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Outdoor Cooking

For our February Forest Wardens weekend activity we had the kids do some outdoor cooking.  We had each of the kids pick what they wanted to cook over their hobo stoves they had made at club night.

My kids chose spaghetti, a dehydrated backpacking stew and bacon.

Our group met at Jackie Parker park.  It was very windy so we had to find a spot that had some shelter.  The park has a Pavillion with washrooms and an area to change into skates for their outdoor rink and ice way.  We set up next to the building so it would block some of the wind and if anyone got cold they could go inside and warm up.

We had 9 kids and 8 parents brave the cold.  One of the dads brought an old gas camp heater to show the kids.

One of the moms brought a cardboard box oven.  She baked cookies for everyone in it.  A cardboard box oven is made by taking a cardboard box, lining it with tinfoil and placing it over a tray of briquettes.  One briquette is equal to 35°C, so you put enough to create the temperature you need to cook your food.  Since it was around -20, we used a few more to make sure it was hot enough inside the box.  Once you light the briquettes, let the oven warm up for a bit before placing your food inside.  When you put the food in the oven, it needs to be raised above the briquettes, so you don't burn your food.  We used pop cans under the cookie sheet to raise it above the pan of briquettes.

This other mom also brought a special stove made out of a paint can.  It is designed in such a way that it burns it's own emissions,  creates less smoke, uses less fuel and gets hotter quicker.  We used it to boil some water to make everyone hot drinks.

The kids all enjoyed being able to experiment with their own stoves and saw where improvements could be made, what worked and what didn't.

Emma was so excited about having made her own spaghetti that she asked if she could write something for my blog.  So in 9 year old Emma's own words:

Hi!  This is Emma.  Today I made pasta!  I was very excited for today because, well, I got to make pasta!  It was really fun!  But when my pasta was done I got really cold and since me and JFW was at Jackie Parker park I just went in the big building for the rest of the time there.  But after a few minutes my mom brought me some hot chocolate.   It was delicious and I even got to eat some cookies.  My brother Owain made bacon (my idea) and my other brother Andrew, a backpacking stew and my cousin Gwyneth made meatballs covered in gravy!  I had LOTS of fun!

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