Turn your motorhome into a chuck wagon with these recipes straight from the range.
November 2011
By Janet Groene, F47166
Beans are big in Bighorn country, where farmers grow them by the ton. Wyoming is also big beef country, where meat-and-potatoes menus offer beefsteaks as big as doormats, plus antelope sausage, bison burgers, and filet of elk. These rawboned recipes are as good for the campfire as they are in the modern RV kitchen or gas grill.
Dude Ranch Ribs
Chris Newton was an Indiana boy whose dream was to live in Wyoming. Today he’s the cook at Blackwater Creek Ranch outside Cody, Wyoming, where guests can stay by the night in cabins or make reservations for a meal or a wrangler-guided trail ride. Newton’s slow-cooked ribs are a weekly tradition. Many cooks boil their ribs first, but Chris’s secret is to bake them long and slow.
Dry rub (Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, garlic salt, and pepper)
4 pounds baby back ribs
Sauce: (Janet’s version)
2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon honey
Apply the dry rub to both sides of the ribs, place them in a pan with a little water in the bottom, and bake for four hours at 250 degrees. Whisk the sauce ingredients together. Grill the ribs over medium-hot coals, brushing frequently with the sauce and turning often, until they glisten with a lightly browned glaze.
Roosevelt Beans
One of the hottest tickets in Yellowstone National Park is the wagon-train cookout offered at historic Roosevelt Lodge. The evening comes complete with a campfire, cowboy songs, and poetry under the stars. The traditional chuck-wagon cuisine includes steak, beans, and all the trimmings. Guests travel to the picnic site via a one- or two-hour horseback trail ride, or in a horse-drawn wagon. For information, rates, and reservations, go to www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com.
This is my adaptation of an original recipe served at the cookout and in the restaurant at the lodge, which dates from 1903. The dish is named for Teddy Roosevelt, a devoted fan of this area.
1 pound lean breakfast sausage
½ pound bacon, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 15- or 16-ounce can of pork and beans
1 15- or 16-ounce can of kidney beans
1 15- or 16-ounce can of lima beans
1 15- or 16-ounce can of butter beans
½ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
½ cup ketchup
Salt and pepper to taste
Fry the sausage and bacon with the onion and drain the excess fat. Stir in the remaining ingredients. For a thicker consistency, drain the beans first; if you like soupier beans, do not drain. Bake for 45 minutes at 325 degrees. This recipe makes eight to 12 servings.
Cook’s note: If you assemble this dish early in the day and refrigerate it for later baking, it will take longer to heat.
Buffalo Bill Pinto Beans
The Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, consists of five world-class indoor collections (Western art, Plains Indians, Buffalo Bill, Yellowstone, and Firearms), plus an outdoor display in season. Interpretive character Ron Reed sets up an authentic cowboy camp with a campfire, iron pots, and an 1890s chuck wagon.
Dressed in 19th-century garb, Ron uses plump Wyoming pinto beans each day to make a big batch of beans for visitors to sample. He hangs an iron pot over well-started coals and stirs the beans from time to time while also tending to a batch of biscuits baking in a Dutch oven. He is well-versed in chuck-wagon traditions and is happy to answer questions.
6 cups dry pinto beans
1 large onion, peeled and diced
2 heaping tablespoons chili powder
1 cup crisp-cooked bacon, crumbled
Salt, pepper to taste
Wash and pick over the beans and soak them overnight. When ready to cook, drain the beans; put them in a cooking pot; cover again with water; and add the onion, chili powder, and crumbled bacon. Cover the pot and heat, stirring occasionally. The beans will be done in 90 minutes to two hours after they come to a boil. Don’t add salt and pepper to taste until after they’re cooked.
Butter wasn’t readily available on the range, Ron explained, so cooks would have served biscuits with melted lard and honey, molasses, or sorghum. “Canned tomatoes were a popular chuck-wagon staple in those times,” he reported. “Cowboys loved to eat them right from the can. Cooks often mixed stewed tomatoes with crumbled biscuits and brown sugar to make dessert.”
Creamy Baked Wyoming Trout
Baking trout with this cream sauce makes for a more filling, substantial fish dish.
2 portions trout fillets
½ cup plain yogurt
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 ½ teaspoons lemon or lime juice
2 teaspoons grated onion
1/4 teaspoon salt
McCormick’s Salad Seasoning or paprika
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the trout in a greased baking pan. Whisk together the yogurt, Parmesan, lemon or lime juice, onion, and salt and spread over the fillets. Sprinkle lightly with the salad seasoning or paprika. Bake the fish for approximately 20 minutes or until it is flaky. This recipe makes two servings.
Moose Drool Beef Stew
Any beer can be used in this recipe, but it’s always fun to try regional brands such as Howling Wolf Weisse, Buffalo Bill Cody, Old Faithful Ale, or Moose Drool Brown Ale.
1 pound lean beef, cut into bite-size pieces for stew
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 medium potatoes, scrubbed and cut up
6 medium carrots, peeled and cut up
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 12-ounce bottle Moose Drool Brown Ale
1 packet beef gravy mix
½ cup thawed peas
Salt, pepper to taste
In a saucepan or skillet, brown the beef in hot oil, gradually stirring in the vegetables. Add the beer; cover; and simmer over low heat for approximately 45 minutes on the stove or 10 minutes in a pressure cooker until the beef and vegetables are tender. Blend a small amount of water into the gravy mix and stir into the stew over medium heat until it thickens. Add the peas; adjust the seasonings; and serve. This recipe makes four to five portions.
Wyoming Honey Biscuits
Become a honey connoisseur in your travels, trying each local honey as you go. Honey found in the Cody/Yellowstone National Park area comes primarily from alfalfa or clover.
1 ½ cups flour
½ cup barley or whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
1/2 stick butter, cut up
1/4 cup Wyoming honey
½ cup milk
Set the oven for 450 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter until the dough mixture is mealy. Stir the honey into the milk, add to the dough, and knead on a floured board just until it’s well mixed. Roll or pat out the dough to ½-inch thickness and cut into rounds or wedges. Bake the biscuits for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden, and serve with butter and honey.
Chokecherry Apple Butter
These small, red-black berries were an important source of nutrients to American Indians. The trees or shrubs are still abundant in the Rockies. You’ll need about a quart of chokecherries to make a pint of pulp.
2 cups chokecherry pulp
1 32-ounce jar unsweetened applesauce
5 cups sugar
1 teaspoon almond, vanilla, or strawberry extract
Cook the chokecherries until soft in just enough water to keep them from burning. Press the cooked fruit through a sieve to get the pulp. In a large saucepan cook the pulp, applesauce, and sugar until it’s thick. Stir in the flavoring and ladle into containers. This recipe makes six to seven pints. Refrigerate some to serve now and freeze the rest. This spread is good on biscuits, toast, waffles, and pancakes, or spooned over ice cream.
S.O.B. Pork Stew
When you visit Yellowstone National Park, don’t overlook the fine wines sold in its restaurants. Wyoming’s wineries include Table Mountain Vineyards in Huntley, home of Son of a Berry (S.O.B.) raspberry wine.
This recipe is not to be confused with authentic S.O.B. Stew. Early cowboys did not use the more polite abbreviation for this stew, which was made from a freshly killed, milk-fed calf. The ingredients for that recipe aren’t available today unless you do your own butchering. Here’s a version for modern tastes.
1 pound lean pork, cut into bite-size pieces
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 small zucchini, trimmed and diced
½ cup water
1 chicken bouillon cube
½ cup Son of a Berry wine or other semisweet berry wine
½ cup seedless red grapes, halved
1 packet chicken gravy mix
Water
Brown the pork in hot oil, scraping up the browned bits and adding the vegetables. Stir in water and bouillon until the cube dissolves. Add the wine. Cover and cook over low heat for approximately 35 minutes on the stove or 10 minutes in a pressure cooker until the pork and sweet potatoes are tender. Stir in the grapes. Add a little water to the gravy mix and pour into the pot, stirring over medium-high heat until the gravy thickens. Ladle into shallow soup plates. This recipe makes four servings.
Book For Cooks
Dick Logue of www.LowSodiumCooking.com has written a fat book filled with skinny recipes that contain only 400 calories each. Titled 500 400-Calorie Recipes ($19.99, Fair Winds Press), the book provides nutritional information for each dish, but read the info carefully for portion control. Most recipes are meant to provide four to six small servings. This book is innovative, fun to read, and delicious to cook by. It’s available in paperback, and also as an e-book.
Putting Products Through Paces
If you can’t stand the heat, you can stay in the kitchen if you’re wearing the clever CoolWare collar sold by specialty stores and at SharperImage.com and Amazon.com. It has a space-age look, is comfortable to wear, and it really works. In our great-grandmothers’ day, ladies cooled themselves with flirty fans and by placing a silver knife blade flat across the back of the neck. This battery-operated device uses evaporation to cool the neck area where blood vessels are close to the surface. I tried CoolWare at a cookout, and it truly saves the day.
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