How to Cook for 60 people with 2 Volcanos and Milk Cans

Milk Can Cooking on the Volcano

If I've heard it once.. Ive heard it 50,000 times. The Volcano is too small, unless you use a Dutch Oven and stack them, to cook for a big group. I say: Fiddlesticks.
And, tonight, (with help from my brother) I proved the naysayers wrong. :) 

Two 10 Gallon Milk cans
on two Volcano
Collapsibles.

Milk Can Cooking -
2 Volcano Collapsible Propanes
Two 10 gallon stainless steel milk cans.
Two 20lb Propane Bottles.
1 Pair of Heavy Duty Gloves
1 Pair Of Scissors
2 LARGE packages of Cheese Cloth
Long Tongs
A folding Colander That will fit through the throat of the milk can and expand to cover the bottom. Bed bath and beyond carries them. The ones at Walmart are too small.
Oven Mitts or Hot Pads

The Ingredients -

20 lbs of ham, (Water Added like Farmland) sliced into 1/3 lb slices. (I got the Deli at Walmart to do this for me.)
14 Lbs of Onions. (I used  a combination of Walla Walla and Candy, but you can use any white onion)
6 Lbs of Kielbasa
60 Fist Sized (Think Petite Womans Fist if you want them to cook more quickly)
4 Dozen ears of Corn.
Spices that you like. I used Trader Joe's Spices of the World 21 Seasoning Salute.

The Prep. This is where all the hard work comes in.
If you didn't have the Deli Do it, slice the Ham into 1/3 Lb slices. On a 5lb Ham, this works out to 15 slices per ham or a total of 60 slices. Put 30 Slices in one 2 gallon zip lock bag and the rest in another.
Slice the onions into at least quarters, if they are big, slice them into 1/8ths Divide the onions into two equally full big zip lock bags. (I used 2 gallon size)
Slice the Kielbasa ( I bought six 1lb Pkgs. so it was easy to divide them) into about 1/2 wide slices. Put 3lbs in one bag and 3 in the other.
Shuck the corn and break it in 1/2. Divide the corn 48 pieces for each can. 

Getting the Food into the Milk Cans
Put yourVolcanos on the ground. You will hate lifting full 10 gallon cans from height.
Get your Volcanos Started.
Put the Milk cans on the Volcanos
Put the Colanders in the bottom
Pour in about 16 oz. of water into the bottom of the milk can.

Cut the cheese cloth into about 3 foot long strips. The objective is to make a very loose bag. You have to bring the food out the same hole you put it down in. Put the potatoes on the cheese cloth and tie it, diaper style, so that you form a bag. (It should fit VERY loose) Put the potatoes down into the bottom of the Milk can. Repeat this for the 2nd.
Take your corn and place it on top of the Potatoes. There isn't any particular order. Repeat for the 2nd can.
Using the Cheese Cloth again, mix 1/2 of the ham and 1/2 of the kielbasa on the cheese cloth. Put your spice on the mix and then tie that into a bag, also and slip it into the milk can. Repeat for the 2nd can.
Using your cheese cloth, do the same thing for the onions. Don't add more spice.

Put the top on the milk can (We had to jiggle the cans a little bit to get it all to fit.) Wait.Pretty soon you will see steam coming out of  the top of the milk can. From that point it takes about 1 hour to cook. If the milk cans STOP steaming.. add more water if you dont think they are done or turn it off.

When the hour is up, turn the heat down on one of the milk cans, and turn the other one off. Take the lid off the one that you turned off. Put on your gloves. (Save you from Steam burns) And grab your tongs. Grab the cheese cloth in a thick spot, and pull out the onions. (Anything in a bag can take some finagaling to get out and/ or strong pulling) Put them in your serving platter (Sweet onions are pretty good this way) Repeat for the Ham/Kielbasa mix. With your tongs (Now you know why you wanted long) take out the corn and after that, take out the potatoes..
Let the people start to eat.. When you start to get low on food.. Repeat for the 2nd can... That way the food will stay hot.. and delicious.

Remember this is STEAMED food. That means at 5000 ft of elevation it comes out of the can at about 204 degrees. It cools of quickly. Don't lolligag in serving it.

Taste the corn.. All the flavor from the onions and ham and kielbasa should have filtered down on that and the potatoes. If the corn is delicious w/o any butter ... You did it right.. Likewise the potatoes.

Layout your cheese cloth and get ready to build a bag

Tie the cheese cloth into a bag. Sort of diaper style.

You have to feed them down into the milk can. They come out the same way. However, they were HOT and I was busy, so  I didnt take any pictures of that.

Ham and Kielbasa mixed. If you DONT use the water added ham, it will be really dry. Think shoe leather.

My Brother was worried that we wouldn't get enough heat with the Volcano. He was W R O N G.

You can see the steam if you look close

Looks delicious.. And it was..

Like Hungry Locusts, they came in swarms and it soon vanished.

mark infanger utah

Why I love the Volcano Grill

From an anonymous college student,

College life can be quite a transition. Soon after moving out, I began to realize that even with all the good aspects of being a student there were also going to be some things that would be tough to get used to.

Number one, of course, is my financial state. If I could use one word to describe myself in college it may very well be “broke,” a term that experts often use to describe the state of having zero money. I have a pretty good job and everything, but as the amount of bills I have to pay stacks up, paydays have become more and more somber. I guess that the best way I can describe it is by comparing it to one’s birthday. When you were young your birthday was the happiest day of the year, a day filled with large amounts of sugar in the form of drastically over frosted cakes, friends, and presents, all a kid could ever want. But then, as you get older (and I’m assuming this since I’m really not that old yet) birthdays become dark and gloomy, a day when you realize how old you are and become incredibly depressed. But instead of once a year I get that every other week. Yikes.

Having no money is a gateway that eventually leads to other problems, like having no food. Okay, obviously if I had no food I would die but there are definitely worse things than death, like eating nothing but Ramen for an entire week (been there) or being forced to raid the fridge while your roommates are out and take just little amounts of things so they don’t notice and then mix those items into a sort of casserole that is hardly appetizing and rarely tastes very good. If there is one thing I’ve learned from my days in college it’s that combining condiments to make unique sauces is a dangerous and sometimes harmful road. But I will admit my lack of funds isn’t even the primary cause of this tomfoolery, I would mainly attribute it to my lack of cooking abilities.

But these two difficulties of college are also two of the reasons why the Volcano Grill is so great. First of all, it’s cheap! For a while, they were selling those things at Costco for a hundred bucks! For $100 I only have to sell my plasma like three times. And even on their website they go for about $150 which is still not bad seeing that you get everything you need for propane cooking too. It also solves problem number two, because what human being can’t cook a steak? I mean honestly, you just throw a large piece of meat over a fire until the inside isn’t pink anymore. And it’s delicious. I’ve also been enjoying stir fry which consists of a bag of Wal-Mart’s stir-fry vegetables and stir-fry sauce and some chopped up chicken ($8 total). My days of Ramen are finally over. Not to mention that it solves problem number three, that I live in a space that is smaller than many people’s closets. The Volcano Grill collapses down and fits semi-easily under my bed. The moral of the story is that the Volcano Grill is a fantastic product that I would recommend to all of you, whether you’re a college student or not. And as for my college friends, I’ll be seeing you all at the plasma donation center!