Strawberry Rhubarb Pie...Camp Style

We were back at it..camp pie was our desert while spending the weekend..the Arthur weekend..at Spencer Pond Cabins, northeast of Lily Bay, Moosehead Lake..

Last summer we tried our hand and blueberry pie..on the shore in front of our cottage in Gouldsboro.  This year it was strawberry - rhubarb. The sweet and tangy combination that cries out ...summertime..

The first thing that is necessary is of course the cooking coals..Begin with separate piles , one which will be used underneath and on top of the cast iron dutch oven. The other pile is to be used as replacements for the ones that burn down as cooking progresses..

Once your ingredients are prepared, according to your favorite recipe, the pie is placed into the dutch oven on top of a strip of folded up aluminum foil which will be used as a hot pie extractor. Of course if you have more discipline than we do.. (more on that in a bit).. and let the pie cool inside the oven you'll be able to skip the foil extractor step altogether.

Next placement of coals..I'm sure there must be a formula correlating the number of coals to get the oven up to cooking temp. 6 underneath? 12 on the lid? More..less?  We don't know..we just wing it..

And of course we yield to temptation..lifting the lid ( a huge no-no) to check on the progress to get a whiff of the fusing, melting, sweet mass of bubbling goodness contained within...

And when it is deemed done..with golden crust and lava like behavior spilling out of the cracks in the crust (pie not earth), we'll set it aside to "simmer" a little longer..but not a lot longer..

Shortly..back into camp and then on the counter..to rest further?

I guess that's appropriate but...

(Here's where the lack of discipline comes in....)

We just can't do it...and so instead of a perfectly triangular shaped pie wedge with the fruit just barely oozing out of the open wound..our still hot mass of goodness sits like a blob on our plate..

but man..oh man..how good it is...