Hearth cooking

Let me start with a couple of gratuitous Eowyn pictures for my mother-in-law.

Here she is playing with a shiny metal tin. She was very excited!


And for once, I was able to get an indoor picture of her without the 'deer in the headlights' face.


Now, the real reason for today's post. While looking at our pictures and videos from the summer yesterday, I was inspired. When he was visiting, my brother-in-law taught us how to make hobos. They were very simple and quite tasty. Since our insert is temporarily a fireplace, I thought that this would be the perfect time to see if I could make them in it.

Here is my cooking crew with the unprepped ingredients and extras: butter, carrots, potatoes, onions, ground beef, seasoning, aluminum foil.


Wash and slice your carrots & potatoes. Slice your onions and butter. (You can add other vegetables, too.)


Layer the ingredients on a large sheet of aluminum foil. Here is the order we placed them in: butter, beef, sprinkle seasoning, onions, potatoes, carrots. More seasoning and butter for good measure.


Before wrapping, this is what your hobo should look like:


Next, wrap and seal the foil tightly. I double wrapped them as the ones we made this summer tore when they were flipped.

Next, place them on the coals. I placed our cast-iron griddle, serrated side up, directly on the coals. Then I piled on the hobos.


To cook, we rotated them every 5 to 7 minutes for a total cooking time of 25 minutes. Two had to go back in the fire for 4 more minutes as the meat was still pink.

The finished meal:


Our hearty eaters: