Fireplace Bacon Cornbread

I love the Northwoods of Minnesota along the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It's a place where you can slowly paddle by a watching moose at the water's edge, share a hiking trail with a black bear or a wolf, and find lake after lake full of smallmouth bass, walleyes, pike, and lake trout. It's a true outdoor lover's paradise, but there are a couple areas our northern friends can use some help with, including sweet tea and good cornbread.

You can also cook the cornbread over the coals of an open campfire, but you will need something to reflect the heat back down on the top to help it cook evenly. Placing heavy duty aluminum foil over cardboard and suspending over the cornbread works in a pinch.

The finished product isn't as pretty as what you would make in the oven, and while it takes a bit longer to cook, the flavor is worth it.

We start by heating our skillet over the coals, then adding a thin layer of bacon grease to the skillet both for flavor and to keep the cornbread from sticking. Spread the logs out to each side of the fireplace, leaving a bed of coals between them. Use the fireplace grate or some fresh split firewood to support the skillet just above the coals to prevent the bread from burning on bottom. Cooking times will vary depending on the temperature of the fire, but plan on up to double the suggested cooking time for the recipe.