What do Old Goats Eat?

Not Hamburgers or Hot dogs. If you think going camping with 50 boy scouts’ means that you’re going to eat Spam or freeze dried stuff in a pouch think again. The Assistant Scout Masters (ASM's) of BSA Troop 55, aka The Old Goats Patrol, do not go hungry.



After a long day of herding scouts we like to enjoy fine cuisine. Over the past several years we have taken our daily nourishment to the next level. Our very own Scout Master, Iron chef Mr. Lu, has inspired an Asian cooking theme.

Cooking on a camp out is not an easy task. Since we lead by example our chuck box is stocked with the same basic equipment as the boys. Our Chuck Box contains the following:

Chuck Box
1 set of Nested pots and pans
1 set of cooking utensils: Paring knife, serrated knife, slotted spoon, paring tool and soap ladle
1 small cutting board
2 coffee pots (the only thing that is really needed)
1 Pitcher
1 salt & pepper shaker
1 6oz of cooking oil
3 tub for the 3 pot cleaning method

Equipment available from the Troop trailer
Woks – what Boy Scout doesn’t have a Wok!!
Charcoal
Coleman Stove

Cooking for 14 hungry adults is definitely a challenge with the equipment but we mange every time.

In addition we have to adhere to the same menu budget as the boys: $3 for Breakfast, $3 for Lunch and $5 Dinner per person. During this trip we had an additional factor extreme cold weather. It was below freezing the entire time.

We had a 4 course meal which everyone really enjoyed.
Dutch oven Oriental Soap
Black Rice with Shrimp and Vegetables
Stir Fried Chicken

Dutch oven Oriental Soap
6 cube of beef bouillon
2 packages of tofu (frozen and cut into small cubes)
1 Bunch of baby Bock Choy washed and cleaned
1 Bunch of Green onions finely chopped
4 dried and crushed chilies
Method:
Dig a hole in the ground and get the coals white hot
Boil water: Place on coals and put a few coals on the lid.
Dump every thing in except the dried chilies
Cook for about 2 hours
Add chilies in 20 minutes before serving

Black Rice with Shrimp and Vegetables
1 gallon plastic bag of cooked Black Rice, and oriental long grain white
1 bunch of chopped green onions
1 bag of frozen oriental vegetables
1 2 lb bag of frozen shrimp (20-25 size)
A few shakes of Korean soy sauce

Method:
Super heat a few table spoons of oil until it starts to smoke
Flash fry the Green onions
Slowly mix in all the ingredients (They will all fit in a large Wok)
Add soy sauce
Keep mixing until done

Stir Fried Chicken
6 lbs of boneless skinless thigh meat (available from Costco)
3 cloves of fresh garlic
2 – 3 fresh Thai Chiles
1 small piece of fresh ginger
1 bunch of chopped green onions
6 cubes of Chicken bouillon
A few shakes of Korean soy sauce

Method:
Chop everything into bit size pieces
Super heat a few table spoons of oil until it starts to smoke
Flash fry the Green onions and chilies
Slowly add all the chicken
Add bouillon cubes and a few shakes Soy sauce
Stir until done


Braised Salmon
1 Filet of Salmon
Salt and pepper

Method:
Heat a few table spoons of oil to Medium to high heat
Fry Salmon until done

Pork and Spring Onion Dumplings (Giew Num )

These are boiled dumplings with pork and spring onion, the strongest taste is the fresh onion taste. They can be served as a starter or as a snack and can be frozen if needed. If you freeze them, they should be cooked from frozen, simply cook them a minute or two longer to allow them to defrost.
Original receipt from khiewchanta.com


Ingredients for 2 People
100 gms Wheat Flour
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Oil
150 Pork Mince
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon Pepper
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Sprigs Coriander Leaves
2 Spring Onions

Preparation
1. Whip the egg, put into the flour and add the oil.
2. Mix these together and knead them a little to form a dough.
3. Leave the dough for 5 minutes to rest it, this makes it easier to work with.
4. Into a food process, put the pork, add the garlic, the spring onion, the light soy sauce, the salt, pepper, and coriander leaves.
5. Blend until the filling is well mixed.
6. Pinch off small pieces of dough, and roll them on a flat oiled surface into small circles (approx 6cms diameter).
7. Put the meat filling into the middle of the pastry, and fold the pastry over and crimp the edges to form a closed dumpling.
8. Boil a pan of water, drop the dumplings into the boiling water and cook for 4 minutes.

Seafood Salad (Yum Talay)

This is a great receipt that is pretty easy to make. The dish can be prepared ahead of time and you can let the seafood marinate in the dressing. You can use any type of seafood you like. I my version I used Shrimp and scallops. This is a very common disk and can be prepared in many variation I found this on Receipt from ThaifoodTonight.com

Ingredients for 4 people
10 cups of water

½ lb. big frozen Shelled Prawns (thawed)
½ lb. frozen calamari (thawed and already cut and cleaned)
½ lb. medium or big fresh or frozen scallop (thawed)
add ¼ medium red onion (sliced)
½ cup of mixed celantro leaves
2 stalks green onions (sliced)
¼ cup of mint leaves

Ingredients for Dressing
4 cloves garlic
2 red and green Thai chili peppers or 1-2 red and green Serrano peppers
3 tbsp cilantro roots (or cilantro stems if you can’t find them with roots)
2 teaspoons of salt
1 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp white vinegar

Preparing the Dressing

Smash the garlic, peppers , and cilantro in a mortar and pestle (or use a cutting board and chop them into fine pieces)

Put the smashed paste in a bowl
Add salt, sugar, lime juice and vinegar and mix until the sugar and salt are dissolved

Preparation

Boil water in a pot over medium high heat
Boil Calamari and place in a large bowl
Boil Scallops and place in the bowl
Boil prawns and place in the bowl
Now add the dressing to the bowl and mix it in with the seafood
Add the red onions, celantro leave , mint and green onions and toss.
Garnish with a few left over mint leaves , a lime wedge and chili pepper
Receipt from ThaifoodTonight.com

Cooking at the Chiang Mai Cookery

Here I am learning to cook real Thai food at the Chiang Mai Cookery School

Amazing Thailand

This is our Amazing trip to Thailand.

We went in August 2007 16 days and visited Bangkok, Chang Mai and Phuket. I Planned and organized the entire trip my self using Trip Advisor.com. The Forums provide great information. We hired private guides in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. In Bangkok we stayed at Bangkok-Marriott-Resort-and-Spa and toured with Tong. In Chiang Mai we stayed at Kata Beach Hotel and toured with Sergent Kai. Our guides took great care of us and showed us sights that you would not find if you went on a commercial tour. In Phuket we stayed at Kata Beach Hotel and did not get a guide. I booked the hotels directly using Sawdee.com and had no problems. Sawdee.com also has lot of great information. I booked the in country flights using AirAsia. It was so cheap! It cost $250. for 4 roun trip tickets Bangkok to Chiang Mai and Bangkok to Phuket.

I created a video slide show of our trip that highlights the our journey and gives you a taste of our trip of a life time 

 This was our basic Itinerary. I have list the major sights that we visited. there were some many places and things It was hard to keep track of every thing.

Day	Date	Activity
Saturday	11	Fly to Thailand
Sunday	22	Arrive in Bangkok - 11PM
Monday	13	Bangkok - Grand Palace, Canal Tour, Reclining Buda, Suan Lumpini Night Bazaar
Tuesday	14	Bangkok - Floating Market-Damnoen Saduak , Tiger Temple
Wednesday	15	Bangkok - Fisherman’s Village
Thursday	16	Bangkok - Shopping MBK
Friday	17	Bangkok / Chiang Mai - Fly- Lost village tour & Market, Night Bazaar
Saturday	18	Chiang Mai - Mesa Elephant Camp, Bamboo Rafting,
Sunday	19	Chiang Mai - Elephant Jungle Ride, Handicraft Highway - San Kamphaeng and Umbrella Village
Monday	20	Chiang Mai - Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, Kids stayed at Hotel
Tuesday	21	Chiang Mai / Phuket - Kata Beach Resort -Beach - Pool
Wednesday	22	Phuket - Day on the Beach
Thursday	23	Phuket - Scuba Diving
Friday	24	Phuket - Pool Beach Fire Show
Saturday	25	Phuket/Bangkok - Fly- JJ Market
Sunday	26	Fly Home - Tokyo - Dulles

One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to taste all types of Thai food. We eat everything we saw. We stopped in several street markets, road side vendors, local restaurants, floating vendors and Thai snack food at 7 -11. They say in Thailand there are 3,000 Temples, 4,000 message parlors and 5,000 7-11’s they are every where! The kids tried everything but they could not live with out Mc Donald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. 

You thought they only had Tigers at the Tiger Temple. We were so lucky that our tour guide Tong got us a private showing to see Bam Bam the Bear. I was so scared, you have to see this to believe it …On our last day in Bangkok we went to the weekend market and we finally found deep fried Crickets. They are so crunch!

Spicy Chicken

We can get pretty creative on scout campouts. Our very own Iron chef Mr. Lu typically prepares a Chinese dish. Here the Iron Chef and his Jr Iron
chef ASM Gilbert prepared spicy Chinese chicken with fried rice. It pretty amazing what you can cook on a camping stove!