Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Scott Mims | Community Columnist

As fall 2024 is finally starting to feel like fall, and some colder air is headed our way at the time of this writing, I know many of you will be cooking and eating soup, chili or stew to help keep warm.

As a high school classmate once told me, “I only eat chili when it’s chilly.” I have come to subscribe to this tradition, as in the hot Southern summers I tend to gravitate toward salads, sandwiches and cold drinks.

Many of the recipes for these dishes are family recipes that are passed down from generation to generation and are among some of the best food you can get your hands on, and as I think about hot food as winter approaches, one recipe in particular comes to mind — my grandfather’s recipe for camp stew.

My grandfather on my mom’s side, William Heaps, who passed away in 2013, made a delicious camp stew and I was blessed enough to get a copy of it in his handwriting which I treasure to this day.

I am sharing it below for anyone who would like to try it out this fall/winter. I hope you enjoy, and feel free to add your own twist to this camp stew recipe. Here’s to keeping warm this winter.

Camp Stew Recipe

Ingredients:

12 oz ground chuck

Two 14 oz packages creamed corn

12 oz deboned chicken

24 oz Brunswick stew

14 oz corned beef hash

14 oz cream of potato soup

One half onion, chopped fine

Two egg-size potatoes, chopped fine

One fourth stick butter

2 tbsp black pepper

2 tbsp sugar

 

Preparation:

Cook ground chuck prior to blending. Boil potatoes and onion separately until done and blendable with other ingredients. Then mix above ingredients (except butter, pepper and sugar) in a large pot. Add one fourth stick butter. Boil slowly while stirring constantly. Add in pepper and sugar. Slowly blend together and stir often to avoid ingredients sticking to bottom of pot.