_good Humored Cook Recipes

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• Dress out as many coots as you can find folks (fools) who will accept an invitation for a coot dinner. i.e. allow one coot per fool or one fool per coot! Birds should be dressed out within one month of being shot. Soak birds for 2 - 3 days in salt water. (Use 2 - 3 lbs. salt per gallon of water)Rinse birds and pat dry. Place each bird on a cedar shingle which you've seasoned to taste.Place coots and shingles in a preheated oven, 450 - 500°F for eight hours. (Smoke usually clears out in 3 - 4 hrs.)Allow to cool about thirty minutes. Scrape the coots off of the shingles into a steel drum for transport to a "Hazardous Materials Disposal Center."Serve shingles garnished with crab apples!A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Fowl & Fish

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• For those of you who didn't take high school Spanish this translates to 'The Rocks'. Las Piedras Ranch owned by Dwain and Sandy Riney of Montgomery, Texas, is aptly named. Located in Real County, WNW of San Antonio, Las Piedras Ranch exemplifies the Texas 'Hill Country'! Their ranch, though not large by Texas standards, supports a healthy population of native wildlife and is also host to numerous exotic species. These wild, free ranging exotics escaped from neighboring ranches years ago. Dwain and Sandy recently invited me down to cook for some of their hunters. This particular hunt is a 'special hunt' for both the Riney family and the hunters. Once a year Dwain and Sandy donate a hunt for exotic species at Las Piedras to the Montgomery County Cattle Barons' Ball and benefit auction. The money raised from this annual event benefits the Montgomery County Unit of the American Cancer Society. In the course of my visit Dwain pulled out the 'ranch recipe box' and selected several favorites of his and Sandy's that he thought I'd like. In addition Sandy has since called me with a couple of other old family favorites. We hate to think of family heirlooms disappearing, but it happens when you prepare these recipes. My thanks to Dwain and Sandy for sharing them and inviting me down to share their corner of heaven in the Texas Hill Country!Spiced with More Tall Tales - Appetizers

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• Back in the early 80's, I pulled my pack string into an outfitter's camp just at sunset. Their dudes were still out on the hill, so I accepted the invitation of the cook to stay for dinner. I unpacked and hobbled the stock and packed in an arm full of wood to the cook tent. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot on the wood stove and sat down to shoot the bull while the cook started work on dinner. It didn't take long to figure this old kid had spent part of the afternoon visiting with old "John Barley Corn". The dudes and their guides arrived about an hour after dark. The hot dry weather made the hunting tough, and the elk had all but quit bugling. In four days of daylight to dark hunting the four hunters had hung one small buck and one raghorn bull on the meat pole. Needless to say, there was an air of tired discouragement as we sat around the table waiting for the cook to finish dinner. The old cook knew how to erase the saddle miles off of one's jeans and the scowl off of one's face. Dinner was roast saddle of venison with red potatoes and carrots, sourdough biscuits, and dessert of huckleberry cobbler! It somehow seemed that after dinner every one's spirits had lifted and that maybe the bulls would tune up and start bugling in the morning. One of the dudes walked over to where I'd pitched my camp for a little conversation before we turned in for the night. I'll always remember him telling me that no matter how poor the hunting was, just coming back to that tent and having grub that good set before him made the hunt a success. The next morning I heard the guides wrangling their stock about two hours before daylight. I didn't have to make such an early start, so I fed my horses and wandered over to the cook tent to mooch a cup of coffee. When I pulled the tent flap aside and walked in, the cook was frying ham steaks, and had sourdough pancakes ready to fry, along with a couple dozen eggs. I helped myself to the coffee and sat down at the table. While I sipped my coffee, he cooked. I noticed he was sipping from a glass with about two fingers of an amber liquid. I commented on how good the food had been the night before and that breakfast didn't look like it would disappoint anyone. As we talked cookin', I asked him where he got all his recipes. When he said he kept them all in his head, I remarked something to the effect that would be kinda hard to do.. "Naw," he said, "they all start with the same ingredient". Puzzled, I asked what he meant. His reply has stuck with me since. He said, "Each recipe starts out with: Pour one beer or one shot of whiskey into the cook! Once I do that, the rest just seems to come to me!" After eating supper the night before and looking at the breakfast he was preparing, I couldn't see trying to argue with him. This old boy was the epitome of a "Happy cook is a good cook!"A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales

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• Throw the mud duck in a roaster that was last cleaned out by your hound dog. Mix all of the ingredients, except caster oil and beer. Stuff the duck with this mixture. Give the duck a good dose of castor oil and then pour beer over all. (Beer is very important since brothers-in-law go into a frenzy when they smell it.) Cook in oven on low heat for 1 hour. Garnish and serve piping hot. If this does not stop your brother-in-law from coming to your house and drinking up all of your beer or asking for seconds or thirds, there is only one sure ingredient that you can add next time. It is illegal and you may have to do some time for it, but it probably would be worth it. Add ARSENIC! LOTS OF ARSENIC!!A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Fowl & Fish

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• My pocket dictionary defines stew as "to boil slowly" or "a dish of stewed meat and vegetables served in gravy". So even for those folks whose cooking talents are stretched by just trying to boil water, they only have to add some meat and veggies to make a stew. In other words, beginning Dutch oven cooks and stews were made for each other. Someone with a new Dutch oven, wanting to cook something, is just like a student pilot landing an airplane. Any landing you walk away from is good, some are just better than others! For first time Dutch oven cooks, that translates to if your dinner guests do not leave the supper table in search of immediate medical attention, it must've been okay! As with flying and many other things for that matter, the results usually improve with a little practice.You can make a stew as simple as Tony Latham's "Warden Stew" or create a masterpiece containing exotic vegetables and spices. If you're bored with just plain old cooking and you want to try "ethnic cooking" there is no better place to start than with a stew. For example, take your Great-great-great Grandmother's stew recipe which she brought West in a covered wagon and add some oriental vegetables and seasoning to create a stew with a distinctive, new taste.Most of us who hunt big game, when rummaging around our freezers, leave those packages of meat labeled "stew" until everything else has been used. At least the way I cut up my animals, the amount of stew meat always exceeds what I'd call prime cuts.Though you can't cut chunks of elk shank with a fork when fried in butter, to me it's no reason to leave it till last. Cooked slow in a Dutch oven with your favorite veggies and spices, an old elk shank will produce as many oh's and ah's as tenderloin sauteed in butter and garlic! A good mathematician could fill a fair sized room with nothing but stew recipes by calculating all the combinations and permutations of possible ingredients for stew. So if you fancy your self a creative person, take your new Dutch oven and a "Stew" recipe and create a master piece! Around my house or camp, stew tends to end up as a "kitchen sink" dish. i.e. everything except the kitchen sink is likely to be thrown in the pot. As a result no two are the same. Besides being easy to make, nothing tastes better when one comes in from the cold than a steaming bowl of stew and a chunk of homemade bread. On more than one occasion the last night in camp, dinner consisted of some leftover meat and everything else left in the bottom of the camp box with some baking powder biscuits to soak up the juices. What ever the occasion, whether at home or in camp, A Dutch oven stew will fill'em up and keep'em smilin'A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Camp Chili, Stews, Soups and Sauces

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• If you're not a duck hunter or married to a duck hunter, just skip this recipe. Personally, I've never tried to cook a coot, primarily because I've never even shot at an "Ivory Billed Mallard". Remember, this is the guy who will eat every thing except grits and green lima beans. In this modern age, it seems to me, too many people blame events in their childhood for the mistakes or failures they make as adults. Some rightly so, but I can't help but feel a lot of it is over done!So where is all this leading, you ask yourself? Yup! you guessed it, my childhood. Since my dad first took me duck hunting at age three, the list of things I've done in life longer than I've duck hunted is fairly short. Memories of those first duck hunts are still vivid. Back in that distant past, I learned that the preferred duck of those who wait at home while others duck hunt, to be mallards. Those of the green headed variety! My dad, being a pretty fair hand with a shotgun, seldom got skunked in those days. He'd been there before, but it was a new experience for me, just four years old. About the only thing flying in the marsh that day were coots, which Dad had several different adjectives to describe. I didn't understand why dad didn't shoot them as they patterned by. At that time I obviously thought-ducks are ducks! Wrong! How long I pestered Dad to shoot them, I can't remember. What I do remember is him saying, "Mother didn't like any kind of ducks except those with green heads" and it wouldn't be very smart to take something home she didn't like. Though I was just four years old, that part I understood! I'm sure Dad first passed this recipe on that day. Over the years, Dad repeated this recipe so many times I've memorized it without ever having cooked it.A Back Country Guide to Outdoor Cooking Spiced with Tall Tales - Fowl & Fish

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• If you like to eat, taking off on a back country trip with someone you don't know well who says he will do the cooking, presents the same chance for success as going on a blind date arranged by your sister. But...as an old boss of mine used to say, "Life is nothing but a series of missed opportunities!" You have to take the chance, but it's unwise to let your expectations get too high. Anyway...In late August, 1983, my boss passed some information on to me about two fellas who had drawn permits to hunt bighorn sheep along Idaho's Middle Fork of Salmon River and were allowing two other guys to go hunting in their place. Such a transfer is, of course, contrary to Idaho Code. Al told me to put together an operation which if successful might educate these guys and generate a little income for the state judicial system at the same time. I enlisted Russ Kozacek and Paul Valcarce to help with the operation. The plan went something like this. Paul and I would fly a float boat into Indian Creek and float down to the mouth of Loon Creek and meet Russ with his pack string. Russ and Paul would head up toward Norton Ridge where our informant said these guys planned to hunt. I would set up surveillance on a trail junction should they miss the guys up on the mountain. Russ and I split picking up the camp groceries and cooking duties. I would take care of everything along the river, and Russ would provide for Paul and him while on horseback. No problem!?!?!Russ readily admits that he and I come from different camp cooking schools. Russ graduated with honors from the school that teaches folks to fix the simplest, quickest recipes that result in the fewest dirty dishes. The ability to boil water is high on the list of criteria required to graduate from this particular school that shall remain un-named here! The grub in his camp isn't fancy but there is always enough. That is, until this trip.At the appointed time we met at the US Forest Service tent frame located about a half mile below the confluence of the Big Loon Creek with Middle Fork.Let me digress here and tell you a little more about where we met. At this time the USFS stationed a person at the tent frame during the summer float season. The fireguard had pulled out just a week before we arrived. Among other duties, this person kept the one-hole outhouses located at float camps supplied with toilet paper. More than once I'd stopped to re-supply when my own stocks of this vital commodity ran low.While Paul and I sorted his stuff, Russ started putting things in two different piles. One pile they would take with them on the trail, and another pile to leave with me at our base camp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Russ pick up some of the "Woodsy Owl" drawstring garbage bags to stow stuff in out of the tent frame. Coincidentally, the fireguard kept his extra TP in the same bags hung on a nail next to the door. With all three of us working, it didn't take long to get the pack stock loaded. After agreeing on radio codes and check-in times, Russ and Paul pulled out.I squared my gear around after they left, then pulled a paperback book out of my duffel and began the surveillance. I fixed a chicken and pasta dish in my 10" aluminum DO and sat on the porch maintaining surveillance as long as I had reading light. Then it came time to light a lantern and move inside. I reached into the "Woodsy Owl" bag for a roll of TP prior to taking a stroll up the hill to the privy. Only when we compared notes several days later did we determine that we'd made simultaneous discoveries! I reached in expecting to grab a soft round roll, not a foil wrapped package containing freeze-dried beef stroganoff! Meanwhile, up on Norton Ridge, Russ ended up being the one to grasp what I was looking for! Later, there was considerable confusion over WHO was responsible for the switch! In my case I substituted a copy of the previous year's fishing regulations for what I needed, while Russ and Paul split a can of kipper snacks and a couple of granola bars found at the bottom of a saddle bag.If there is a moral to this story it's this. Even if you're not the cook, at least check to make sure the cook packs the grub!Spiced with More Tall Tales - Meats