Campfire Fare for Every Palate

Arizona Highways New Cookbook Outdoor Recipes for Every Taste

If you like to camp, hike, bike, river run, climb, hunt, fish, or simply lounge around the grill in the backyard, we've got a meal for you. In fact, we've got so many meals it'll take a lot of hearty appetites to work through them.

They're all packaged (no pun intended) in our latest cookbook, Outdoor Cooking, From Backyard to Backpack. In it you'll find the most modern recipes for the outdoor gourmet, and a lot of old favorites from years past. We'll even tell you how to build the perfect cooking fire.

In the fall of 1988, Arizona Highways produced its first cookbook, a collection of recipes that dated to territorial days and included a variety of both frontier and Indian foods. Called Arizona Highways Heritage Cookbook, it was instantly successful, selling more than a thousand copies a month, and it's still selling.

But it lacks any modern recipes. If it came after World War I, it's not in Heritage. The new cookbook, however, is as up-to-date as contemporary can be. But we see things from the unique Arizona Highways viewpoint. We think of a tailgating as the 20th century version of gathering around the chuck wagon, for example.

Louise DeWald, who wrote Heritage and who has covered the cooking world for decades, is again our author, and Robert C. Dyer is the editor. The team of photographer Richard Embery and food stylist Pam Rhoads Embery produced the pictures. Our own creative director, Gary Bennett, designed the book. That is a star-studded cast, and the book reflects its talents.

So, if you like to eat in the outdoors, this book is for you. And probably for your Uncle Hank and your Cousin Alice and Mary who lives down the street and whose birthday is coming up and . . .

Here are some sample recipes.

Do-ahead that can be frozen to take on icebox trips.

2 pounds fresh, lean pork, cubed

1 to 2 pounds skinned chicken chunks

2 tablespoons canola oil or butter

2 large garlic cloves, marked with toothpicks

1 large onion, diced

1 bay leaf

2 20-ounce cans hominy, drained

3 teaspoons salt

Pepper to taste Chopped lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, radishes Brown pork and chicken until golden, then transfer to crockpot. Add garlic, onion, and bay leaf, with enough water to fill crockpot. Cook on low 3 hours. Add drained hominy, salt, and pepper, and cook 1 hour. Remove garlic and bay leaf, and taste for flavor and tenderness. When posole is a savory, full-flavored stew, cool to freeze. Serve with fresh garnishes listed above. Serves 10.

Kathy and Bruce Gordon had the responsibility of preparing dinner on "dress-up night" during a San Juan River trip. They were up for it. Here's a recipe for feeding 10 almost anywhere. No need for a river.

3 apples

3 stalks celery

3 onions

2 tablespoons butter

2 to 3 teaspoons curry powder

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

2 10-ounce cans evaporated milk

1 36-ounce can cooked chicken

Crockpot Posole

This takeoff on a traditional Mexican dish came from Bobbie Bright, who jogged with a team of pigs at the Arizona State University Experimental Farm. A graduate student with specialized interests in the food industry, Bobbie also tested hams from exercised pigs for tenderness. (No difference.) Her pork recipe: a crockpot

San Juan Chicken Curry

1 bunch broccoli, chopped

1 pint sour cream

Rice enough for the group

12 ounces raisins

12 ounces salted peanuts Chop apples, celery, and onion, and sauté in butter. Add curry and canned items, then broccoli and sour cream. When hot and broccoli is tender, serve with rice, topping with raisins and peanuts.

Peralta Apples

Phoenix cherishes ownership of the largest municipal no-fee park in the nation on sprawling South Mountain. The park staff teaches innovative outdoor cooking bright, easy meals for small fees. Peralta apples (Pedro Peralta was said to be the original finder of the fabled Lost Dutchman gold mine in the Superstition Mountains) are a genuine bonanza with camp pancakes.

3 large apples, cored and sliced

2 tablespoons butter or bacon drippings

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

Dash of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup chopped pecans or walnuts Sauté apple slices in butter or bacon drippings until slices become limp. Add remaining ingredients and stir lightly. Cook briefly until apples are coated evenly with cinnamon sugar. Sensational over pancakes or French toast. Serves six with bacon (optional), and coffee, cocoa, or hot tea.

Backpackers may prefer to use 1 1/2 cups dried apples soaked for 1 hour.

To Order: Outdoor Cooking, From Backyard to Backpack will be available after September 27, 1991, for $13.95 plus shipping and handling. Orders may be placed by calling Arizona Highways toll-free 1 (800) 543-5432.

In the Phoenix area, call 2581000. Or stop by the Arizona Highways gift shop at 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ. It's open weekdays from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.