I recently had the opportunity to review a very interesting book, "Cooking Backyard to Backcountry" by John Rittel and Lori Rittel. John and Lori siblings who up on a guest ranch in Montana, spending much of their time outdoors.  They share their outdoor cooking expertise in this book.

One of the big reasons that I enjoyed this book so much was that it provided information about cooking outdoors using a variety of methods, part of what Outdoor Cooking Magic is all about.  "Cooking Backyard to Backcountry " gives tips and information about 12 different ways to cook outside, including:

• Barbecuing
• Grilling
• Deep-pit barbecue
• Cooking with wood planks
• Dutch oven cooking
• Cooking on stone slabs
• Cooking with foil
• Cooking on a spit
• Cooking with a reflector oven
• Steam pit cooking
• Fireless cooking
• and Stone boiling cooking.

John and Lori go into depth with each one of these areas, providing detail instructions, color photos, and recipes for each method.  In fact there are 150 recipes in all. Consider Oak Plank Grilled Chicken Breasts, Montana-Style Sweet and Sour Pork, and Barbecue Spit Roast Beef, just to name a few.  There are a lot of recipes that I am looking forward to trying.

The only downside that I had with the book is the lack of index, which would be helpful to find recipes.  Other than that, I highly recommend Cooking Backyard to Backcountry if you have any interest in cooking outdoors with any of these methods.