This a Blog for Type 1 diabetics, Campers, outdoor enthusiasts with diabetes and all sorts of stuff for anyone that likes to be outdoors. I have lots of Product reviews for outdoor diabetics, Suggestions for Diabetics, and fun diabetic items.
My son is in welding class at school this year. He is really talented at art and like I said yesterday wants to be country to the bone. To start the class my son did a smart thing and took a look around and tried to find a project that would be beneficial around the house. The project he came up with or we brainstormed was a charcoal box/grill. We like to cook on cast iron alot and usually that means bending down and tending the griddle and oven on the ground. My son decided to bring the heat up to us instead of us bringing the food to the fire.
What motivates a kid to do things I don't know at all. I have tried bribery with cash or gifts and none of that seems to work. Something about country stuff though really gets my son going and this charcoal box/grill really put the fire under him and motivated him. He spent his lunch periods in the shop class everyday working on this and even had to work with the teacher because he was using so much metal (I told him we would pay whatever we needed to for the materials but he convinced the teacher to let him do it free).
I was a little concerned about how this would turn out because we kind of did the rough measurements in our heads. Then when he ran into issues he would just text me and I tried to help but how much can you help someone fabricate something over a text message? Then the cover became an issue because I told him to make it into two so we could add more coals to one side and still use the other side.
Finally when it came to making the base he had all sorts of fun trying to figure out how to make the legs. Then the legs wobbled so he turned them into "H" style braces and they still wobbled so he had to modify it with a bottom brace. After all of that we wanted it portable so as you can see in the first picture it breaks down and can fit in most any vehicle. It does weigh a million pounds so you are not going very far if you are the only one setting this up.
In the end I could not be any more proud of how my son saw how we were cooking on the ground and came up with a solution. Then he designed and fabricated his project and modified it to work in our parameters. These kind of skills will take him along way down the road to prosperity in the future and that is something everyone needs to know. Diabetes is exactly that way, we live with this disease and modify everything around us to live a normal happy life but there still are these parameters we have to force the square peg through the round hole. Sometimes we need to focus more on the little victories in our daily lives so the huge issue do not seem so bad and depressing. I can't wait to fire this sucker up and make all sorts of diabetes friendly foods.
So a couple of weeks ago I was teaching some outdoor cooking classes at SMU for adult boy scout leaders. One class was "outdoor cooking A to Z" and the other class was "Dutch Oven cooking." I had my good friend Russ help me out with these classes since I had 45 people signed up, and having that much food, fire, and hands in the kitchen needs lots of assistants. My friend Russ is a little different than everyone else in the fact that he prefers apple pie over cobbler when camping. Since he was helping me I thought I would make sure we had ingredients for an apple pie.
Look at this amazing golden brown crust on this pie. The great thing about making an apple pie in a class environment is that it shows the students how easy it was to make a great pie from simple ingredients. My favorite is to show kids how to make an apple pie and they are just amazed that it has so few ingredients but tastes so good.
Here are the gooey good insides. I bought one 3.5lbs bag of delicious red apples for 1.59, one five pound bag of sugar (The sugar was also for other items and I took half the bag home) for 1.79, cinnamon spice from my house, and a ready made pie crust for 2.19, and finally a little butter which was .69 cents for a tub. Bake until the crust turns golden and call it good. Make this with any novice kid and they will be amazed what they can do with a little sugar and spice. I remember one boy came back from a campout and ran to his dad and let him know that the gooey insides of an apple pie is just regular sugar.
Now you can make a fancier pie and also get fancier with the crust but for those out there that want to start simple and work you way up the cooking ladder this is a great first step. Plus you don't need a recipe just eye ball everything. With diabetes you can easily replace the sugar with splenda and use a low carb crust or replace the crust with some sort of oatmeal mixture. We had seven dutch ovens cooking at one time. That was alot of fun.
I wanted to show a unique cooking tool that a friend of mine lets us use when we are doing the park and camp method in the outdoors. The picture above is of a plow disc that purchased before the disc hole in the center was stamped. The handles have also been added so you can adjust the outdoor wok on the open fire.
The above video is of a company that has taken the cowboy cooker wok to a new level. From what I have seen most people use turkey fryers (That is what we use) but in the above video they use charcoal in this wild looking propane barrel cap that has been converted and fitted with a hand crank on the side that adjusts the unit up and down depending on your heat need.
These outdoor woks have many names, looks, and sizes but one thing you need to always look for is that they are made from a "plow disk." That is very important because there are the stir fry woks that restaurant supply companies sell that look the same and are the same size. The huge difference is that they are made of thin steel or plate style steel and you need a completely different style of heat source for those. Next time you are at one of those asian infusion style restaurants look at their woks and how their heat source works. It is totally different than campout cookers and charcoal. The plow disk is heavy gauge steel that helps with retaining the heat. You can see from the picture above how ours has alot of heat in the center, then a nother ring around that then the third ring of where you would warm the breads. This is where the heat levels are and you use those areas to cook different types of foods. To tie these cowboy woks and diabetes together you have to be carefull with what you cook. Now these things are great for veggies but, they make great fajitas, tacos, and anything you can put in a flour tortilla. That mixed in with using oils you get great fresh foods but be carefull of the calories and carbs that come with these foods. Just like asian cuisine you have to be warry of what is in the suce. I have to limit my intake when we break out the cowboy wok on campouts because of all the carbs, oils, and fatty meats. I am looking to getting one of these for my personal use and when that happens or if you use one and have some healthy suggestions please let me know! It always seems that when camping with friends the diabetic loses out when it comes to the menu, and that is why I practice portion control.
In the end if you ever camp with groups of people or are looking for something different to cook on, these outdoor woks are awesome. I have never seen one item that has wowed so many people so fast. When the wok comes out we all gather around and everyone helps out cutting foods, stirring the wok, and prepping the sides. These outdoor woks bring everyone together and give a different element to your camping experience. I think my friend started camping with us three years ago and now everyone either has purchased an outdoor wok, made an outdoor wok, or wants an outdoor wok.
