Good morning! I am so excited that the weather is finally warm enough for camping! And for campfire cooking!
Ever since experimenting with leftovers maid-rites in the pie iron (which were yummy!), I have been thinking of new leftover ideas to try. But snowy Iowa winters do not encourage pie iron campfire cooking!
Thankfully, it is finally spring, and we are ready and camping!
We don’t live full-time in the camper (that would be fun!) and we only take a long trip, like to South Dakota’s Black Hills or the North Shore, every year or two, but we try to camp most weekends. Of course with the weather and kids activities, it’s usually only every other weekend.
Since we go camping so often, I make frugal, easy camping meals. I would rather be hiking or relaxing with the family by the fire than preparing elaborate meals. The husband appreciates easy meals also-since he’s the one who grills in our family, and we grill often when camping.
But eating pork chops, hamburgers and hotdogs every camping trip gets old, so I want to find more easy, camping recipes that I will actually make.
I don’t want to do a lot of prep work at home- who wants to cook for 2 days before camping? I would like to find more ‘grab and go’ meals to use camping, like meatloaf mix (already in the freezer) for Dutch oven meatballs or re-purposed leftovers.
This weekend, I took a few different leftovers and Bucket O’Bread for campfire experiments- and I was so excited with the results! Just like Planned Leftover Maid-rite Pie Irons, Coney Dog Pie Irons are a great new camping meal!
At home, we use leftover taco meat for coneys. I did the same with the pie irons. Taco meat is simple: 2 pounds of cooked ground meat (hamburger, pork or turkey depending on recent prices) dry seasoning, water and 1 cup of refried beans. I also used hotdogs, cheese, butter and bread/Bucket O’Bread and of course, pie irons.
There are a variety of pie iron cookers, but we like cast iron-I can put them right in the fire and not worry about ruining the Teflon. We use square and round ones, the double one was great (bigger Bacon Pie Irons!) but it was Teflon. It’s gone now.
I made 2 variations of Coney Dog Pie Irons, one with bread and one with Bucket O’Bread dough. Both turned out great!
They both used cold taco meat, thinly slice cold hot dogs and a ½ slice of cheese. I could have warmed the leftovers, but I wanted a very, very easy recipe. They were still plenty hot when done cooking; in fact it was hard to wait for them to cool to eat.
The bread is generously buttered and placed butter side facing out, to prevent sticking to the pan. I oiled the pie irons for the Bucket O’Bread sandwich, and then pulled and patted 2 walnut size pieces of dough out for the top and bottom crusts. The edges need to be pressed and sealed together. I use either my fingers or a fork. If you forget, they will not magically seal together as the dough rises and cooks. The pie iron will just have a top and bottom crust.
Delicious, but not a sealed pocket.
Coney Dog Pie Iron Recipe
Leftover taco meat
Hot dogs
Cheese, slices or shredded
Bread slices or Bucket O’Bread dough
Butter or Oil
For each pie iron sandwich, butter 2 slices of bread, then place buttered side out in pan. Or oil top and bottom of the pie irons for dough variation. Pat out walnut size pieces of dough for a top and bottom crust, and place in pan.
Put 2-3 Tablespoons of leftover taco meat in sandwich, then 1/2 of a hot dog- thinly sliced. Top with 1/2 of a cheese slice or shredded cheese. You want the sandwich full, so the bread has good contact with the pie irons and gets golden brown. But not so full it won’t shut easily.
After closing the pie irons, trim the extra bread from the edges of the pie iron so it doesn’t burn.
Then cook on both sides over the fire until golden brown and toasty. Cooking time depends on heat of the fire and how hungry or patient you are. Sometimes, I set them over the coals and other times, I will set them right in the flames.
I check them after a few minutes, and then flip and cook the other side when the first side is golden brown. If the edges stick, a knife or fork can be used to loosen them.
Wait a few minutes and be careful when eating the pie iron sandwiches, they are good but also amazingly hot when done! They were sooo good, I think I would love them with leftover burnt hot dogs- but who ever has left over burnt hot dogs?
I am so glad the weather is finally warm enough to camp again, and cook over the campfire!
I am also glad that the new leftover meal from taco meat was delicious! I am excited this year to find and share more new camping meals, ones that don’t require a lot of at home prep work but are still easy and delicious. I am hoping that this will add some variety to our camping meals, while still being easy and frugal. I hope you can try them, and that they make your camping meals easier, also!
Happy Camping ( or enjoying leftovers!)
Frugal Campasaurus
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