Chuck Wagon Hash

By Neil Waring

Revered Wyoming Chef, outdoor cooking expert, admired woodsmen and honored citizen.

I have posted a couple of cowboy hash recipes in the past but this one is really good, give it a try. For this one get out your biggest cast iron skillet – the big black one in the back of the bottom shelf.

And here is what you will need and all the how to do it stuff!

3 large potatoes - I prefer nice red potatoes, but any type will work. Cut out the bad spots, if any, do not peel, cut into smallish, about 1/4 inch chunks. If you notice red speckles, check your fingers, that’s why I use dull knives (can’t be too careful)

1/3 green bell pepper, cut into tiny pieces, we are looking for flavor here not the big crunch

1/2 large onion, diced – You ever notice how bad/strong onions are this time of year? Cannot wait for my first garden onions, sometime in late June.

Random sunset photo I took last week to make the blog more lively.

1 lb. Hamburger, you could use sausage here but do not substitute some newfangled meat or fake meat, that is not hash, it is modern something, not hash

Fry up the potatoes, pepper, and onion in one big ol’ tablespoon of bacon grease, if you have it, olive oil if you do not.

As soon as the potatoes start to soften (only a minute or so) toss in the hamburger in small pieces and fry it up on medium heat. I turn it up on high myself, super high if I have it. Maybe that is why the smoke alarm chased the dog out of the kitchen.

When it looks about right pour in a ½ cup of frozen corn, keep stirring and cooking/frying

Now it is time for the spices, add pepper, sage, a dash of cumin and a bit of thyme. (A tad more sage than cumin or thyme)The bacon fat should take care of the salt – but being a well seniored citizen I try to avoid adding salt.

Sprinkle the top with your choice of shredded cheese (not mozzarella, hey, this is not a pizza)

Put the skillet into a warm oven, only about 200

Fry up a half dozen eggs, pull out the skillet and toss them on top (keep the eggs runny, over easy or over medium is great)

Serve with Catsup, sour cream and salsa

This goes great with a couple of glazed donuts and juice of your choice

Serves 3-6 depending on how hungry everyone is and whether or not Uncle Earl is visiting – - - AGAIN!

*Just noticed I used two exclamation marks, or is it exclamation points in this post, doesn’t matter, anyway, two in one post was my record, guess this post ties a record. Hey, a record setting post.  All Right! That’s three, new record! (4)

Trail Drive Breakfast

I get tired of reading what is labeled, “authentic cowboy trail food,” and one of the first ingredients to some kind of stir fry they didn’t have, and wouldn’t have eaten if it was available, is avocado or mushrooms. In my many years studying Western American history I have found no reference to the use of mushrooms on the trail, and although avocados were commonly available in Mexico, and in the American Southwest cowboys thought of them as low level food and most avoided them.

Cowboys ate food very plain, well done, and salty. They might have tried something with mushrooms or avocados in restaurants, but not on the trail. Trail food needed to be fast, filling and hot. Following is a recipe for breakfast on a trail drive.

Warm a flour tortilla or use fresh hot biscuits
Spread with refried black or pinto beans
*Top with scrambled eggs (in modern day we toss on some shredded cheese and salsa)

Role the tortilla taco style, or stack the biscuit halves sandwich style

Serve with fresh hot coffee and the cowboy was ready for the trail

*Eggs were available in several places along the trail, some dirt farmers made a nice bit of money by selling to ol' cookie as he went north with the beefs.

French Fries - The Healthy Cowboy Way

 

          Can an old retired school teacher make

                  New Fangled French Fries

                         YEP!

                                   By

                            Neil Waring

Revered Wyoming Chef, outdoor cooking expert, admired woodsmen, award winning author, retired politician and honored citizen.

 

Tired of fast food French Fries? They are full of calories, greasy, and not that tasty.  But we all remember how great they were when we were kids and wish they were that good today.

Here is an at home alterative, and they taste great and without fast food guilt.

ü One medium potato – cleaned, peeled and cut into eight wedges

ü Spray pizza pan or cookie sheet with Pam or similar product

ü Place Potatoes on pan and spray with the Vegetable oil

ü Preheat broiler and put the potatoes, I put it on the highest setting so it will both cook and crisp the potatoes

ü Broil for three minutes then sprinkle with parmesan or cheddar and broil another three minutes (I usually leave out the cheese but they are delicious either way)

ü Remove salt and pepper to taste and enjoy

Each potato is about 200 calories (as long as you are light on the cheese)

We use this to serve two, enough, but not too much.

Old Time Cowboy Food

Many cowboys ate four identical meals every day, especially cowboys of the American southwest.

The first requirement for such meals was frijoles, a Mexican dish in which pink or black kidney beans were first soaked in water and then boiled, mashed together with oil and onion to form a lumpy puree and finally seasoned generously with salt and fried in bacon fat. Much like today’s canned refried beans, but a little more flavorful.  Three to six fried eggs was then placed on top of the beans. The meat most commonly served with such meals was mutton and, if the cowboy was lucky enough to have a large plate the meat would be placed alongside the beans and eggs. Cowboys much preferred beef but settled for mutton although some were served pork if it was available.

If cowboys had small plates everything was piled on top of other things, if they had a large plate food items could be placed beside each other. Seems like this would get a little old to me but when cowboys went to town they often ordered the same thing and maybe a single shot of red-eye.

Out on the range cowboys often ate canned peaches and canned tomatoes to supplement whatever they could hunt or to help make the ever present jerky taste, at least, palatable.

Journey Bread and Donuts

Going on a Trip – Old Time Journey Bread

 

Also called fry bread or Indian fry bread (depended on who was cooking)

 

3 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp salt

2 tsp Baking powder

1 cup milk

 

Knead until soft but not sticky. Roll thin as you can get it.

 

Fry in cast iron (the big ol’ black one) frying pan in light coating of grease, no need for deep fry depth of grease

 

Easy to make while traveling thus – Journey bread

Sometimes on the trail this bread was placed on a greased board near the fire, but more often a piece of tin or iron was used

 

-Take the same dough –

Deep fat fry in an inch or so of grease, flip once with a fork

 Put it in a paper bag or cloth sack while still very warm (right out of the grease) pour in a 1/3 of a cup of regular sugar and shake like mad

Donuts, just like great-great grandma made!

Cowboy Potatoes

Cowboy Potatoes

This recipe is a takeoff of the old time Sheppard’s Pie, but no self respecting Cowboy would ever eat something named after a sheep herder-So here it is Cowboy Potatoes, could have named it something more like Sheppard’s Pie but somehow Cow Pie just didn’t have the right ring to it.

4 - 6 Slices of bacon

One cup bacon bits

One good sized onion sliced and chopped

A couple 2 or 3 pounds of taters (6 or 8 big ones)

 One cup of frozen corn - more if you have a taste for it

Salt and Pepper to taste (I don’t like much salt as the bacon takes care of the need for salt)

Paprika to taste

Brown up the bacon, but do not cook fully – save for the oven

Leave the bacon grease in the skillet (you will need the big old black one today)

Fry Potatoes and onions in bacon grease-when the potatoes have stated to soften remove from burner and stir in frozen corn and the bacon bits.

Place in oven for 20-25 minutes or until the corn is hot, soft, and yummy.

*If it is warm enough to grill you can mix everything together, wrap in foil and put on the upper rack of the grill. Let it cook while you are grilling; just remember it needs some closed lid time to cook through.

You can experiment with other stuff in this also- we add chopped carrots, pretty good and if you like some color a little parsley sure looks fine.

Happy Cookin’

*In no way does this fit any kind of heart friendly diet!

For my tongue in cheek look at a heart healthy cowboy diet click here

http://crazy-cooking.blogspot.com/2007/11/original-heart-healthy-cowboy-diet.html

Good Ol' Cowboy Food

Good Ol' Cowboy Food

By Wyoming's beloved food writer and free spirit

Neil Waring

Living in a cowboy state and being an old retired history teacher, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at what people ate in the old days, Wyoming cowboy days.

So what did cowboys eat? Well it depended on who was doing the cooking. If it was the cowboy doing the cooking most meals were the same, the three Bs, bacon, biscuits and beans, washed down strong coffee. If he was on the trail, maybe some salt pork and dried meat. If it was ranch cooking or trail drive food it was much more varied and likely tastier.

Here is what you might find in a well stocked kitchen or chuck wagon in the days of the Old West

· Flour

· Coffee

· Tea

· Salt pork

· Bacon

· Dried fruit

· Beans

· Rice

· Dried peas

· Canned tomatoes

· Canned peaches

· Condensed milk

· Corn meal and dried corn

· Sugar

· Molasses

· Vinegar

· Onion/garlic powder

· Black pepper

· Eggs

· Potatoes

· Chickens - around the ranch house and even on the trail

· Other spices such as ginger

· And of course the ranch always had beef and wild game when they could find it. Many ranches also raised a few, eatin’ hogs, even if they did not like to admit it.

Looks pretty good to me. I believe a good cook could do a lot with this list.