Here to help is our new cookbook, available now! It’s filled with more practical camping recipes for any type of trip. Here’s a favorite recipe that you can make right now while you’re waiting for your book to arrive!

I’ve been using dehydrated bean flakes for a long time, but I only recently discovered whole dehydrated beans. I had ordered a sampler pack of dehydrated veggies to stock my backpacking pantry, and these dehydrated whole red beans were in the pack. I didn’t have high hopes for them, thinking they’d take forever to rehydrate, but they work so well! I love them because they have more texture than the bean flakes, something I’m always looking for in my backpacking meals.

This is a one pot meal, and it’s got lots of protein and fiber, both of which can be difficult to come by in the backcountry. Definitely bring a little bit of vinegary hot sauce (like Crystal or Tabasco) or even better, some pickled peppers (such as pepperoncinis) along with you.

Specialty Ingredient Sourcing:
Dehydrated whole red beans
Dehydrated bell peppers
Tomato powder

Even around the holidays, Brussels sprouts can be hard to sell, but this recipe will do it, and it will be wonderful to have something fresh and crunchy to add to your menu.

No cooking is required for this recipe, making it an easy side or appetizer. We like it best on crackers, hearty bread, or Melba toasts.

The celebration of the actual holiday in the outdoors adds to the revival of what truly matters about it- bonding with the people you love.We have heard many stories of Thanksgiving camping trips, and love spending it in our local wild areas ourselves. Even more exciting are the trips venturing deeper into the backcountry. In these cases, it is important to keep the logistics of food simple to allow you plenty of time to reach your destination and enjoy a relaxing time with your loved ones. Keep the meal confined to the essential dishes, and spread out the work among all the guests.

We thought through a few of our must-have dishes and adjusted to make them possible in the backcountry. Cranberry Bourbon Compote is simple and perfect to accompany any other Thanksgiving dishes. It is not as saucy as a standard cranberry sauce, but has the same flavor profile and is lightweight and non-perishable. It is delicious spooned over your other Thanksgiving dishes and would also be a great addition to a breakfast made out of leftovers.

This attitude is very common among outdoorspeople. Most of us have been going out there to find seclusion and ourselves for a long time. We all want others to experience this, in theory, but not in the same place we’re doing it. Wes and I had this discussion as we slowly trolled through the first-come, first-serve campgrounds looking for a place to sleep. It is often hard to find a site, but it was ridiculous this time. And the worst part of it was that some of the people we spoke to were actually quite rude. We witnessed arguments, park rangers regulating improper parking, wildflower crushing, and frowny faces. Camping is supposed to bring out good vibes and connection! What was this all about? Don’t these people know the rules??

We ended up backcountry camping, which is an option most people don’t know about (or maybe aren’t comfortable with), and it was one of the most relaxing nights we’ve had in the park. Sunset fading to a full moon, quiet, and our own personal field of untrampled wildflowers. We cooked these hearty mushroom french dip sandwiches, adapted from this recipe, on the grill at a day use area before heading out so we didn’t have to carry much with us (since we didn’t even bring real packs).

When more people want to spend time outdoors, the need to protect more places for all of us to fit in will increase. This is a good thing! But let’s all do our best to communicate the important outdoor ethics that we know, and learn the ones that we don’t so we can keep these places wild. They belong to us all.

I never imagined that it would be something that I use so much, but we’ve got this thing running at least three days a week! We’ve been trying to eliminate junk food from our diets and my dehydrator has become my secret weapon. My kids LOVE dehydrated fruit and kale chips. The stuff we make in the dehydrator is so much better than what we can buy at the grocery store and much more affordable (especially in the quantities we eat!).

The reason I bought the dehydrator though, is so I could get into making backpacking food. Dal was what I was most excited to try dehydrating, and I’m so happy with how it turns out. In this recipe, I add sweet potatoes and some kale for an extra boost of nutrition, because I always feel like we’re lacking veggies on the trail.

Before you dehydrate this, make sure that the sweet potatoes are broken down enough so that there aren’t huge chunks of them in your dal. If you start with a small enough dice, they should break down pretty quickly, but if it seems like the dal is pretty chunky anyway, you can mash it up a bit with a potato masher. This will prevent chewy bites of sweet potato in your rehydrated dal.

When the dal is dehydrated, it will be crumbly. You can just throw it in a bag. Don’t worry about breaking it up in small pieces or blending it.

If you’re car camping, you don’t have to dehydrate this. You can make it at camp or even make it at home ahead of time and freeze it. Then use it as an ice pack in your cooler for the first day or two of your trip.

When we go skiing, we usually bring a couple cans of beer with us. Last time, Wes got the bright idea to bury them in the snow so they’d get super cold for when we were ready to take a break. He found the perfect spot in the woods near the top of the mountain, and started digging a hole. Well, guess what he found- somebody else’s beer! I guess it was the perfect spot after all.

Later, when Wes decided it was time, he went to dig our beers back up. He chose his ski pole as the perfect digging tool, and ended up stabbing one of the cans. So of course, he had to shotgun it immediately (he’s a zero waste kinda guy).

In conclusion, beer is good, but having a hot cocktail like this Mexican Hot Cocoa is even better. If you are among the millions who received a Hydro Flask for Christmas, this is the perfect thing to use it on. These bottles do the best job I’ve seen of holding the heat in.

Mexican Hot Cocoa is warm and spicy, which is perfect for a cold day in the snow. You’ll get some necessary calories to keep you playing longer, and a jolt from the cocoa cafe flavored tequila. Take advantage of the winter if you’ve got it!

Everyone knows kale is a superfood, filled with with tons of nutrients. It’s also sturdy, ultralight, and goes with just about any type of meal you would like to make. There’s still a chance that fresh kale could be ruined in your pack on a hot day, but once it’s dehydrated, it becomes invincible.

Yes, you can dehydrate just about every vegetable (great news!), but kale and other dark leafy greens are what to choose before everything else. They dehydrate quickly, but also rehydrate quickly, which is more important. If you’re looking for a side of creamed greens to go with your dehydrated mac n’ cheese, no problem!

This recipe takes dried kale a step further, though, by crumbling it into super versatile flakes. No more worrying about it breaking up in your pack- it’s already broken! No need to worry about a separate pot, or the disgusted faces on the picky eaters of the group. Throw some of this into every meal, and it will melt right in. If you’re short on time, try roasting your greens instead of dehydrating them.
The flavor deepens and you can eat them sprinkled right on top of your food instead of cooking the greens into it. Here’s a great recipe for how to roast them.

Some of our favorite options:

• Roasted kale flakes as a popcorn topping
• Green mac n’ cheese
• Quinoa and eggs with kale crumbles

Try this recipe out for your next trip (which will hopefully involve some snow!) and let us know what recipes you put your dehydrated kale flakes into!

Have you ever tried Kombucha? It is supposed to be extremely healthy, (claiming to cure all sorts of illnesses and even reverse gray hair, according to it’s Wikipedia page), but it’s a rough one flavor-wise. It pretty much tastes like flavored vinegar to me.

So when Aimee suggested making a cocktail out of it over the holidays, I was skeptical. She left the job in the hands of our resident bartender, Wes, though, who made up this truly fabulous drink.

If you’ve ever had a shrub, this is very similar. It’s only slightly sweet, and a little sparkly. It’s a refreshing daytime type of drink. Perfect for an afternoon picnic or an afternoon relaxing in your hammock at camp. It’s a great drink to include in your January activities. You know- because January is when we’re all out there getting healthier.

Cheers! We’ll see you in 2016!

I’ve been baking with brown rice syrup recently, with great results. It’s not as sweet as honey or maple syrup, so I thought I’d try it instead of the honey in our granola. I’m so happy with the results! Win!

For Fall, I switched out the almonds for toasty pecans and pepitas, and added some golden raisins for some chewy bits. We took a double batch of this on our recent trip to Cuyamaca and it was devoured on the first morning.