Dutch Oven Cooking with Scouting Magazine

Steve and I had a blast with the design team from Scouting Magazine doing a photo shoot of Dutch oven cooking for the August edition of the magazine as well as creating short videos for the website.  We made breakfast casserole, lasagna, pineapple upside down cake, pizza, and baked apples.  The entire time we were working with the team, we heard “oooooh!” and “YUM” and “that’s amazing!”  Needless to say, the team ate very well!

The team included a photographer who shot a million still images and several hours of video, a design/art director who made sure every detail of every situation was picture perfect, a video editor and social media expert, and an associate editor who took care of all of the logistics of the photo shoot.  They were all pros at their jobs, clearly very talented and creative people, and they were so much fun to work with.   

I am super excited and can’t wait to see the article when it is published!  The videos will be styled like the super popular Tasty clips that everyone is sharing on Facebook.  For one segment, the photographer put a GoPro (safely encased in a protective shell) in the bottom of a bowl and shot video of eggs being cracked open.  Isn’t that fun?  Most of the video was shot straight down over our cook table and some was shot with a hand held video camera.

I learned so much from watching the team set up the different angles for the shots, arrange the food, and make sure each step of the process for all the recipes went according to the plan they set for the photo shoot.

One of the most memorable parts of the day was when the video editor decided to do Facebook Live video.  This was completely new experience for us so we were amazed when we heard that after just a few minutes of the live video feed on Scouting magazine’s Facebook page had over 170 people watching, asking questions, and interacting with us!!!  The video has been viewed over 11K (AMAZING!), is very informal and captures the experience of being at the photo shoot.  Check it out along with the 188 comments!!

Here’s the recipe for easy lasagna that we made.

2 lbs. lean ground beef

2 tsp. minced garlic

1 large onion, chopped

2 26-oz. jars of spaghetti sauce

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. ground black pepper

2 tsp. Italian seasoning blend

2 15-ounce tubs of ricotta cheese

2 eggs

1 16-ounce box lasagna noodles, uncooked

6 cups (1 ½ pounds) mozzarella cheese

Preparation:

1. Place a 12-inch Dutch oven over 25 coals.
2. Brown beef, garlic and onion in oven. Then transfer to a large bowl. Remove oven from heat.
3. Add spaghetti sauce, salt, black pepper and Italian seasoning to the beef-and-onion mix and stir well.
4. Mix ricotta cheese and eggs in a medium-sized bowl and set aside.
5. Spread about a third of the beef mixture on the bottom of the oven. Add a layer of about a third of the noodles, followed by about a third of the ricotta-egg mixture and a third of the mozzarella cheese.
6. Repeat this order two more times until all ingredients are layered, ending with a layer of mozzarella cheese.
7. Cook for about 45 minutes, using 17 coals on the lid and 8 coals under the oven. Noodles should be thoroughly cooked. Refresh coals as required.

From The Scout’s Dutch Oven Cookbook by Tim and Christine Conners.