Lesson 6 - Red Velvet Cake - Frosting Makes the Best Glue!

For this week's lesson, David had us practice making a pizza, supreme pie, and peach cobbler. My husband and I were put in charge of the pie. I have only made a couple of pies in my life, so this wasn't overly familiar territory for me but it wasn't necessarily unfamiliar territory either. But overall, the learning experience was a little frustrational, because very little of David's instructions for making a pie aligned with my personal previous pie making experiences. In the end, the pie crust wasn't flaky and the filling was soupy. Yuck! One thing that David taught us (that I partially forgot about, but later wished I had remembered) is that when making a pie it's wise to line the Dutch oven with parchment paper for a couple of reasons: 1) it makes for an easier clean up 2) by laying four strips in a tic-tac-toe design under a layer of parchment paper, they can act as handles to pull the pie out when it's finished baking.

The Pie is Ready to Bake!

The Pie Looked ok, Until We Cut Into - It Turned into Soup!

 Personal Learning Experience:
After the flop in baking a pie in the Dutch oven during our lesson, I was a little discouraged in trying to do such on my own. So, I decided to try a simpler dessert. I remembered that David told us in one of our earlier lessons to start with mixes when first learning to cook in a Dutch oven. That way, if something fails, you won't feel as discouraged by the amount of time lost to the preparation of a food item from scratch. Hence, I decided to make a cake from a Betty Crocker mix, and it actually turned out really well.

Because we didn't cover just baking a simple cake in our lesson, I began by looking for suggestions online to cooking a cake in a Dutch oven. I found the following website, and it was really simple to follow. Website: 

http://www.outdoorcook.com/article1036.php

I was mentally all set to preheat the Dutch oven (Yea! I remembered again!), but this particular website emphasized not to preheat the Dutch oven when baking a cake. (SIGH! Just when I begin rememberin the preheat step, it changes!) I am not sure why the preheating step was not recommend in this recipe. My guess is that it has something to do with not burning the bottom of the cake. So, I mixed the cake, which I've done this so many times I could, as they say, do it in my sleep. So, I had a flawless performance in mixing the cake. Then I lined the Dutch oven with one layer of parchment paper and poured in the cake mix. (Yep! I forgot the tic-tac-toe alignment of parchment paper that is to be placed under the main layer of parchment paper!) I lit some coals and placed 15 on the bottom and 20 on the top. The cake cooked in about 35 minutes. It turned out beautiful and smelled great! Then came the hiccup. With out the tic-tac-toe- parchment paper the cake doesn't pull from the Dutch oven well. In attempting to get the cake out, it broke in half! Nothing a thick layer of frosting can't hide, right?

Learning Theory Connections:
In my actual lesson, I was pretty frustrated because the script to making an apple pie that I have in my schema didn't match David's script. When making a pie, I mix the dry ingredients for the crust and then add the butter. After that, I create a filling by pealing fresh apples and mixing it with cinnamon, sugar, and butter. David mixes the dry ingredients of the crust with chilled water, eggs, and only adds as much butter (which he had us use butter flavored Crisco--yuck) as he thinks is necessary. Then he just heats a canned pie filling--not my favorite either. So it is with some embarrassment that I have to admit that I gave way to an external locus of control when the pie didn't turn out super well. I silently (and privately to my husband) blamed David's script for making pies. This in turn may have caused me to experience a bit of learned helplessness as I was unwilling to make a pie for my personal learning experience. I simply didn't want to try. In reflection, I see an unfavorable application of effort in connection to the attribution theory at work here. Whoops and shame on me!
On the flip side, my personal learning experience went well because I favorably applied the attribution theory in terms of effort and ability. I completely believed in my ability to make a cake from a mix (prior knowledge is to thank here) and put forth the effort to teach myself by looking up the unknown information about cake baking in a Dutch oven on the internet. In terms of the "hiccup," I apparently failed to restructure my knowledge and form the synapse in my brain for the parchment paper tic-tac-toe handle lifter method. Hence, I broke the cake in the attempt to pull it from the Dutch oven. (A spatula really wasn't all that helpful--not like the tic-tac-toe parchment paper method.) The broken cake was totally a result of my oversight, but I knew I could fix it with some thick frosting. How's that for an a favorable application of an attribution theory - internal locus of control, effort and ability? (Pictures of Personal Learning Experience Below)

Line the Dutch Oven to Ensure an Easy Removal of the Cake--Um...Provided You Don't Forget the Tic-Tac-Toe Handles!

In Goes the Cake Mix.

Careful! Charcoal Ashes Really Don't Make for Appetizing "Sprinkles" on Top of Cake.

If Only Pictures Could Capture the Smell of a Freshly Baked Cake! By the Way - How Do You Plan to Pull that Cake From the Dutch Oven?

Yep! Use Enough Frosting and You Can Glue Anything Back Together!

Lesson 5 - Cooking in the Dark - Let's Spice it Up!
Learning Experience - Chili on a Cool Night
My instructor canceled classes for this week, so I don't have a post for a lesson reflection. 
I decided to try a cooking skill that we covered in our first lesson--Dutch oven chili. I am not a huge chili fan - it's ok, but nothing to "write home about"-- so I never bothered incorporating it into one of my personal learning experience, but without a lesson this week; I figured I might as well go back and give this Dutch oven cooking skill a try. (I should have started with this skill--it's fairly easy!)
To start off, I was proud of myself for remembering something this week that I have not been able to remember in any of my personal learning experiences as of yet -- preheat the Dutch oven. I think I remembered it because every time I mentally reflected back on my Dutch oven cooking experiences this past week; I purposely rehearsed the need to preheat the Dutch oven--it worked, and I finally remembered this step! After the preheat, I fried about a pound of sausage with one minced onion in the Dutch oven. (On one of my previous blogs, I mentioned that bacon grease works as an oil for cooking, so does sausage grease--it's just adds a different flavor to the finished product. Sausage flavored oil made more sense than bacon oil for a chili, so I didn't incorporate bacon into my entree cooking this week.) 
I used the Camp Chef stove with the Dutch oven for cooking the sausage and onion, which (as I mentioned last week) I have now assimilated this practice into my cooking on a stove schema--so pretty smooth process here. I then added the rest of the ingredients: garlic, stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, corn, Worcestershire Sauce (Does anyone ever really know how to pronounce this ingredient?), oregano, chili powder, tabasco sauce and red beans. I mixed it all together, removed the Dutch oven from the Camp Chef stove and let it simmer via charcoals. I really could have left it on the Camp Chef stove, but I decided to use the charcoals because I am really trying to learn about temperature control and regulation when cooking with charcoals. (And, charcoals look really neat all light up during the dark hours of the evening.)  All in all, this personal learning experience went fairly smoothly. The only hiccup -- tabasco sauce and chili powder combined can set your mouth ablaze! WOW! (Recipe and pictures included below.)
Learning Theory Connections:
So, I definitely saw my preferred strategy of remembering information come into play here -  the strategy of rehearsal. As I said before, I forced myself to think about my Dutch oven cooking this past week and every time I reflected on my experiences, I made it a point of telling myself, "Remember, it's just like cooking in an oven (hence the name Dutch oven, right?) you have to preheat before you cook." It worked! I remembered to preheat without my husband having to remind me this week. YEA for the rehearsal strategy! In further reflection, I have wondered why I couldn't remember this need to preheat the Dutch oven until now. I came up with the following reason -- I think I had the script wrong. Prior to Dutch oven cooking, the only outdoor cooking I had done was over a fire. Well, you don't preheat a fire now, do you? But, that was the script I had in memory, so; I'd get ready to cook something outside and just expected there to be an instant heat source like their is with a fire. Well thanks to all of this self-reflection on my learning, as wells as my misunderstanding, I was able to accommodate and assimilate my thinking and behavior about not needing to preheat when cooking outdoors. Now, I have hopefully tuned the script in my schema for outdoor cooking to include the need for preheating depending on the method of cooking. (How's that for metacognition--is that what this learning blog helps us to do, reflect on our learning?) 
Anyway, I also noted the ease with which this learning experience progressed - well, I have definitely made chili enough in my life that prior knowledge and episodic memories were a given. The automaticity just rolled forth, and I had to ask my husband for very little help. Of course practicing with the Camp Chef stove and charcoals in prior lessons allowed for my brain to have had a chance to structure or perhaps restructure itself in such a way that this personal learning experience went off without a hitch. (Proof of the neuroscience belief that experiences combined with practice allows for structural changes in the brain in the learning process.)
Recipe: 
Taken from The Dutch Oven- Resource- A Comprehensive Guide to Dutch Oven Cooking - with Recipes by Gerry & Chauna Duffin, pg. 66
1 lb. ground beef or pork sausage, 1 onion chopped, 2 garlic cloves - minced, 1 green pepper- chopped, 1 32 oz. can stewed tomatoes, 1 16 oz. can tomato sauce, 1 15&1/4 oz. can whole kernel corn, 5 Tbsp. Worchestershire sauce. 3 tsp. oregano, 4 tsp. chili powder, 1 tsp. Tabasco sauce, 1 32 oz can red beans - drained and rinsed. Use 28 charcoal briquets - distribute evenly on bottom and top of Dutch oven.

Sausage is Cooked and Ready

Bring on the Chili Powder!

Mixed and Ready to Simmer.

Might as Well Enjoy a S'more While You Simmer the Chili on a Cool Night!

WOW! This Recipe Really Packs a Heat Punch in More Ways than One.

Lesson 4 - Meat Entrees - It's All About the Marinade!
For this week's lesson, David, focused on how to cook an entree. He had us try making a tri-tip roast, smoked salmon, and roasted chicken. We cooked all of the meats (except for the salmon) via the Dutch oven and charcoals. We cooked the salmon via the Dutch oven which was then place inside of a conventional oven. All three meats turned out well. In fact, I LOATHE eating fish, and I actually thought the salmon turned out well--I would even consider eating it again. (Trust me, that is saying a lot).
During this lesson, I found an additional learning buddy beyond my husband--Arlene. I "took" to Arlene because she was able to explain things on a level that I could understand. David really knows his stuff, but he doesn't always "unpack" things in a way that I can understand. Both David and Arlene have degrees in culinary arts, but Arlene's degree; and therefore experience, is much more recent than David's (probably by like 20 or so years). So, I found myself really engaged in this week's lesson as I asked Arlene questions about cooking in general. I found myself really beginning to understand some major principles and concepts of cooking.
Personal Learning Experience - Chicken and Southwest Style Potatoes
I decided to try roasting a whole chicken (like we did in our lesson) along with a side of potatoes for my personal learning experience this week. The potatoes were easy and I cooked them in the Dutch oven via the Camp Chef stove. I used a frozen package of Potatoes O'brian, Campbell's cheddar cheese soup, and bacon. (I learned from both David and Arlene that bacon grease is a great way to flavor food when cooking and can frequently be used in place of cooking oil when working with meats--not necessarily the healthiest substitution, but definitely tasty.) I sailed through this part of the cooking. Setting up the camp chef stove, hooking up the propane and cooking the potatoes--which was just like cooking on my glass stove top when I use a conventional oven. No problems with transfer here, except in one area--preheating the Dutch oven. Luckily my husband was with me and remembered the need to preheat.
Then it came time for the cooking of the chicken. Now this was a whole chicken so the body of the bird was still intact, even the backbone. I had to learn how to remove the gizzard, cut out the backbone and break the breast bone of the chicken. (My husband had to take over with the final removal of the backbone--I couldn't get that darn thing to come completely out!) Then I had to make sure and clean it really well. Once the chicken was cleaned, I poked several small holes in the body of the chicken with my knife. (David says this allows for the marinade to seep into the whole meat versus the outside surface.) I placed the chicken in a bowl and filled it with Italian Salad Dressing as a marinade sauce. (Note: 24 hours of marinade is recommend for best results, and don't ever cook in or baste the meat with the sauce used for marination--that is a recipe for food poisoning.) I then placed the chicken in the preheated Dutch oven that also had bacon cooked in it for an oil base and cooked it (the whole chicken) for 2 hours via charcoal. It probably was done after an hour and a half to an hour and forty minutes but turned out beautiful despite the small overage of cooking time. (Note: You must cook the chicken to at least 165 degrees to avoid food poisoning.)
On a fun note, my husband and I roasted marshmallows (which turned into s'mores) over the coals while we waited for the chicken to cook - never hurts to start dinner with dessert now, does it? (Pictures of personal learning experience posted below.)
Learning Theory Connections:
Ok, so I felt so much more confident in my cooking than I have as of yet. Why? Well, I can feel the schema building. I know how to set things up, hook up the propane, light the charcoal, etc. It's all occurring with  atuomaticy now. I didn't even have to do a "quick check" with my husband. I just did it. At some point, I realized that cooking the potatoes in the Dutch oven on the propane stove was no different than cooking them on the glass top of my conventional stove. So, now I've chunked this information right into my conventional stove top cooking schema. How is that for long term knowledge ready for retrieval at a moments notice when I need it? I am not sure why it took me so long to connect with and assimilate that knowledge.
In terms of cooking a whole chicken, I have never done this before. But, I have cleaned and cooked a turkey a couple of times before. As I started the process of preparing the chicken, I even said out loud to my husband, "Oh, this is like preparing the turkey at Thanksgiving." Another assimilation in to my schema of cooking. I was even standing exactly where I stand when I prepare the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner and I could see such event (preparing the turkey) happening in my "mind's eye." Perhaps some episodic memories and encoding specificity due to the physical context of the situation went on here.
Finally, Vygotsky's social learning theory is at work here. David, who has a degree and more than 40 years in culinary art experience and is more of an expert at Dutch oven cooking (he has won many awards), really has a hard time "unpacking" cooking concepts. He forgets to explain cooking terms and often leaves out steps in his directions and recipes. If he forgets to bring an ingredient with him to the lesson, he tells us to make an "appropriate" substitution, but forgets to identify possible appropriate substitutions. Arlene is more of an intermediate level when it comes to cooking. She has a degree in culinary arts and is passed the novice stage, but she was able to bring concepts down into my zone of proximal development. I could feel my ability to take what I already knew about cooking and reach just a little bit to grasp something new that David had said by asking Arlene about it. I became comfortable in my learning. I found out things I didn't know before like poking holes in the meat helps to assist in a more thorough marination or learning required temperatures of cooking different meats. All of this occurred because Arlene "unpacked" the expertise of it all for me.

Cooking the Bacon in Order to Create a Flavored Oil

Cooking the Potato Mixture

Placing the Marinated Chicken into the Preheated Dutch Oven

Finished Product - Southwestern Potatoes

Finished Product - Chicken

Lesson 3  - Cooking with Charcoal Briquets - Blueberry Muffins or Goop in Disguise?
For my latest Dutch Oven cooking class we continued to work on cooking different breads, but this time we were able to cook with charcoal briquets for the first time. Actually, due to time and limited equipment, we split the cooking between heating and cooking with the Dutch oven via briquets and heating and cooking with the Dutch oven via a conventional oven. We practiced making a sour dough bread, cheesy biscuits, jalapeno bread, and rolls. I was assigned to work on the rolls which-- if you have read my previous posts--is right up my alley in terms of prior knowledge that is procedural and automatic in nature for me. With David, the instructor, there to walk us through our steps, things went smoothly. The breads were evenly cooked and had a beautiful golden brown color all around--both top and bottom, which it can be tricky to brown the bottom of a bread without burning it when cooking in a Dutch oven. However, this bread making story has a slightly different ending when I attempted to transfer the knowledge of briquet cooking at home. (See pictures of the breads baked during the lesson below.)

Rolls I Made - This is Prior to Baking

Cooking with Briquets for Our Lesson

Cheesy Biscuits - Simply Made from a Pillsbury Dough "Pop Can"- Cheese was Added on Top Prior To Cooking

The Rolls are Baked and Ready to Eat

 Personal Learning Experience - Attempt at Knowledge and Skill Transfer:
The instructor mentioned that when you are first trying to get the "hang of Dutch oven cooking" (which most often it's the temperature regulation and cook time that needs to be mastered) it's a good idea to simplify things with a mix versus cooking from scratch. This makes it more likely for you to continue to try when attempts at Dutch oven cooking don't go so well. You don't feel like you are throwing this huge time investment out the window if you have a disaster. Cooking from scratch can come later when you have a handle on the skill of temperature regulation and cook time. After my attempt to cook blueberry muffins--I now get what he means!
So, for my learning experience, I made blueberry muffins from a Lehi Roller Mills mix. (No recipe this week, sorry guys!) Having made this mix several times before, I moved with confidence through this portion of my learning experience--nothing new about this situation. Then it came time to cook with the charcoal briquets--never done this ever in my life. So, with my husband's help (remember he is my "learning buddy" through all of this) out came the Camp Chef stove, which I was able to pretty much set up and hook up the gas all by myself (thank you lesson number one). Then I turned the stove up to high and placed the charcoals (which I had placed into a charcoal lighter basket) on top. The bottom layer of briquets lit instantly. I left the charcoal lighter basket on the Camp Chef stove for about 7 minutes to allow all of the briquets to light. Then it came time to preheat the Dutch oven. So, I placed about 9 briquets on the Dutch oven cook table and then placed the Dutch oven on top of the coals to preheat it--in the last lesson, I left the lid off during a preheat because of the usage of a conventional oven. When preheating using briquets, you must leave the lid on because it performs the same function as the door of a conventional oven--heat entrapment. I let the Dutch oven preheat for about 5 to 10 minutes (recall that last time I did 30 minutes, which was too much time).
From here, I placed the blueberry muffin mix into aluminum cupcake liners. (I used the aluminum ones because the paper liners are more dependent on a muffin tin pan to hold their shape when cooking.) I then placed parchment paper (use the Dutch oven lid as a guide for size when cutting the parchment paper) inside of the preheated Dutch oven and placed the muffins on top.
David taught me to double the size of the Dutch oven to get the number of briquets needed to heat the Dutch oven to approximately 325 degrees, then add 5 degrees for each briquet beyond that. So, for my 12 inch Dutch oven to cook at the desired temperature of 375 degrees, I should have used at least 34 briquets, which I didn't. I am new to this, so I accidentally stopped at 24 briquets. Yep! That's 50 degrees below the cooking temperature--creates a problem. (A little tip, when cooking with a Dutch oven and briquets, to help with an even distribution of heat; every 10-15 minutes, rotate the whole Dutch oven clockwise a quarter turn and then the lid counter clockwise a quarter turn. I did remember to do this part.)
Well, the end result was that I had to cook the muffins about 15 extra minutes. The tops looked done and even a toothpick (when inserted into the muffins) came out clean. But, when I attempted to remove the cupcake liner, it was stuck to the bottom of the muffin. Every muffin had a goopy spot on the bottom from a lack of heat. So, instead of burning the bread -- I did the opposite due to a lack of required heat. Glad it was made from a blueberry muffin mix and not scratch--indeed, that kind of loss with that kind of a time investment would have frustrated me. Maybe I'll have better luck next time. (See pictures below).
Learning Theory Connections:
I started my lesson with some more tuning of schema. Last week I posted that the reason for cooking without a lid on the Dutch oven that has been placed inside of a conventional oven was to prevent burning the bread. This is incorrect. You see, I simply assimilated that the lid would trap in the heat and, combined with the heat of the conventional oven, it was too much and burning will occur. (Made sense to me.) Well, my instructor clarified this misinterpretation for me. You keep the lid off to avoid trapping in moisture which leads to soggy bread. (Tuning of schema)
Once again, prior knowledge, procedural knowledge and automaticity were also at work here this week. In my lesson, I knew how to activate the yeast, knead the dough, and roll out the rolls. Why? I grew up making homemade bread and rolls as a dietary staple. In my personal learning experience - I knew how to make the blueberry muffins because I've made them several time before. So, I was on "autopilot" for this part of the learning.
I believe some chunking went on with this week's learning. I had "practiced" setting up the Camp Chef stove, hooking up the gas, lighting the fuel, and controlling the fuel levels in lesson one. So, I didn't have to keep checking with my husband about this procedure. I merely performed a quick check of my understanding of the Camp Chef stove set up and went on my way performing the actions. Hence, I was able to focus on using the stove to light the charcoal briquets instead of focusing on just how to set up use the Camp Chef stove itself.
One embarrassing thing to admit to here is that I struggled with a mental model in my personal cooking experience. I kept telling my husband that the quarter turn of the entire Dutch oven and then a quarter turn of the lid didn't move the heat around because the lid and the oven ended up realigned anyway. I seriously couldn't see this "movement" in my head. He had to physically show me how this movement did indeed work to allow for even heating. Then I understood.
There was also some intrinsic and extrinsic motivation happening here. We actually bought a new Dutch oven for this learning experience (our other one isn't designed well for charcoal briquets usage) and I was excited and curious to use it. I also LOVE to eat blueberry muffins. So, I was motivationally geared up for this learning experience.
Finally, I believe I did some accommodation and schema building in my personal learning experience. I had never used charcoal briquets in my life. I also had to learn how to calculate cooking temperatures and times, which I goofed up a little on this time! I had to learn how to light them and then adequately distribute them both on top as well as on the bottom of the Dutch to prevent burning as well as safely dispose of them when I was finished cooking. By the way, just because they look grayish/white doesn't mean they have cooled down--I know that now and so does my burned finger tip!

Cooking With Charcoal Briquets

Heating the Charcoal Briquets with Charcoal Lighter Basket

Preheat is Done. Now it's Cooking Time!

Remember, More Briquets on the Top Versus the Bottom to Prevent Burning

Quarter Turning of the Lid Counter Clockwise and the Dutch Oven itself Clockwise Promotes Even Heat Distribution

This is What Happens When a Miscalculation of Heat and Time Occurs - An Uncooked Bottom of the Bread