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!

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!

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.

For the purists out there, I should specify that this Spicy Korean Lentil soup is not really Korean, but rather is influenced by the flavors of this cuisine.

This Spicy Korean Lentil soup has some real heat to it. It’s a peppery-slow-heat-in-the-back-of-the-throat kinda kick that decreases as your meal progresses. One interesting anecdote: I served it with rice and after each bite of rice, the heat factor came back! It’s like the rice cleansed our palates, and resensitized our taste buds to the spiciness.

This is prime time for Joshua Tree National Park and I have been trying to squeeze in as many weekends there as possible. After going there mostly for climbing in the past 9 years, I also had a luxurious weekend of non-climbing (read all about Emily’s big horn sheep sighting here) and finally took some time to see both well known and lesser known sights in the park.

The first day we went on a two-hour guided walking tour of Keyes Ranch and learned all about Bill Keyes – a shady but very entrepreneurial character. On the second day, we hiked out to Samuelson’s Rock – an off-the-beaten path destination that you can only get to with a little cross-country hiking. There you can see many of John Samuelson’s quotes carved into rocks. It seems he had strong opinions, but maybe not the best grasp on grammar!

This Spicy Asian Penne pasta was really quick and easy – just what we wanted after a day of hiking around in the sun all day. I tend to crave Asian flavors but I wanted something a little heartier than rice or noodles so I decided to try penne pasta.

The portobello mushroom, sweet onion and bell pepper are no fuss vegetables that add a distinct flavor profile to the dish. Throw them into a foil pouch with sauce and put your campfire to work. The vegetables should be cooked and the sauce slightly thickened with some charring happening at the bottom of the pouch.

This dish has a lot of heat, so if you are a little more conservative with your spiciness, I recommend using less chili pepper. If you can’t find fresh peppers, red chili flakes will probably work as well.

This salad is great extra cold and on its own as a light meal on a hot day, though we did put it inside our wraps when we were starving. This is another make-at-home meal that will thrill you to have out of the way so you can focus on the things your trip is really about. Running, hiking, surfing, kayaking…Get out there and get hungry!

This time I decided to make Asian Wraps with Peanut Sauce and accompany them with a noodle salad. The wraps were Spring Roll inspired tortillas filled with tofu or chicken, peanut sauce, lettuce and cucumber. I served the wraps with a noodle salad, inspired by one of Guy Fieri’s recipes.

This is the kind of recipe that is ALL prep. You have to be ready for some serious chopping up front but it’s well worth the effort. Your hard work leaves you all these delicious ingredients that can be combined into a whole new thing and are great to munch on individually too. When it’s time to eat, just set everything out buffet style, and let everyone make their wrap just the way they like it – and have them make one for you too while they are at it.

We cook a lot of vegetarian dishes for Dirty Gourmet, in part because we believe in that way of eating, but also because its just too difficult to deal with meat in many camping situations, due to refrigeration and handling issues. We believe that food should be easy, wonderful, and sharable. There are plenty of meat and dairy free meals that fit within this category, and would satisfy anyone regardless of diet.

A few things to keep in mind:

1. Vegetarian usually means not eating meat (or anything with a mom), but vegetarians are usually ok with dairy and eggs.
2. Pescatarians include fish in their diets, but not other types of meat. They usually eat dairy as well.
3. Vegans do not eat or use any animal products whatsoever. There are, of course, different levels of strictness for each individual, but generally no meat, dairy, eggs, leather, down, etc. Some go as far as including things like honey or wine (which is often clarified using animal products), but
   some don’t.

It’s best to just ask which rules the individual adheres to. Many people who take a stance with a strict diet are very willing to discuss it, especially if there aren’t a bunch of cheesy (or meaty) jokes involved in the conversation.

There are a growing number of options available to make restrictive diets easier for people to handle, such as soy cheeses and meat substitutes, but you can create a balanced and satisfying meal without these things as well. Here is one option that we ate on our backpacking trip last weekend that is as easy as it gets, and totally satisfying. If you have any questions or concerns that you haven’t been able to resolve regarding anything food related, let us know. We want to cover topics like these in more detail to dispel, any stereotypes and encourage people to try new things. We’ll cover these topics in the next few weeks along with delicious vegan recipes.

Emily mentioned that I’ve been reading The Happiness Project. I still haven’t finished it because I keep giving it away to people who I think need to read it more than I do. Ha, who am I kidding? Even though I’m not done with it, it’s pretty easy to get the point of the book. The idea is to figure out what will make you happy, and then break those things down into things you can really work on every day. I bought a calendar last week that I tore apart and stuck up on my wall. I also bought those star stickers that we all used to get in elementary school, and now I’m using the calendar as a way to keep track of my resolutions. I’ve only got two so far: to exercise daily (stolen from Emily), and to take my vitamins. I’m excited about it, but I’m only on week one so I’ll have to let you know how it goes.

Though it’s not a daily resolution that I can track, camping is something that makes me happy. But I have to fess up—until last weekend it had been months since I last went camping. Because of Dirty Gourmet, I think about camping all the time, but I just hadn’t been out in a long time. I was starting to feel like a fraud. So last weekend I finally went. I headed out to Figueroa campground in the Los Padres National Forest with Kismat, along with his cousin Ro and Ro’s lovely girlfriend Katie.

I thought about making this Thai Coconut Soup but ended up making a different recipe with ingredients I had at home. I’ll post that recipe after we test it a couple of times. This time, I’ll share this soup that Mai-yan and I made many times on our bike tour. It’s hot and spicy, yet silky and rich from the coconut milk. For a more backpacking friendly recipe, substitute powdered coconut milk and water for the canned coconut milk and use shelf stable tofu.

I always get a little excited when I go too far in the wrong direction with my health or goals, because it means it will be easy to see improvements once I start trying again. I know this is a strange way to look at things, but it can be a motivating way to see where I’m currently at. After several weeks of being snowed in and cooped up in a house filled with heavy holiday foods and illness, my first day back climbing yesterday was rough. But the satisfaction of how tired I was at the end of the day, and how sore my muscles were today was unavoidable. It excited me enough to get up and go to yoga class today. One step in the right direction leads to the another.

We know it’s a pretty typical new year’s resolution to getting healthy, but we aim to stick to our goals time around. One way we plan to get healthy is to strengthen our overall immunity levels, and there are plenty of foods out there that brag about their abilities to do so. This recipe is filled with immunity-boosting oranges and mushrooms, and is as hearty and flavorful as recipes come. You don’t need to wait until you feel under the weather to enjoy it. In fact, please don’t! Make this to protect yourself so you can fully enjoy any experience you have planned.