Drunken Hobo Stew

So, like I mentioned before, the past 2 months I've been "in a relationship" and we've been eating up a storm. One of our new favorite things to do is cook over an open flame in the form of a beach bonfire. We've done it twice and both times the results were in the realm of "OMG AMAZING!", so I thought I would share our recipe for; Drunken Hobo Stew.

As a kid, my family used to make Hobo Stew all the time, it's pretty simple, meat, veggies, foil, a sprinkle of water, heat. We used to douse it with ketchup or A-1 sauce, dig in and call it a day. As I've gotten older my tastes have matured and covering meat in ketchup and A-1 sauce just doesn't cut it for me anymore.

Gary used to be this wilderness guidey kind of dude, I mean the guys an Eagle Scout for Christsakes, so he's made loads of "Hobo Dinner" as he calls it, so it was an obvious choice when we went to the grocery store to get the necessary supplies.


We picked up some ground turkey, something we both could agree on in terms of meat, but you can use (as we both have before) ground beef, or fish steaks, like salmon. We also went over the the produce section and grabbed some of our favorite veggies. I recommended at least grabbing some onion, garlic, carrots and potatoes, anything else you want is up to you. We also grabbed some sugar snap peas, Italian brown mushrooms, and zucchini.


Cut up all the veggies into easily cooked, bite sized pieces.

I like to put a thick slice of an onion on the bottom of the tin foil, and place the "meat ball" on top so it doesn't burn on the coals.


While I was busy doing the "woman work", Mountain Man was getting the fire ready.


When you have a nice fire going, you are going to want to isolate some coals to cook on. When cooking on a bonfire, or any fire really, it's best to cook on HEAT and not FIRE. Use a poker, or a stick or an Ove-Glove, but not your bare hands.

I like to double wrap the food to prevent leakage, it also makes it easier to handle in and out of the fire. To do that I use one 12" piece of foil facing "North/South" and one 12" facing "East/West" to create a "+". I place the onion slice in the middle, meat on top and then create a "bowl" shape around it, and fill it with the chopped veggies.


After you've filled your foil bowls to your hearts content, season with salt, pepper or any other seasonings you can't live without. This is where the drunken part comes in, douse it with whatever white (or red for red meats) wine you have on hand or can muster up. We've used both Pinot Grigo and Riesling. (I liked the Pinot a bit better)


Wrap up your masterpiece, giving the excess on top a distinct shape so you know who's is who's, and toss them onto the hot coals for about 20 minutes or so.


You might have to check around then, turkey should be cooked throughout, where as beef can be slightly rare in the middle.


Careful when opening the foil, the steam from the wine creates a very hot and dangerous burning hazard, which I know about first hand, so let the dude take care of that stuff.

Then you can just chow down, dig in, scarf it up, whatever.

If you don't live in an area that has bonfire pits, or beach camping, you can totally make this the same way in an oven, or even on the BBQ. I would also recommend figuring out whether or not alcohol and glass are permitted on your beach, and if they are not, as in the case with us, be ever so sneaky smuggling it onto the beach. I don't think cops are all the lenient regarding the culinary delights verses just plain breaking the law.