Day 41: Dutch Oven Potatoes

Side dishes are my Nemesis. I have such a hard time finding side dishes that everyone will eat. Summertime is not so bad because the garden gives me something new and fresh every day. But in the winter I get tired of boring frozen or canned veggies. I search high and low for new recipes. Anyone that knows me will be laughing out loud right now because I am being conservative when I say my recipe collection includes about 5000 recipes. I read cookbooks like novels. But I especially love it when I have a great recipe delivered to my door in the form of the Tuesday newspaper. They did an article on DO cooking (and they didn't ask me--how rude! LOL LOL) and printed a DO potato recipe. Since the first ingredient on the list was bacon...I knew I had to try it. This was a recipe from David Littlefield printed in Provo's Daily Herald.

Dutch Oven Potatoes

12" dutch oven

1/2 lb. bacon (I used a whole pound and it was perfect!)

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno, finely chopped (I didn't have one)

1/2 Tbs. McCormick Creole Seasoning

1/2 tsp. black pepper

6-8 large russet potatoes, peeled and sliced

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1/4 lb. shredded cheddar cheese

Brown the bacon in your DO. Remove from the pan and drain all but a few Tbs. of the grease. Saute onions, peppers and spices until veggies are soft. Add the bacon and potatoes; mix well. Add the soup and mix well. Let them bake for about 40 minutes. I used 8 coals on the bottom and 16 on top. During the last 5 minutes of cooking remove the pot from the bottom heat and add the cheese. Cook until it melts!

The Finished Product

Wow--that pic is dark! Sorry!

What I Learned

I started out with 10 coals on the bottom and 14 on top, but about 15 minutes in I went to stir them and I could tell there was too much heat. I just moved a couple of coals from the bottom to the top. I am seeing that in a lot of cases the problem with too much heat isn't the actual temperature of the oven, rather the distribution of the coals. So I've learned not to be afraid of moving the coals around. Honestly, I haven't cooked a bad meal yet.

The Review

These were Fabulous! This is my new favorite DO potato recipe. Every time I went to stir them I was snitching half cooked potatoes "just to see if they were done". Yeah right--I just couldn't keep them out of my mouth. They just sort of kept jumping in! This recipe is going camping with us this summer. These potatoes get an easy A.