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!

When we first realized our joint connection to the dish, we determined that it would be fun to make it in the backcountry. You may remember stories from that trip, but we’d taken fresh corn with us for it, and the weather was much warmer and muggier than anticipated, spoiling the corn before the first night. The recipe turned into a pretty sad mashed potatoes and gravy instead.

Since then, we’ve made it more successfully in other contexts, and are happiest with it as a car camping recipe. It is so quick to put together that you won’t have a problem maximizing playtime during the day and still having a hearty, special dinner to share.

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.

Last year we cooked at a campout for almost 200 people and had made a bunch of curry paste in advance. On the long drive to the campsite, I realized I forgot to pack the curry paste! Initially I panicked, but Mai-Yan calmed me down and reminded me we could just buy some. We used store-bought curry paste, and it turned out great.

I still prefer making curry paste myself (using this recipe), but for a really easy version, the store-bought stuff is fantastic. It can be difficult to find, but a good Asian market usually will stock it. If all else fails, you can find it online. The brand we like is Mae Ploy. It doesn’t have any funny ingredients, and is seafood-free.

My kids love this, especially with toppings. They like it topped with peanuts and fried shallots. I like to add cilantro and hot sauce as well. You can find fried shallots at your Asian market, online, or get real fancy and fry them yourself.

When you’re cooking this, start with just two tablespoons of curry paste, and add more later, to taste. You can always add more, but you can’t take it out!

We are always cooking Southern food around here, so we finally did a Southern menu for our last event, the Subaru Death Valley Cycling Adventure. We made jambalaya, greens with lemon-tahini dressing (adapted from one of our favorite books, Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen), and these hush puppies.

It was about 15 degrees outside in the backcountry of Death Valley and the mountain bikers had been out riding fully past dark by the time they returned to our camp. They were ready for a hearty meal. The crew was a mashup of different people with different needs, so we were happy to have stumbled upon a vegan and gluten-free method that tasted good to everyone.

We planned to use hot pepper jelly as the dipping sauce for these but forgot it (and we weren’t about to drive 4 hours back to town to pick some up). We did have some cactus jelly that we’d purchased (along with a rattlesnake mug) at the Stovepipe Wells gift shop on our way in. We mixed it with the Tabasco-laced pickling juice from the spicy okra on our appetizer tray, and it was pretty delicious. The “recipe” isn’t included, but play with combining some kind of pepper jelly with some cider vinegar, salt and pepper to create your own dipping sauce.

We discovered that the desert is the perfect place to fry. Your outdoor kitchen can handle the smoke and grease much better than your indoor one, cast iron is readily on hand along with a strong stove flame, and people will flip out with excitement when they get to eat your creations. Just remember to bring some kind of container to pour your oil into when you’re done frying.

It’s also perfect, of course, for a cold weeknight celebration. Use these puppies as an excuse to eat outside in February.

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

I’ve passed on my love of this dish to Daniel who has been asking me to make this on camping and backpacking trips for years. I kinda ignored him- too many perishables, specialty ingredients, too heavy… When a Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store opened in our neighborhood recently, we noticed they stocked shelf-stable tofu in Tetrapaks. Daniel made a new case for trying this dish and, after some experimentation, here it is!

Full disclosure, there still are some specialty ingredients required for this dish, and the tofu box weighs 12 ounces which will make some of you gasp. On the plus side, it’s ready in 10 minutes and one of the most satisfying and warming dishes I know of for a cold night out. We made this on our overnight trek to Mount Whitney and it was worth every ounce of weight.

Specialty Ingredient Sourcing:
Shelf-Stable Silken Tofu
Korean Chili Flakes
Dehydrated Cabbage

If you’re curious about hiking up Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the contiguous United States, I highly recommend it. The main thing I had gathered from my research and feedback from other hikers is that it was going to be HARD. I can confirm that it was not easy, but no one told me how overwhelmingly beautiful and diverse the hike would be. For that alone, I think it was worth navigating a frustrating lottery system, camping in the backcountry with an unusually large amount of people, and dealing with poop bags. Train adequately and get out there – you won’t regret it!

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.

The location was findable by GPS coordinates only (and no phone service), about 40 miles down a washboardy single lane dirt road. We packed our rented rear-wheel drive Sprinter van full of gear, food and about 200 gallons of water and headed out. Luckily we made it to within 1/2 mile of camp before we got stuck. Even more luckily, a few magical helpers saved us from a $4000 towing fee- but not before dinner was supposed to be ready. We decided to unpack and start cooking while we worked on digging the van out, and got a lot of practice packing/unpacking it by the end of the weekend (which is good news because we’ll probably buy one soon).

The rest of the weekend went smoothly for us, and we enjoyed wowing the event’s participants with the possibilities of incredible food in the backcountry.

Breakfast included our signature Cheddar Bacon Pancakes, but we made this caramelized banana topping for those that preferred a sweeter option. We recommend this for your trip, but we especially love how it tastes in oatmeal, which is how we’re presenting it here.

The recipe here uses rolled oats because they cook quickly on a camp stove. If you have the forethought, try making steel cut oats using our Overnight Steel Cut Oatmeal recipe. The slightly chewy texture is great with the soft bananas.

The book, Dirty Gourmet: Food for Your Outdoor Adventures, is chock full of recipes and tips for cooking for all of your outdoor adventures, whether that means a five-day backpacking trip through Sequoia National Park, a large family “glampout” at a fancy beach camping resort, or just a quick impulse picnic in your local public lands. We will teach you about important considerations for adapting your food to your trip so that you can execute delicious meals without getting stuck dragging a super heavy backpack or becoming a slave to your camp kitchen.

The year’s first winter storm in California is finally upon us, and it’s getting us excited about plans to host some wildflower-filled events to celebrate the book’s launch. We will keep you posted on dates and locations soon!

Until then, we’re back in our camp kitchens creating more recipes to share with you starting with a twist on a classic (one of our favorite things to do). Pineapple Coconut Upside Down Cake is conveniently vegan, making it a bit healthier and easier to execute at your next winter campfire.

Drape blankets across all your camp chairs and grab a Vanilla Cider Cocktail to accompany gazing at the Pleides and Orion.