Charcoal’s for wimps

Last weekend we headed north towards Chippewa Falls and Superior for a spot of camping and relaxing and possibly our first ‘road trip’, though we’re unsure as to the qualification requirements for this title. Is it time on the road, distance covered or a combination thereof? Whatever, we covered just over 900 miles (or almost the length of Britain), culminating in an 8 hour trip home on Sunday. We did manage to squeeze in the Leinenkugel’s brewery and Wollershein winery on our travels, so that made it all worthwhile.

Since we were camping we had to make use of the cooking facilities provided by the parks we stayed at – so no lid to cover things for smoking. But it did mean we got to cook over wood in a fire pit rather than charcoal in a grill.

On the first night we had marinated chicken breasts from Bunzels butcher’s, flame seared with much of the marinade burning (sorry, caramelizing) on the outside. Inside they were tender and juicy and flavoursome. The next night was country-style ribs rubbed with the spice house’s 4th July spice, these were lovely and possibly the meaty highlight of the trip. Slowly cooked over embers rather than flames (we’d learnt from the previous night) the ribs pulled back from the bone and retained a decent level of moisture. For the last couple of nights more traditional camping fare was in order, with steak and then brats cooked nice and slow over embers once again.

Overall a great trip with good meat, the occasional vegetable and plenty of beer and wine – who could ask for more?