Product Description

Cooking in a Can is the perfect activity book for kids who love to camp and cook! The newest book in our successful children's activities series, Cooking in a Can follows Cooking on a Stick (now over 63,000 copies sold), and introduces dozens of techniques for cooking outside. Author Kate White shows kids the beauty of cooking over a campfire, with dozens of delicious and easy recipes like Hot Rock Chicken and Wilderness Wonder Chocolate Cake. From cooking in a can to cooking in a paper bag to cooking on a rock, this activity book produces scrumptious results that kids of all ages will enjoy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105337 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781586858148
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
$9.95 U.S.
Ages 6 and Up
Cooking in a Can
More Campfire Recipes for Kids
Have you ever made breakfast in a paper bag? Baked a cake underground? Cooked chicken on a hot rock? In this book, you'll learn how to do this and much more.
Make your campout, backyard barbecue, or scouting trip something to remember with great food like Jackrabbit Bean Burgers, Marmot Munchies, and Wilderness Chocolate Cake. You'll learn how to cook using everything from an open fire, grill, and Dutch oven to a paper bag, hollowed-out orange, and garbage can! Plus learn how to make a cooking gear corral, pinecone fire starter, cooking apron, solar sill for drinking water, your own family banner, and more! Get ready for some great food and outdoor fun!

About the Author
Debra Spina Dixon is a native of Northern California, who has been creating award-winning illustrations for eleven years. Her colorful work has appeared in numerous national publications and advertising campaigns. Currently, she lives in beautiful Portland, Oregon, with her husband, two children, and faithful dog, Remi.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Buddy Burner
A buddy burner is a small, easy-to-make stove perfect for cooking small amounts of food for one or two hungry campers. You make a buddy burner in a can. You'll want to make yours at least a day in advance.
What you need:
short, squat cans (like tuna, pet food, or pineapple cans)
corrugated cardboard, free from bright inks, wax, or tape
melted wax
What you do:
1. Cut strips of cardboard that are as tall as your can is high. Cut across the corrugation, so you can see the holes in the edge of the cardboard.
2. Roll up the cardboard and fit it snugly into the can. Cut a thin strip of cardboard 1/2-inch taller than the can. Put this strip in the spiral so it sticks out of the can. This is your wick.
3. Pour melted wax into the can, almost covering the cardboard.
Ta-da! You've made a buddy burner. Repeat this process to make as many as you'd like. When you're ready to cook, simply light the wick! You can use your slow-burning buddy burner to cook some of the recipes in this book. Another simple recipe you can make is toast. Using tongs, just hold a piece of bread above your buddy burner to make toast. A buddy burner should last for about an hour, but you may add chunks of wax when it's lit to add more fuel and increase cooking time. When finished, cover your buddy burner with a piece of foil larger than the mouth of the burner to put the fire out. Don't move the burner until the wax is hard and cool.

Howlin' Good Pizza Soup
Main dish
Make this recipe in a can
Serves 4 to 6
What you need:
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup sliced mushroom, green pepper, onion, or combination
1 cup meat (ground sausage, ground hamburger, or pepperoni chunks)
1 can (15 ounces) tomato sauce
1 can (15 ounces) stewed tomatoes
1 to 2 cups beef broth, vegetable broth, or water
shredded mozzarella cheese (optional)
goldfish crackers (optional)
What you do:
1. Preheat the can by placing it in or over the heat source. Wear oven mitts and use tongs when handling the hot can.
2. Melt the butter in the can. If your meat is raw, add it to the butter and stir with a wooden spoon or a clean stick until it is well browned.
3. Add the vegetables and stir until well cooked (about 3 minutes).
4. Add the tomato sauce, tomatoes, and broth. (Add the meat if it's precooked.)
5. Cover your soup with aluminum foil and cook until warm, about 15 minutes.
6. Top with mozzarella cheese or goldfish crackers, if using, and serve.
This soup is great served with a grilled cheese sandwich.
You can also make this recipe on a stove or grill.

Customer Reviews

Very cute, and useful too
This is a really cute and useful book. It has a lot of color illustrations to make it very attractive for a child to read. Also, the concept of cooking over your campfire -- or over several different types of home-made grills that they teach you how to make -- is fun and different. This actually seems to be book two of a series -- the first looks like it's called "Cooking on a Stick, Campfire recipes for kids" by Linda White.

Anyway, the chapters are as follows:

Planning and Packing (make a cooking apron)

Setting up Camp (with a craft for making a banner for your site)

Campires (make a wood carrier out of a sweatshirt, and make some different kinds of fire starters)

Cooking on Outdoor Stoves (make a tin-can grill, canyon sandwiches with English muffins, recipe for asparagus "forests")

Cooking in a (full-sized) garbage can (make a garbage can cooker, make a small "buddy" burner, pizza soup recipe, apple stampede recipe [which is just apple sauce])

Cooking in a paper bag or paper cup (recipe for rise 'n' shine breakfast [bacon and eggs in a bag], chocolate on a stick)

Cooking in Leaves and other foods (bean burgers recipe, bloomin' muffins [muffins you cook in orange peels! how cool!]

Hot rock cooking (sunrise toast and hot rock chicken)

Pit Cooking (fondue and cake)

Solar oven cooking (veggie pie and cookies with granola)

Spit cooking (mushrooms and kebobs)

Dutch oven cooking (stew and cake)

The recipes seem to be well explained and simple enough for kids who are the correct age to actually read the book. (Amazon lists ages 4-8, which from the kid-style illustrations seems right on.) The gimmick of cooking in the woods is fun and safety instructions are included and explained. For example, they explain what makes a good rock to cook on! And they include a long list of supplies and safety equipment, even explaining how to properly -- and safely -- douse a fire. They also cover "what is safe drinking water?" and how to build the perfect campfire.

For those of you who are Family Fun magazine fans, (I appreciate their crafts and clever ideas), for camping fans, and for cooking fans who would like to try something new with their kids, this book is a fun addition to your library.

Don't let the title fool you
I remember cooking meals in a can when I was little, so I was excited to order this book for my husband, who is our son's Cubmaster. However I was disappointed (and maybe I didn't read the reviews close enough) to find that there are very few actual recipes for cooking in a can.