Jeff Johnston: Among our group of camping friends, one of the best parts of an RV trip is the campsite cooking, and our crowd, in addition to eating to survive, of course, the cooking was right up there on our fun-activities list. We’ve had wonderful meals of all kinds in camp and are always looking for something new to try with our family and friends.

But what if you’re in camp, and you have a fierce craving for a really good pizza, and the nearest pizza-delivery service is hours away? Now thanks to our viewer Susan Kruzel, who passed along a great recipe idea, we have a campsite pizza solution. The best part is, it uses a Dutch oven, and we’re big fans of Dutch ovens. So this idea is right in line with our favorite campsite cooking techniques.

Susan is a viewer, and Rollin’ On TV Facebook group member, and as soon as she passed along her Dutch oven pizza recipe, we knew we had to try it. So with no further appetite-enhancing delay, let’s get started. The project starts with a standard, Lodge 12 inch Dutch oven, which, I believe, is a six-quart. Only, what we do is, turn it upside down, and the lid becomes our pizza pan. We’re gonna put a little bit of canola oil spray on it, just to make sure nothing gets sticky. And what sort of dough is that, that we’re using, Pam? Pam: It’s rosemary dough, pizza dough. This is pre-made pizza dough from our local, fancy grocery store, right? Pam: Yup. Even though it’s a little bit persnickety– Okay, so we’re gonna start with some tomato sauce as the base. Okay, looks good. 
Next, adding the meat, orange bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, thick-sliced tomatoes, olives, mozarella cheese

Now, we have a bunch of coals on the bottom for the lid, and we’ll kind of balance it on these metal trivets. The oven part goes on. We’ll put the remaining coals that we have here, up on top. Get those spread out. With the coals distributed, Pam, what are you setting the timer for? Pam: Thirteen minutes to check it.

Which would be about half of a medium pizza. Ok, let’s see how it’s doing. And the cheese is melting, and it’s smellin’ pretty good. The dough is puffing up. I can’t tell you exactly how many coals to use, top and bottom. A lot of that depends on the thickness of the pizza, the size of the pan. This one is what Lodge calls its 12-inch pan. It’s kind of something you, pretty much, have to learn by trial and error or happy practice which always results in something really good to eat.

It’s about time to check the crust underneath. How’s it look? Pam: Beautiful. Jeff: Looks good? Okay. Let me set this down. First, this comes off. All right, Pam, give that a try. We’ll slide this guy over. Ooh, hey, made it all in one piece. Pam: Yup. Jeff: How about that?

We love our campsite cooking. In a new twist, our Dutch oven pizza project is coming along nicely, and we’re excited to get to the good part.

Throw a little–Black pepper… Would you like to do the honors? Pam: Yes, I would. Jeff: Okay, okay. It’s still pretty hot
and liquid. We’re gonna have to wait until that solidifies a little and cools down before we can risk eating that. A lot of cheese.

Pam: Mm-hmm. Jeff: I think it’ll do the trick. Not bad for our first time. That looks terrific. Jeff: What do you think? Pam: It’s so good. Baked all the way through. Jeff: Wonderful. Yeah, it’s pretty tasty.

Susan, thank you very much for your inspiration and idea for this Dutch oven pizza. This is definitely something that we’re gonna be taking with us along with your other Dutch oven recipes next time we’re out camping so–

Pam: Cheers. Jeff: Cheers.