More often than not (and when the weather is nice) I like to cook steak over the campfire instead of the grill or the stove. I usually go with stir-fry cuts or larger steaks cut into strips. Then I marinate in a baggy with A1 sauce. Nothing else, just A1 sauce. ...and perhaps some extra vinegar if the steak is looking a little oldish. Marinate for a day or so. Then I get a nice cookfire going. I've got pretty good at stripping down a log into 1/4 inch thick sized peices of kindling with a hatchet. I prolly have a metric ton of dry pine needles stacked up from this one huge pine tree out back, and a better fire starter there is not. Don't worry, if the pile catches somehow, its not gonna spread to anything important. Then I stick the steak strips on a steel 2-prong hot dog stick, as many as I can fit while leaving a slight gap between each one. I don't wait for a nice buildup of hot coals or anything, I just cook right in the flames. Stick it in there and let it sizzle for about a minute each side, and it comes out with a nice firm outside and a juicy pink inside. The vinegar tenderizes the meat (and prolly chemical cooks it too, its prolly ceviche by the time I cook it) and after a couple minutes of sitting in the flames, its melt-in-ur-mouth steak-ums for ppl. I can't cook very well on the stove because I won't stand there and do it. Its just not fun. Same with the grill. But I can sit at a campfire and enjoy myself, especially with a glass of whisky. So that's what I do. I cook up what fits on the hotdog stick, eat it right off the stick before it cools off (which it does pretty quick because the pieces are so small), then cook another. Three sticks and I'm full. Toss the baggy of leftover marinate in the fire, cook the stick clean and rub it off in the grass, and 'dishes are done!' I also really enjoy going up into the hills to cut firewood from the downed trees. There's a place about 40 mins away where a combination of forest fires, storms and maybe drought and disease has left a lot of downed pine trees, fuel that doesn't need to be sitting around waiting for the next fire. The chamber of commerce sells dead-wood cutting permits at $4/cord (which, if you didn't know, is a 4'x4'x8' stack of wood) ...thats a lot of ****in wood if ur just making a small cookfire every night. Frankly, they should be paying us out of the Forest Service's Firefighting budget for the service of removing their fire hazard from the forest for them... but $4/cord isn't worth making a big stink about, and there's prolly an argument to be made about preventing people from cutting the live trees instead of the dead ones. I have an electric chainsaw and the tinyest cutest little gas generator to power it. I used to run the saw off an inverter hooked up to my truck til I found out how bad that was for the truck's alternator. I didn't kill it, but I prolly cut its life in half before I got wise. I'm not really a 'site-seeing' sort of person, and while I love being out in the woods, I just never went there because there wasn't anything to be done. And I don't exactly 'need' firewood, but I sure enjoy getting it now. In summary, I get more exercize, more time in nature, better steak and less dishes by cooking in the back yard instead of the kitchen.
I can't eat things cooked over charcoal or wood. It sends my acid reflux/GERD into meltdown mode. Getting old sucks.
If it were me I wouldn't cook on pinewood. I prefer oak or other hardwoods. Sounds like a good method you have there. I like to do deep frying outdoors because it saves a lot of mess in the kitchen and it doesn't stink up the whole house.
Is it the flavor you dont like about pine? I've worked with oak, seems like it would be a pita to split with an axe.
