Passport to Texas

This is passport to Texas

Whether the Dutch invented the Dutch oven isn’t exactly clear. What is clear, is using one of these cast iron pots simplifies outdoor cooking.

:06—And you can cook anything that you would at home, on a fire, outdoors, while you’re camping with your family or friends.

Tim Spice is in education and outreach at Parks and Wildlife and currently serving as a Command Sergeant Major in the Army Reserves in Iraq. In use since the 1700s, Spice says Dutch ovens have changed little.

:10—Today the Dutch oven has legs on the bottom and a rim on the lid so that you can put coals under it and on top of it and cook as you would in your oven at home.

Temperature control is critical in any kind of cooking. Dutch ovens don’t have a thermostat or controls, so what do you do?

:22—You hold your hand six inches above the coals…thousand one…thousand two….thousand three…if you have to pull your hand away sooner because it’s uncomfortable from the heat – it’s hotter than three-fifty. If you can hold your hand longer than three seconds, it’s colder than three-fifty. And, since most food is cooked at three hundred and fifty degrees in the oven, that’s where you’ll want to start gauging your heat.

Spice says have fun with your Dutch oven.

:12—Don’t be intimidated by that Dutch oven. Grab one and take it home and practice. And then, take your folks out to the state park and spend the day and have a great meal at the end of a great day outdoors.

That’s our show for today… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

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This is Passport to Texas

The Texas Outdoor Family Program is in full swing for 2010.

We’ve got a really aggressive schedule this spring through the end of May, where we’ve actually got thirty workshops all over the state of Texas for people to come and learn about camping and learn about what you can do at a Texas state park.

Chris Holmes is the outdoor education coordinator for Texas state parks. The Outdoor Family program teaches families skills to make tent camping at state parks successful and enjoyable.

We’ve got one special program we’re really looking forward to—it’s over spring break—and its at our biggest State park: Big Bend ranch. And we realize it’s an awful lot of driving for folks to go out there for 12 hours. So, it’s actually a three day program. The families will get to canoe down the Rio Grande, and then go into the interior of the park and do some really fund, adventurous stuff out there.

The Big bend Ranch Outdoor Family event is March 25 through 28, and at the time Chris and I spoke, there were still openings available. This workshop costs $140 for the 3-day weekend, and is limited to 12 families of up to six people…however you define family.

We really don’t have a definition of family. It’s very rarely mom, dad and the two kids.

Find information at the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Campfire cooking

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As author of the Texas Campground Cookbook, Roger Arnhart knows a few things about food preparation. He’s perfected recipes for everything from pot roast to pastries – creating his culinary masterpieces in rather out of the way locales, with unusual low tech equipment.

If you’re ready to test your campground culinary creativity, Arnhardt says two pieces of cooking apparatus that no open-air chef should leave home without are a cookie sheet and four aluminum soda cans…emptied.

A pit grill is a wonderful thing to cook on. Unfortunately the grill is fixed so you can’t control how high that grill is over your fire. So one of the things that I recommend that every camper does, is go buy aluminum cookie sheets. Along with what I call my riser, those are coke cans, put that cookie sheet on top of the coke cans and you can bring it up to the proper height. If it’s too high you can crush the coke cans and make it about a three-inch riser. And then you start your charcoal on the cookie sheet, under a pit grill.

He says a cookie sheet also comes in handy when cooking on a waist-high grill.

Put your charcoal on the cookie sheet, and then slide the cookie sheet under the waist high and you’ve got a perfect fire. And when you’re done cooking you let the fire burn out and the next morning all of your coals are in your cookie sheet, to dispose of them properly.

Find more ways you and your family can get the most our of the outdoors on the TPWD web site.

That’s our show for today…thank you for joining us. For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

If you have the family—we have the fun.

They’ve got the canoes, they got the fishing equipment, and it makes it possible to really come out and enjoy your weekend and not feel like you went through more trouble than it was worth.

Janice Radka and her family recently attended a Texas Outdoor Family weekend workshop at Palmetto State Park.

It’s good for him, for my son, to learn how to take care of himself. He’s not big enough to set up a tent, but he knows how to set up a tent. I was unzipping the tent just like when they were showing us what to do. We never had put the stakes in before we put the…the tent up, the tent poles through the sleeves. And we always used the rain cover, but I didn’t know all the technical stuff, so that was new information. [somebody needs to get in the middle, I’ll get in the middle.] You gotta have a place to sleep and you gotta have food to eat, and it takes a little bit more trouble than it does at home. So everybody’s gotta kinda pitch in and get it done. It’s pretty easy when you have a couple people with you.

The Texas Outdoor Family Workshop welcomes those with or without camping experience. Registration is $55 and includes just about everything you need for an overnight camping adventure.

That’s our show for today… we had research and writing help from Sarah Loden…and received support from Toyota. To learn about upcoming Texas Outdoor Family workshops visit lifesbetteroutside.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

A weekend with Texas Outdoor Family introduces tricks of the camping trade and activities that families can enjoy together outdoors. One ever popular event is geocaching.

Geocaching is using GPS units to find hidden treasures. It’s kind of a fun way to get outside, and kids absolutely love it. We got to go with something that was like a telephone but it wasn’t. It told us where to go so that we could go find a green box and there’s something inside it. I got a badge out of the green box. It was a picture of a fish. It was cool.

Dan Hayes is the outdoor education specialist who led the Naredo family on their first geocaching excursion. They found that it’s not the plunder, but its pursuit that matters.

People have hidden these caches which are essentially boxes with little, cheap toys in them that people go find. The cool thing is the trading piece of it. You take one but you put one, so there’s always treasure in that box. Those little containers or wherever you find it, they told us that they disguised them and some could’ve been like inside of a soda can or some could’ve been on a magnet that they stuck to a rail fence. I mean, they’re really well hidden because they don’t really want them to find it, but at the same time they want you to find it.

Start your hunt at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Sarah Loden… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Geocahing: Fun in Hidden Places Play Now | Play in Popup | Download