Outdoor cooking without grilling

We camped in Iowa's Pallisades-Kepler State Park last weekend -- weather was wonderful, except for a gnasty infestation of gnats.

We decided not to cook the usual outdoor food (burgers, chicken on the grill), and had some fun, perhaps a bit on the semi-ho style, but hey, there's limits to what you can take and keep fresh in a cooler.

First morning's breakfast was bacon and french toast -- pretty ordinary, cooked on a Coleman stove with a griddle that spans both burners. We made way more bacon than was needed for breakfast, anticipating more uses later.

Dinner was calzones in a dutch oven. Canned sauce, bread dough which was frozen when bought, left to rise in a closed pot in the fading sun. Pepperoni, red pepper, mushrooms, red onion, pre-shredded mozz (something I wouldn't ordinarily buy, but some sacrifices for the outdoors). Came out wonderful with some charcoal below and on the lid of the cast iron dutch oven. A foil divider kept the two calzones from becoming one big stuffed pizza.

The next morning was scrambled eggs with leftover bacon and cheese mixed in, back to the stove.

Dinner on Sunday was panang curry on the coleman stove: commercial panang curry paste (which I found a bit overbalanced on the chile-to-aromatics ratio), kefir lime leaves from my freezer, fresh thai basil we'd put in the cooler, chicken, some more of the red bell, and a few mushrooms left over from the pizza. Served over noodles (rice is a pain to cook on a camp stove). Excellent, I'd do this again.

While that was cooking, MrsF was making cinnamon rolls from another bread dough, cinnamon, sugar, butter and pecans, back in the dutch oven. These got a little overdone, but were still quite good. Word of advice: Betty Crocker's so-called Cream Cheese Flavor canned frosting has no flavor but sugar and oil. A later inspection of the label reveals no dairy in it we can detect unless it falls under "natural and artificial flavoring." Avoid. Luckily we had vanilla to give it some flavor. They made a great dessert and last morning breakfast.