We have been doing some outdoor cooking on an open wood fire in the backyard.  It is the best tasting grilled food I have ever eaten!  There is something special about the natural fire burning the hardwood limbs of apple, maple, and mulberry trees.  It flavors the food with a delicious sweet smoky flavor.  Be sure to read more about how we set up our outdoor campfire grill to cook meals for our family. 


Dinner: Garden Fresh Vegetables and Smoked Burgers



Pictured above here is my complete dinner which included garden fresh red potatoes and green beans, acorn squash, and a delicious smokey sirloin burger with a few veggies inside.  All of the ingredients in this dinner (except the bun, and the ground sirloin), were picked fresh from our family garden just a few minutes before grilling them.  A few of the green beans were just starting to mature, and so they are quite small, tender, and delicious. 

The veggies include:
            beside the bun (potatoes, green beans, jalapeno, cilantro, shallots, acorn
                 squash)

 

            inside the burger (jalapeno, cilantro, shallots)

 

            and on the burger (lettuce leaves, sliced radishes, yellow tomato, and onion),

 

Yeah, I know what you must be thinking, those ain’t normal radishes!  Well, they are, they were just some that were left in the ground longer than the earlier ones we harvested.  They really packed a spicy punch! And were so crunchy and delicious on this burger.


The Process

Potatoes and beans:



Spray foil with oil spray.  Add veggies of choice.  I added sliced red potatoes, young green beans, diced jalapeno, cilantro, sea salt, and pepper. Optional: you can add a tsp of butter or olive oil if desired. I ment to ad diced shallots to this packet, but forgot.  I did ad it to a different packet though.  Lay another piece of foil over the veggies.  Fold the two foil pieces into a packet by folding the edges to make a seal.  Be sure there are no gaps in the edges, as the veggies will steam in their own juices and you don’t want any steam to escape.  We laid these packets onto campfire and let them cook for 20 to 30 minutes or so.  The result was a delicious tender cooked and deliciously flavored vegetables.
 


Squash:



For the squash I used acorn squash and sliced it about 1/4 inch thick.  Drizzled with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper.  Place onto grate on the campfire and cook 15 minutes or more turning as needed until both sides are lightly golden and cooked through.  You can set the squash to the coolest part of the campfire if they start to over brown. We placed ours on top the foil packets to cook slowly in the beginning, and then directly over the fire later on.  It all depends on how hot your fire is for where is best spot over the fire to cook them.




Burgers:

 

In a bowl I mixed together diced shallots, chopped cilantro, and diced jalapeno pepper, garlic powder, sea salt, and pepper. Then made the mixture into patties by gently pressing the mixture in the palm of my hand with my fingers until I had a flat and round patty.



I made some patties that were plain too for our kids, and put some uncured all beef hot dogs on the grill too.  The kids are not very accepting of green things hanging out of their burgers. 


The Campfire:

We placed all these wonderful patty’s and other dinner items on the open campfire. 



Then we placed it all on the campfire.  Here you can see the burgers and foil packets of potatoes and beans over the fire, and the squash is on top of the foil packets slowing down the cooking of them so they didn’t over cook.  Then we also cooked them over the direct fire for a time too till they were lightly golden and cooked through.




The Outcome:

Their loss is MY GAIN!  The kids don’t know what they are missing!  




The burger was moist and so flavorful!  It was not spicy at all.  All of the flavors and sweet smokey aroma complimented the burger perfectly!



Though this meal was cooked outside, over an open wood fire, it was restaurant quality.   There is no doubt about it!   This was one of the most delicious dinners I have ever enjoyed. 


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