Dutch Oven Cooking—Swamped Pig Pork Chops

Dutch Oven Swamped Pig

I volunteered to cook for the Man Scout Patrol at our District Fall Camporee a couple of weeks ago.  Since we were camping on campus in the “big city” (i.e. a town with a WalMart) I snuck away during the merit badge sessions and purchased fresh meat for dinner.  Six pork chops and the fixings were soon simmering in our troop’s Dutch Oven and the Spartan Patrol was drooling as they suffered thru their stove-top stew.  If I had been thinking (paying more attention) I would have entered our meal in the Camporee’s Dutch Oven desert contest, it was so good!

This is another recipe from Christine & Tim Conners’ The Scout’s Outdoor Cookbook.  ”Swamped Pig” they call it, contributed by Helen Greymorning (Troop Committee, Troop 1911, Montana Council BSA) in the easy dinner category.

Ingredients:

1 (10-¼ oz) can condensed cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup
1 can whole milk (use empty soup can to measure)
1 cup long-grain rice
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped or minced
½ teaspoon salt
Ground black pepper to taste
6 pork chops, trimmed of fat and bone left in

Prep:

1. Mix soup, milk, rice, onion, celery,garlic,salt, and black pepper to taste in Dutch Oven.
2.  Add pork chops, thoroughly coating them in the mixture.
3. In a 12″ dutchie, use 18 charcoal up / 9 under, bake for 1 hour or until pork chops are at 160*F

As always, if you have new Scouts or guests, make sure they can eat stuff with milk.  After trying this on a couple of outings, I upsize the soup to a family-sized can and add some mushrooms.  I don’t bother chopping celery or garlic, but I’m just lazy that way.  I do have some trouble getting all the rice to firm up, but if you’re hungry enough in camp you don’t really notice.

At home, I do notice, but there is plenty here for 6 Scouts so for the 4 of us I just don’t scrape too close to the sides.  You might want to line your Dutch Oven with tinfoil to ease clean up.  The cookbook translates the charcoal to 375*, which I like, but I’m leaving it in the oven about 90 minutes to satisfy the meat thermometer.

A well-fed Scout is a happy Scout.

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Related articles

• Pot Roast in the Dutch Oven (squirrelacorns.wordpress.com)
• 5 Great Dutch Ovens: And 10 Recipes to Put Them to Work (thekitchn.com)

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SM Minute—A Simple Cloth and a Common Thread

Fish & Wildlife Management Merit Badge

Scoutmaster Minute—A Simple Cloth and a Common Thread

They are woven of simple cloth and common thread.

They are no more than an inch and a half in diameter, and weigh no more than a couple of ounces.

They are priceless, yet cost little more than two dollars [adjusted for inflation].

They have the power to turn struggle into courage.

Self-doubt into self-esteem

Indecision into leadership

The unknown into knowledge

And the most magical metamorphosis of all,

the transforming of a boy into a man.

What are these mysterious things?

Merit Badges.

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(adapted for Court of Honor from Troop Program Resources, p.19)

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SM Minute—A Good Turn

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Scoutmaster Minute—A Good Turn

As you know, the Boy Scouts of America was started in 1910.  Now for a tougher question: Who started the BSA?  Not Baden-Powell.  He started Scouting in England.  It was an American businessman, William D. Boyce.

In 1909, William Boyce was wandering around London and got lost in the dense fog.  He met a young boy who led him to his destination.  The boy refused to accept a tip from Boyce, saying that he was a Boy Scout.  That intrigued Boyce, and he asked the Unknown Scout to take him to meet Lord Baden Powell later.

Because of that meeting, Boy Scouts of America was officially organized in 1910, and there have been more than 93 million Americans involved in the BSA since then.

The Scout slogan is “Do a Good Turn Daily.”  That is what that Boy Scout in 1909 did for William Boyce, and that is what you should always try to do, every day–a Good Turn. You never know what it may give return.

You can read more about the Unknown Scout on page 27 of your Centennial Boy Scout Handbook.

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(adapted from Troop Program Resources, p.18)

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SM Minute—When the World Stopped Turning

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Scoutmaster Minute—When the World Stopped Turning

Today is September 11^th. Some of you remember the events of ten years ago today. Most of you have learned of them in history books and television. There are few days in the history of the nation when, as they say, “the world stopped turning” and everything changed direction. Pearl Harbor. Gettysburg. 9/11.

The events of the day speak for themselves. I would like to speak to how this days speaks to the Scout Oath.

On by honor I will do my best

Your honor is something that cannot be taken, but only given—it is what you do when nobody else is looking. The same with ‘doing your best’. Only you know what your best is, and you may not even know that until you are called to duty.

To do my duty to God and my country

Many people are paralyzed in an emergency. When the time for service comes, a Scout stands up—for his God and his country, for friends and family.

and to obey the Scout Law

A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent, in good times and in bad.

To help other people at all times;

Times of crisis are a true test of character.

To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

It is much easier to do what must be done with stamina, smarts, and good common sense.

However, the best lesson of the day may actually lie in the Scout Motto: Be Prepared.

Be prepared, Scouts. Be prepared.

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Dutch Oven Cooking: Fiesta Omelet

I’ve been working (eating) my way thru The Scout’s Outdoor Cookbook, put together by Christine & Tim Conners. It was a gift from a friend, who I think was simply tired of my complaining about eating the same old thing all the time. It’s been a great tool to expand on the trusty old recipes in the Scout Handbook.

This week I flipped back to the beginning of the book to page 2, Fiesta Omelet, contributed to the collection by Scoutmaster Ed Newell of Troop 25, TwinRiver Council NY. In full disclosure I’m not really an omelet-kinda guy. I like my eggs scrambled, please and thank you. But this recipe is rated “easy” and serves 6-8, perfect to suggest to the New Scout patrol.

Ingredients:
5 slices of bread slightly dry
8oz pack precooked sausage links
1 doz eggs
16 oz jar “Newman’s Own Peach or Mango salsa,
16 oz shredded taco cheese
1/2 stick butter
Hot sauce to taste

Prep:
1. Tear dried bread into pieces, line bottom of 12″ greased Dutch oven
2. Break sausage links into small chunks & sprinkle over bread
3. Whisk eggs in medium-size bowl then spread evenly over sausage
4. Pour salsa evenly over eggs
5. Top mixture with shredded cheese
6. Slice butter into thin pats, laying slices evenly across cheese
7. Use 12 coals under, 12 coals on the lid, bake about 20 minutes or until eggs congeal and cheese melts
8. Serve, adding hot sauce to taste.

My meal turned out OK. I live in a small town and our market doesn’t carry anything exotic like “Newman’s Own” (Sorry, Ed) so I substituted chunky Pace salsa—it turned out a bit watery. I’m going to wrap my leftovers in tortillas for breakfast burritos. And also I did my test run indoors, which changes the look and feel. Everything tastes better in camp!  Adjust how spicy your salsa & hot sauce are to your own scouts’ palates (my guys are Scandinavian bland).  Overall it’s an easy meal for your Scouts to try if they’re stuck in the “same old thing” rut.

p.s If you have new Scouts coming in or are entertaining Webelos, be sure to ask about food allergies (milk/cheese in this one).
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Boy Scouts Didn’t Hand Out Badges for Trying

It may be one of the worst kept secrets in modern politics, but before Texas Gov. Rick Perry throws his hat in the Presidential ring and this topic gets all political on us, I wanted to say a few words about a book he wrote.

In 2008, Perry published a semi-autobiographical commentary titled On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting for.  I bought this book as soon as it came out and read it, then read it again…. and held onto it trying to decide how to say what I’m going to say without getting all political on my Scouting blog.  Three years later current events force my hand.  So here goes…

On My Honor is the sort of book I would want to write, should I happen to become successful in public service.  First off, this book is not fine literature.  I’m sure you can pick it apart, and plenty of critics will.  Second, this book is nonpartisan, but not a-political.  In fact, all profits were dedicated to the Boy Scouts of America Legal Defense Fund.  The twelve chapters, like the 12 points of the Scout Law, lay out a lifetime, warts and all.

The book opens with personal recollections of Perry’s time growing up in rural West Texas in Troop 48, and the influence of his Scoutmaster, being elected to the Order of the Arrow and serving as Scribe for the 1964 National Jamboree at Valley Forge, and on earning the rank of Eagle Scout.  ”I can’t say that Scouting planted the idea of public service in my head, but I can say it prepared me for it,” he writes.  The rest, as they say, is history:  Perry moved from the Texas legislature as a Blue Dog Democrat to State Commissioner of Agriculture as a Republican, then Liet. Governor and Governor when G.W. Bush was elected president.

As he explains the values of Scouting to a general audience, Perry also takes on all comers in the “War on the Scouts”, which he links to the larger “culture war” pitting traditional values of service against new doctrines of selfishness and moral relativity.  He takes on feel-good sports leagues and parents looking for Baby-Sitters of America; the 30 lawsuits in 30 years against the BSA’s membership standards; the ACLU and Mitt Romney‘s exclusion of Scout volunteers from the 2002 Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City (that should make for an interesting campaign debate).

It would be easy to think this book is a partisan hack—it prominently features blurbs from David Keene, Sean Hannity, Ken Blackwell, and Newt Gingrich (again with the campaign debates and they shared a book last year).  Yet Rick Perry, like Ronald Reagan, grew up a Democrat.  He talked to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and FBI Director William Sessions, Ohio State University president Gordon Gee and one-time Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Michael Dukakis.  He talked to J.W. Marriott Jr, CEO of the largest hotel chain in the world, and he talked to his old friend Riley Couch, who remenised, “We completed things, and we received merit badges that proved it.”  As Perry notes:

The Boy Scouts didn’t hand out badges for trying.  They handed out badges for getting the job done.

That’s the thing I see in this book.  Yes, I get excited about defending the BSA, but the thing of this book is that it defends the Values of Scouting.  Its not about defending institutions, although it does that.  On My Honor is about defending the values that make America great.  I can get excited about that.

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The Marrow of Life

I am off to Webelos camp for the 4th (and likely last) time.  In the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, sometimes you have to set Living aside if you want to experience Life:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

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Camp Wilderness: Going Home Again

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Anyone who says “You can never go home again” has never been a Scout.

I grew up at Camp Wilderness—literally, I track my youth before, during and after Scout Camp.  Troop 222 spent our week under the trees in the Pawnee campsite at the Northern Lights Council‘s summer camp, just outside Park Rapids, MN.

This year, I was able to share my Scouting Home with my own Scouts in Troop 25 Sioux Council.  After 10 years in a row at our home Council camp, it was time for a change and the Scouts took me up on the offer of Camp Wilderness.

Some things were the same as I remembered.  The clear waters of Bad Axe Lake.  The lonely call of the loon. The undeniable ticks.

Many things were different, some better some maybe not so much.  There were some new campsites, a nice new campfire area built with landscape blocks, and a really cool log shelter by the dining hall.  The grub in that dining hall, however, was no where near as good as I remember.

I would recommend Camp Wilderness to any troop from anywhere.  The Camp Staff was great to work with and they tried hard to work with what is available.  And they offered wi-fi to leaders at the Admin Building, even if it was slow slow satellite internet.  It’s good to unplug for awhile, but it’s good to not have 200 spam back at work to go thru when you get home.  Camp Commissioners were more active than we are used to, and Wilderness offers a full agenda of Adult Leader Training.  Two of our Scouters completed Scoutmaster Training, including IOLS.

More importantly, Camp Staff worked with our Scouts to complete their merit badges as best they can.  Our Scouts jumped right into the lake for their swim test and all of the 2nd year or better Scouts completed Swimming Merit Badge (which we’ve struggled with down on the Missouri River).  The program areas aren’t too far apart so you spend less time hiking and more time doing.  I do prefer to have more group activities (like Troop Shoots) but what we had kept the guys busy without being overwhelmed.

Most importantly, everybody had a good time and wanted to go back.

That, to me, is what home is all about.

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Ripley Rendezvous 2011

The Ripley Rendezvous is held every four years at Camp Ripley, Minnesota.  Several thousand Scouts gather from across the Upper Midwest and Canada for a weekend of camping, shooting sports, Scout-o-Rama-type midway displays and an awesome Arena show.  This is about as close as many of us will get to a Jamboree.  Kudos to the Minnesota National Guard and Central Minnesota Council for putting on this great event.  Looking forward to the next one!

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Privacy, Safety and Names of Scouts in a Public Forum

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It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so. -Will Rogers

With the flurry of activity last winter to make sure all our Scouters had completed Youth Protection certificates for re-chartering, I was reminded of some things I learned (awhile ago) in Scout Training that we never quite got around to implementing.  One of these was how we handle pictures of Scouts in the newspaper.

As I remember it, we were told in Scout Training that BSA Youth Protection Policy and the Guide to Safe Scouting permitted only a Scout’s first name and last initial to be published in the newspaper.  I’ve been through Scout Training a couple different times in a couple different Councils under a couple different positions.  So I can’t blame anybody in particular, or nail down any training material in particular.  But it stuck in the back of my head because I immediately noticed when full names appeared in area newspapers.

Now this year, I was the Scouter the local paper got in touch with to arrange photo shoots for Scout week.  I really appreciate the local weeklies promoting Scouting and our Scouts, so I didn’t want to create waves.  However, I did want to make sure I followed Boy Scout Policy and the Guide to Safe Scouting.  So I told the newspaperman I could only give him First Names and Last Initials.  He was, to say the least, not a happy camp photographer.  I told him it was Boy Scout Policy and I would give him the reference if he wanted it.

So I came home and googled the then-current edition of Guide to Safe Scouting online.  Search, search, search not a reference to releasing names to the public or media.  Hm.  Looked for my printed edition of the Guide to Safe Scouting, but I think I gave it away to a new leader awhile ago.  Hmm.  Tried to remember my password to login to Youth Protection training (no luck, too many passwords!) Hmmm.  Tried to Google several key words, and found some Troop and Pack-specific policies to such effect amid alot of other clutter (e.g. Pack 471 Atlanta Area Council, Troop 711 Gulfstream Council) but nothing “official”.  Hmmmm.

It being late in the day, with impending press deadlines, I turned to the Scouter Twitterverse for help.  My @JohnScout Scouters List are a great group of guys and gals around the Scouting world.  So I posed the question:

@JohnScout I’m looking for citation for #BSA “policy against releasing the names of its members in a public forum”? @BoyScouts ?

I received some interesting replies.  A couple Scouters (@ScouterAdam, @arlenward) echoed my question.  A couple others reaffirmed that they thought it used to be there but “It’s not there anymore”.  A couple others referred to discussions about other causes for concern (Abuse of online photos in the New York Times, US FTC COPPA privacy rules).  Yikes, the last thing I want is to run afoul of federal pornography statutes!  Alot of the concern in the community is with online photos and stalkers and such, but with the rise of Facebook and self-tagging (at least at the Troop level) my concern at this time is more limited.

So, finally, I put a call into our Council Executive.  We were between District Executives so I called the Big Guy himself.  Had to leave a message.  Missed the press deadline.  The Council Executive did respond by email later.  His explanation, in part:

The policy of the Boy Scouts has not changed. The policy is 
that: no photos or names of Scouts should be published without 
the expressed signed consent of the parents of Scouts under 
the age of 18.

There are lots of very specific reasons for this but the 
two most basic and important are: 
privacy issues and safety issues.

There was some more, but my Council Executive never gave me permission to use this much (he’s a busy guy and doesn’t do email much, but that’s another post…)  That said, the new BSA Health Forms do very prominently contain media releases so all of our Scouts (at least at the Troop level) should have those for camp, and younger guys should have at least the Parent Release as part of annual renewals.

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I was reminded of this question the other day, when I saw a tweet for the new “Boy Scouts of America Social Media Guidelines“.  Jackpot!  In addition to reminders that all communication between Scouts and Scouters should be in a “public forum” (e.g. don’t email w/o a cc: to mom or dad, and don’t even THINK about Chat), there’s this reminder to the Scouts:

• Do not give anyone online your real last name, phone numbers at home or school, your parents’ workplaces, or the name or location of your school or home address unless you have your parents’ permission first. Never give your password to anyone but a parent or other adult in your family.

Aha, there’s the “No Last Names” thing in print!  However, it doesn’t directly address Scouters identifying Scouts in the media, social or dead tree print.  It does go on to discuss aspects of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, which should be required reading for all Scouters online or not.

The bottom line seems to be:  Don’t put pictures in the paper without written parent permission.  And then it’s still not a bad idea to be more safe than less.  As in all things, Be Prepared.

-JohnS

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