Dutch Oven Outdoor Cooking with Benjamin - Pepperoni/Italian Sausage Pizza

Saturday was a spectacular day.  We were greeted by a brilliant sun, blue skies, perfect temperature and it was just a great day to be alive.  We finished off a bowl of leftover guinea gumbo for lunch and I went out to work a bit in the garden.  For some reason I began thinking of when the boys were in scouting and that led me to remember that we haven't cooked anything outdoors in the dutch oven lately.  We have a dutch oven with legs on it, specifically for cooking outdoors on a campfire.

I asked Benjamin if he might like to cook something and he said, "Yes!"  So we got to researching what we might like to cook and I let Benjamin select Dutch Oven Pizza from Scouting Magazine.

We cut up some parchment paper and aligned it so that it covered the bottom of the pot.  Then I drizzled it with olive oil.

Tricia mixed up a batch of pizza dough in the bread maker and let it proof for about 45 minutes.  We flattened it out on the counter, forming it into a circle that would fit nicely in the bottom of the dutch oven without touching the sides.  We poked it with a fork so that air bubbles wouldn't form.

With dutch oven cooking, one charcoal briquette produces 10 degrees Fahrenheit, so this recipe called for cooking the pizza at 290 degrees.  So that means that you would need 29 briquettes in all.  I used my chimney charcoal briquette starter and in no time I had the briquettes grey with hot ash.  Since hot air rises, you separate the coals, putting 10 coals underneath and 19 coals on top of the dutch oven.  In the photo below, I wasn't quite finished moving the coals to the top.

The pizza dough was allowed to bake for 8 minutes.

When the 8 minutes is up, we opened up the dutch oven and spooned tomato sauce on top of the pizza crust and sprinkled some crumbled Italian sausage on top.

Then Benjamin loaded down the pizza with enough pepperoni to clog our arteries.

Finally, he sprinkled almost 3 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese with some Parmesan cheese to the top as well.

We put the lid back on and let it continue to cook for 20 minutes.  When the timer went off, we opened the lid and the pizza looked... PERFECT!

We brought the dutch oven inside and set it on the counter and we each grabbed edges of the parchment paper and lifted and the pizza eased right out and onto a cutting board.

We used a pizza cutter to cut it into 4 pieces - two for Benjamin and two for me. Then it was on!  Benjamin and I ate that pizza like it was our last meal.  In fact, I intended to get a better photo of a slice of pizza, but by the time I remembered to do so, I only had a little sliver of pizza left.  We wanted to eat it so fast, but exercised great restraint so as not to burn the roof our our mouths on the steaming hot pizza.

Benjamin wants to institute a new tradition and cook outdoors in the dutch oven once a week.  I think that is a good idea.  He has his eye on a few different recipes - a few desserts looked interesting to him as well as a jambalaya.