

Novice
Cary can attest that one of the first things that I said when we visited Necedah and saw our first Camp Inn teardrop was, "this is really set up well for serious cooking".

Those who happen to have read our introduction post might remember that one of our goals for our new teardrop was to eat well.

In our first four teardrop trips we have eaten very nicely. I thought I might share our first six prepared meals, all created in the 550's galley although with quite a bit of prep work done beforehand. For those who follow things culinaire there is a fair amount of sous vide cooking involved.

We do not yet own a DO and we have not yet built a campfire. Those will come with time, I am sure, but for the moment we are having great fun with what we have.

Here are the first six meals we have prepared in our 550 galley.



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Medium-rare Nebraska ribeye, parmesan risotto, Nebraska summer corn, creamed. The salad is sliced fennel, grapefruit, blood oranges, dried cranberries with a golden balsamic vinaigrette and parmesan crisps. There is a parmesan crisp on the risotto as well. The wine is a Robert Sinskey Pinot Noir (Napa Valley).



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This was a lunch after a long bike ride (35 miles). Penne pasta with homemade roasted summer tomato sauce and homemade italian sausage, fresh grated parmesan cheese with assorted herbs. The Mason jar tells you the applesauce is homemade too.



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Medium-rare boneless Nebraska pork loin, parmesan risotto, pan-braised broccoli with sauteed cherry tomatoes. The salad is garden lettuce, pears, both fresh and honey-marinated clementines and a herbed balsamic vinaigrette. The tomatoes, lettuce and herbs are from my garden.



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Pan-seared dry scallops, couscous with toasted pine nuts, carrots, shallots, jalapeno, assorted fresh herbs, dried cranberries, and garnished with cherry tomatoes. There are honey-marinated clementine strips on the scallops. The salad is cantaloupe with sliced grapes. No wine, we are in a Nebraska state park.



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Another medium-rare Nebraska ribeye, asparagus parmesan risotto, pan seared asparagus. The salad is mixed fresh berries with broken jellied wine. The wine is a Newton Viognier (Napa Valley) (we are in a Missouri state park, not Nebraska). I needed a white wine for the risotto.


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Nebraska pork tenderloin with a citrus-rosemary glaze and an orange balsamic sauce, farro with sauteed mushrooms and fresh thyme, parsnips. The salad (which got a little large because I had things to use up) is fennel, grapefruit, green apples, parmesan, dried cranberries and an apple balsamic vinaigrette. This night followed the ribeye so we finished the Viognier.


There are several themes here. All the meat except the scallops is local to where we live in Nebraska. Herbs, jalapeno, cherry tomatoes, lettuce from my garden. We like parmesan and balsamic vinegar and risotto too.

And notice how nicely the 550 provides a great formal dining table for the two of us to enjoy our meal.

One thing that is missing is bread. I am a serious bread baker and have noticed George's post earlier about baking bread in a DO. That might get us to buy one. I need to do some research.

Hope you enjoy this tribute to the versatility of a Camp Inn teardrop galley.

Don
 
Don,
You have great taste. You meals look exquisite. I too, like to cook and the galley is very easy to cook in. And very easy to clean up. Most of my camping is off grid, but when on grid, cooking seems unlimited. Eat well.
Steve
 
Very cool. What dishes were prepared sous vide, and what are you using for the water bath? Are you doing the meats sous vide and then carmelizing to finish?
 
(EricR) In these dishes the ribeyes, pork loin, pork tenderloin, corn, tomato/italian-sausage and parsnips were all cooked sous vide in the days before each trip.

As an example the ribeye in the first image was sealed in the plastic bag with s&p and a little butter, cooked an hour or so at 131 deg F, medium-rare, then removed and carmelized with a butane torch, then resealed and frozen. It was kept in the refrigerator in the galley for the trip. For dinner I heated water in a stockpot to about 130 deg F and tossed in the sealed ribeye while preparing the rest of the meal. Since I am just reheating as long as I keep the temperature below 131 deg F any additional cooking is minimized. The result is a perfect medium-rare steak (without a fire) as you can see in the first image since the steak was cut in half.

The italian sausage was browned in a pan, cooled, then added to the tomato sauce in the bag, sealed and frozen. Reheated in the water in the stockpot that would eventually be boiled to cook the penne pasta.

The vegetables were done similarly except the temperature was 180.5 deg F, they were not frozen (although they could be) and then reheated in the same water as the meat.

The scallops were not done sous vide.

I have restaurant-level sous vide equipment (a supreme over-indulgence since I am not a chef) including a PolyScience 7306c immersion circulator and a Minipack Torre sealer but I have seen others do this in a kitchen with a FoodSaver sealer and much simpler water baths. You do need to understand the food safety issues carefully with these techniques but it is not much different than normal kitchen care, just applied to a new technique.

Sounds like you may have had your own sous vide experiences? I have been very excited to use this technique to enhance our camping-food experience. It has exceeded my expectations.

One day we will take the immersion circulator with us in the teardrop to do some cooking. I suspect that doing so will be a first for Camp Inn.

Don
 
Hey Don&Sue,

I'll have to give this a try with my " Food Saver ".. !

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I've tried marinading my meats in the " Vacuum Sealed Containers " for few days (Fridge/ Ice Chest)& later " BBQing " them over a high-heat source ( Med Rare ).

My personal choice of meats doing this is " RIBEYE ".

Thanks for sharing your " Wonderful Presention " & techniques..!

L.M.
 
Found this old thread and am amused at how a CI owner (of course) was ahead of the now very popular precision cooking trend. I always stayed away from buying and cooking expensive thick cut steaks (filet, ribeye) because I could never get it to cook as perfectly as the nice steakhouse near us. Now that sous vide cookers can be had for relatively cheap, we cook all of our steaks this way and have never been back to the steakhouse since. No exaggeration, anyone can buy a $15 2 inch filet, cook it using a sous vide, and end up with the equivalent of a $100 5 star steakhouse dinner. We use the Anova and a Joule. The Joule is better sized for keeping in the galley as it is much more compact, if you wanted to sous vide on site vs doing the prep work at home.

I've started prepping camping meals this way, and it makes it so much easier and safer cooking while camping. The sous vide is so precise, it cooks the meat, kills the bad stuff, and gets it perfect without overcooking. Prep and sous vide at home, then throw it in the fridge/freezer. At the campsite, we thaw the meat then throw it on a super heated cast iron griddle on the campfire to sear and char the outside. It's not fancy, its just easy. Any meat. All the sous vide does is get it to the perfect temp to pasteurize and kill the bugs.

Steak, chicken breasts, pork, even hamburgers can all be "precooked" (accurate word but terrible connotation as it implies lack of freshness or subpar quality, which in this case it is neither) and then finished on the grill. Makes cooking in the dark so easy as no risk of undercooking and so much faster. It feels like cheating, but IDGAF because it tastes so good. Speeds up the process immensely. You can sous vide ribs at home for 48 hrs vaccuum sealed in a water bath, get them perfectly tender, then at the camp site you just char them over the fire and get the outside perfect. How else can you cook ribs in 15 minutes?

I'll post an instructional soon as we want to sous vide some ribs, wings, and also some brisket. Chicken always makes us nervous on a campfire, as it is hard to control the temp, but with sous vide its become simply a "reheat" game.

Some references:

Sous Vide Is the Best Way to Cook a Steak, Period

The Food Lab's Complete Guide to Sous Vide Steak

Looking for Sous Vide Camping Suggestions! • r/sousvide

reddit: the front page of the internet
 
Thanks for the Sous Vide thoughts. Cathy and I were just starting to think about this.

Love the idea of sharing camping menus and at-home-prep ideas.

-Al
 
We did some steaks last weekend. Perfect medium rare. No picture of the final product after hitting the grill, but here's some of the process.
 

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