The best outdoor adventures include hot meals cooked over an open campfire. But cheese sandwiches and cherry pies are a bore, so when I wanted to take our “hobo pies” up a notch, I did it with the Pie Iron Cooking Recipe book.
Pie iron cooking grows up.
The Pie Iron Cooking recipe book is a huge collection of the best pie iron recipes from campfire cooking enthusiasts. From breakfast to dessert, there’s dozens of mouth-watering ideas to create the ultimate campfire meal. Kirby has packed his book with over 100 different pie iron recipes that anyone can make with simple ingredients found in ordinary grocery stores.
You won’t find the same old pie iron recipes here.
Family Campfire Cookouts Will Never Be the Same
Kirby’s book inspired my family to hold a campfire cookout potluck during a recent camping trip. With over a dozen hungry diners, I knew we could dazzle everyone with Pie Iron Cooking, so I asked everyone to pack their pie irons. Every family brought at least two, so we had an ample supply that could be used to make one large entree for the potluck.
Our meal of choice was the Spaghetti Sandwich, found on page 65.
Are you hungry yet?
Spaghetti Sandwich Ingredients:
- Bread (Italian bread works well)
- Spaghetti noodles, cooked
- Spaghetti sauce
- Garlic powder or crushed garlic
- Italian seasoning
- Butter
This recipe is attractive when feeding a lot of people because:
- you can make a ton very inexpensively
- there’s very little prep work involved.
- it can be tailored for carnivores and vegetarians
Gather all the pie irons for a family meal.
Timing is everything in a potluck, so I made the pasta noodles ahead of time. And since I would rather be spending the afternoon relaxing instead of cooking, I opted for premade spaghetti sauce. In the evening when the coals were ready, we had all of our ingredients ready to go.
The Spaghetti Sandwich was a hit and the perfect carb and gluten bomb to end a very active day in the great outdoors!
Later in the week we tried another recipe, the Brie in a Pastry appetizer found on page 110:
Gourmet eats from a campfire? Yes!
Brie in a Pastry Ingredients:
- Pie pastry (I used premade Crescent Rolls)
- Small pieces of Brie
- Sun-dried tomatoes (I opted for cranberries)
- Melted butter
This ridiculously easy recipe was a huge hit, even with campers who had never tried the swanky French cheese. Walnuts are another great addition but since we had one camper with nut allergies, we nixed the nuts.
Pie Iron Cooking for (Almost) Everyone
Most of the recipes can be tailored to almost anyone’s dietary needs, from carnivore to vegan and everything in between. The only campers who might not appreciate it are gluten-sensitive and carb-averse people, since making pie iron meals without sandwiching the ingredients together is practically impossible.
Coals get cold? No problem!
As a bonus, Kirby’s book has lots of great pie iron cooking tips included, such as:
- Line your pie irons with aluminum foil before cooking. This makes clean-up a breeze and lets you quickly transition from dinner to dessert in the same pie iron.
- You can only pack so much into a pie iron. Don’t overfill your irons or your dinner will be a huge mess. Sometimes less is more when it comes to pie iron cooking!
- If your coals burn out before your dinner is ready, take your pie irons and finish the entree off over a propane camp stove. You’ll be happier with the results.
This book has so many recipes, there’s just not enough vacation time to try them all. We’ll never take another trip without our trusty hobo pie makers.
Pie Iron Cooking by Darren Kirby is available on Amazon in both hard copy and as a download.
