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 was worried in particular about the kids being able to hike to our planned campsite without incessant whining, so Kismat, Mai-Yan and Daniel devised the idea of the “Backpacking Fairy”. The Backpacking Fairy would leave treats along the trail to guide the kids to the campsite. She (Mai-Yan and Daniel) left cute animal friends, stickers, small toys, and candies, along with encouraging notes. The kids LOVED it. There was still whining, but it was mostly by me, since I hurt my back the day before the trip (you know your friends love you when they carry your pack).

The highlight of the trip for the rest of us was seeing a bear about 10 minutes into our hike! Daniel was leading and suddenly we saw his trekking poles shoot into the air as he stopped in his tracks. The bear was close, and not at all scared. The kids were fine, and not at all scared either. They yelled “Go away bear!” and after a few minutes, the bear did go away.

For lunch the first day we made these Lentil Kale Wraps and they were devoured. You can use real bacon and cream cheese, but we always make them with tempeh bacon and vegan cream cheese and they’re a hit even with the carnivores. For ease and convenience, we like to use the steamed lentils from Trader Joe’s. We chose kale and bell peppers since they hold up well even after being soaked in dressing for a few hours. These are definitely perishable so keep them in a cooler as long as you can.

Our trips may be transitioning from extended camping trips to shorter, more spontaneous day trips, but including healthy and satisfying meals is still an essential. Wes and I recently became certified foster parents, and we’re excited to include kids in our near-future adventures. We don’t have any kids in the house yet, so we are using this time to do any last minute preparations we can think of. This includes figuring out how to streamline our normal routines so we can spend more free time playing with kids. It also includes figuring out some easy kid-friendly outdoor recipes.

We’ve started leaning back into the idea of portable foods wrapped in baked bready things. Most of our recent trips have included standard pigs in a blanket (hot dogs and cheddar cheese rolled in crescent rolls from the can). I highly recommend these, but if you swap crescent rolls for frozen puff pastry and hot dogs for buffalo chicken, you up your fancy game significantly.

The toughest part of this recipe is remembering to thaw your puff pastry in time to bake it (I prefer to stick it in the fridge the night before if I think of it), and deciding on your favorite shape to form it into. As you can see, I’m not great at picking a favorite shape (they’re all so fun!).

Everyone will love this recipe and it tastes just fine out of a cooler or even at room temperature. Feel free to swap the chicken with veggie chicken strips or baked marinated tofu to make it vegetarian and less perishable.

Both grandparents lived a long and happy life, and left us with tons of happy memories to cherish for many more years. Memere was the grandmother that Aimee and I shared from our dad’s side, and she passed away this week last January. She and Pepere used to travel across the country from North Carolina to see us every year. They’d sleep in the camper shell on top of their pick up truck, even when that truck was parked in our driveway for the summer. The original #vanlife?

My grandfather on my mom’s side passed away last month. He was known for seeing the most pleasant side of all things, and his puns. Every time I visited my grandparents growing up, there would be a Costco-sized tub of sour cream waiting for me to turn it into as many pound cakes as it would make. I just used Nana’s recipe, but somehow Grandpa would convince me that I made it best.

My parents came to visit me for Christmas, and my mom brought with her a pound cake. We took it with us cross-country skiing last week. It’s really the perfect snack for a day in the snow. It is tough enough to pack well, and goes great with a warm drink. It is by no means a low-calorie food, so an active day outside is a good time to consider it truly justified.

Some people get cynical about new year’s resolutions, but I still love them. I love thinking about January as a clean slate, and I love looking back on last year. I didn’t finish all my goals last year, but I got a lot more done than if I had made no goals at all.

My goals this year:

• Re-season all my cast iron.
• Learn to use my new camera.
• Learn to be a better trad climber.
• Adopt kids!

Another big thing for me is making it easier to get outside whenever I can. My life got a lot busier last year, and it doesn’t appear to have plans to let up. I need to streamline as much as I can, so that prepping (and thinking about prepping) for trips doesn’t take so long. This recipe fits right into that goal. Puff pastry can live in your freezer, and tastes delicious no matter what you put on it. These little pinwheels were quick to bake, and tasted great at room temperature or reheated. I took them on a climbing trip to Joshua Tree, and then made them again to throw in my pack for a cross country skiing trip yesterday. We like them with mustard, either baked in or squeezed on. Pesto or tapenade would be excellent too.

It’s cold and gray outside in a lot of places right now, but get out there anyway. You’ll never regret it.

This Cherry Pecan Fruit Salad is my favorite version so far. Cherries have been everywhere around here lately, and any kind would do here. It’s worth cutting them in half to avoid having to worry about the pits later while scooping up big bites of this salad. I also added some berries and stone fruits, sticking with tartness over sweetness when possible. The chopped pecans add crunch and depth to the flavor, and even a little protein to make this feel like a nice cold trail mix. I bet chocolate would be good here, too.

I decided not to make a syrup for this salad. It holds together pretty well, and doesn’t need any extra sweetness in my opinion, though I’m not considering this to be a dessert salad. I added chia seeds, which get a little jelly when they mix with moisture. This adds some thickness to the whole thing. If you wanted, you could warm the lavender in a simple syrup ahead of time to give the whole thing more of all of that.

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!

Nuts are a great vegetarian source of protein, so I have lots of them around my house. They can be used in all sorts of dishes, but if you make them flavorful on their own, they are perfect to take with you wherever you may go. These orange sesame almonds are similar to the commonly found tamari almonds I’ve seen around, but offer a more subtle and bright flavor combination. I throw a jar of orange sesame almonds into my backpack and take them to work, to the climbing gym, or even skiing.

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.