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.

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.

Gunsmoke is an uber-classic bouldering problem in Joshua Tree National Park. It is a 85 foot long V3 traverse that I’ve been playing on for about 7 years, never with any hope or intention of finishing it. But I feel like it’s possible if I really put my mind to it. And train.

During climbing season, our food focus shifts a little. We go outside any chance we get, which may mean running out to the park after work, sleeping outside, and climbing for half a day before work again. It may mean leaving the house at 4am and getting home the same evening. Food doesn’t necessarily have to be nonperishable, but it has to be easy, and preferably ready to eat at whatever time we get off a rock, with little to no prep.

We’ve gotten into loving salads for this purpose. Pasta salads, bean salads, grain salads. This particular one is heavy on the salad portion and lighter on the pasta. It can be eaten cold like a salad or hot like a pasta, which makes it great for lunch or dinner. It’s filled with fresh ingredients that can be swapped with almost anything fresh in your house, and requires very little to make a dressing (just lemon and olive oil).

Wes likes to put pasta in his salad, and I’ve always thought it was weird. But I get it now. Sometimes you need a lot of vegetable bang for your bite, but the comfort and energy from a sprinkling of pasta is always welcome.

Hope to see you out at the crag!

Soba noodles can be a great way to accommodate a variety of dietary restrictions while still providing a hearty meal. They can be gluten-free, but check your package and make sure you don’t see wheat flour in the ingredients. You can make a few versions to include both chicken and tofu, and you can easily get some fresh veggies in this recipe.

We made this recipe for our last Joshua Tree trip. I made it at home so all I had to do was open the container lid for lunch to be ready. This is a great way to do lunch on a day trip built around an activity like hiking or climbing. The recipe is full of protein and carbs for true satisfaction when you need it, and it was delicious cold on a hot day.

The trick is to separate the coconut cream from the coconut water. You know how you open a can of coconut milk and part of the can is solid coconut cream and the rest is watery? Well, scoop out the cream and set it aside. Cook your rice as you normally would, adding enough water to the coconut water to make the necessary amount of water for cooking the rice. Then at the end of cooking, stir in the coconut cream.

Note that some brands of coconut milk do not have that separate coconut cream layer. I used Thai Kitchen and it was very easy to separate. This post offers a nice comparison of coconut milk brands. If you open your can of coconut milk and find that it’s not separate, just go ahead and use the whole can for cooking plus enough water to make 2 3/4 cups liquid.

Now that you’ve got the coconut rice down, how about we use it in a salad topped with peanut dressing? This Coconut Rice Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing is positively addicting! I made it for a day trip to Leo Carrillo State Beach a couple of weeks ago and it was the perfect easy salad to eat after some serious sandcastle building.

Recipe adapted from Host the Toast’s Thai Cashew Coconut Rice Salad.

I bought soba noodles this week, because I want to cook more at home. I cook outside because I have to, and it’s part of the excitement of going outside. But I am pretty lame at home. I have lots of recipes to try, and one is this Tahini Soba Noodle Salad. It’s Mai-yan’s recipe. It’s delicious. And it’s perfect if you’re trying to find a healthy recipe to keep you on track, or if you’re trying to find the perfect picnic/camping recipe to take on your next backcountry ski trip. It’s always nice to have something bright and fresh in the winter.

Do you have any bright fresh recipes that we should test out? Send ’em on over. If we like ’em, we’ll post ’em!

Whether you got the flu of the year, ate and drank your way through the holidays, or are just excited about the opportunity of a new fresh start, here’s a super easy recipe to start with. Layered Picnic Cabbage Salad is great on it’s own, or as a slaw-style topping to a burger or sausage. Cabbage is hearty enough to take outside with you fresh, which is such a nice treat. You have the choice to keep the dressing separate and add at the time of eating, or add the dressing to a jar first, place the cabbage on top, and shake to combine at the time of eating. It’s mayonnaise free, which reduces it’s perishability.

Make it easy on yourself as you try to implement new habits. Camping recipes like this one will make it more likely that you’ll bring fresh, homemade food on your trip. That, in turn, will make you want to go outside. Hopefully that will get you outside more often!

Have you been on an amazing winter camping trip that we should know about? We’re making plans and looking for advice. Share your winter adventures with us in the comments or in photos on our Facebook page.

We’ll be cooking Wes’ famous, made-from-scratch, perfected-over-years-of-practice sausages. These will be paired with some sort of delicious potatoes, and this Apple Fennel Mustard Slaw. It is simple, hearty, bright, crunchy, tangy, and a little fancy. We can make it ahead of time with no worries that it will go limp before the party. It will play the role of both a salad and a topping for the sausages.

I’m still looking for one more side dish to complete the meal, if you’ve got any ideas. Safe enough that everyone will like it, probably a vegetable, and bright-colored though seasonal. It’s not an easy task!

We’ll keep you posted on more recipes and outdoor party ideas that we gather throughout the process.

Adapted from Beer Braised Brats with Apple Mustard Slaw on Honestlyyum.com.

We spent our first night in the Alabama Hills and got some climbing in the next morning. Then we stopped at Mono Lake for a picnic among “the tufas” (those calcified spires everywhere that show off the lake’s iconic alien nature).

It was a quick, unplanned picnic, so we had to throw together a lunch based on the food we’d taken along for our glamping nights (nothing prepped, just a bunch of ingredients). It also required a hike to get to the tufas, so the meal had to be backpack-portable.

Mini roast beef croissant sandwiches were easy, and we could make them on the car before leaving. We had a bag of lettuce, which we used as our inspiration for a DIY salad-in-a-bag. I had a carton of delicious cherry tomatoes, some trail mix, and a chunk of cheese, so I dumped it all in the bag. Dressing was harder, and it would have been nice if we had some made ahead of time. We had olive oil, mustard and salt and pepper, and we just mixed it up in a baggie that we housed within the salad in a bag (so that if it leaked, it was only leaking onto the salad).

The sandwiches were, of course, delicious, but the salad was a surprising hit of freshness that I don’t think about when I plan hiking food. Salad kits already exist, and would be great to purchase for a picnic, but they are even greater (and just as easy!) to make yourself. And after a long hike, that salad will hit the spot! Just make sure you’re not keeping perishables un-refrigerated for too long.