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.

At home, we place the whole eggplant in the oven, but at camp it can be wrapped tightly in foil and tossed directly in the embers of your campfire. Roast it until it’s very soft and finish the dish in a skillet on the grate of your campfire or on a camp stove.

I’ve had it both with and without peas mixed in, but I definitely prefer it with peas. I brought a bag of frozen peas and they were fine even after defrosting in my cooler for two days.

Serve this as a healthy appetizer with fresh veggies, or make it a meal with flatbread and a simple pot of beans. Enjoy!

So he is actually my neighbor now, and we are friends again- after 10 years and lots of life changes. He came to California ready to explore, and had never been to the Sierra, so we jumped at the opportunity to be there for his first experience. I was lucky enough to get us permits to Little Lakes Valley, which is beautiful and (usually) a very accessible hike that too many people are on for me to be interested. There was SOO much snow this time, though, that it kept a lot of the crowds away. Hiking across miles of sun cups (little cups in the snow everywhere that you either have to balance on the rim of or fall into, twisting an ankle) was tiring, but it was gorgeous. We explored the whole basin and camped next to one of the only unfrozen lakes.

We spent the night before the backcountry portion of the trip car camping as usual, and cooked up this quick and easy Italian Orzo Soup. It was a nice warming dish that was very easy to execute after a day of traveling and planning backpacking logistics. I highly recommend it by the campfire.

One little note: the logistics of both car camping and backpacking in the same trip are tricky, especially in bear country. We always think about being minimalist and lightweight with our backpacking food, but are luxurious with car camping food, thinking it doesn’t matter. Our cooler didn’t fit in the bear locker at the trail head this time, so we had to scramble to figure out how to store it all in a bin and bags to fit inside the lockers instead. It is very important not to leave food in the car, so plan accordingly.

I’ve talked before about how one of my favorite camping tips is to prep a meal at home and freeze it. That frozen meal acts as a big ice block in your cooler, and you have a meal all prepped and ready to heat at camp. Whenever I make a pot of beans or soup, I’ll freeze it for this reason (if I have enough leftover). These Peanut Butter Beans are in our regular rotation at home and I took a frozen container of them on a trip to our local mountains this summer. Along with some flatbread and a quick salad, they were a satisfying and delicious dinner. The small amount of peanut butter makes these beans surprisingly creamy and savory.

I strongly suggest making these from dried beans, but the recipe includes instructions for making them with canned beans if you’re short on time. If you wanted to make these at camp, I’d suggest cooking them in a dutch oven on your campfire.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe in the fabulous Madhur Jaffrey’s book, World Vegetarian.

There are so many things to enjoy about the great outdoors – the wildlife, the fresh air, how amazing the night sky looks when there’s no light for miles around. Oh, and the food. Obviously. One of the best things about a camping trip or hiking excursion are the delicious snacks, treats, and cook-ups you get to enjoy along the trail or at the end of a wilderness-packed day. While there are a few campfire classics that aren’t exactly the pinnacle of “healthy” cuisine (cough, smores, cough, beer) we’d never say not to treat yo’ self. But there are tons of camp-friendly options you can throw in the mix that not only taste good, but will keep you feeling good (so you have the energy to enjoy all those birds, stars, and #elevationgains).

Here are our picks for the five healthiest foods to take camping or hiking.

Baked Potatoes

Potatoes sometimes get a bad rap, but we’re not entirely sure why. The inside is a great source of soluble fiber, which helps feed our good gut bacteria, while the skin contains 5 grams of insoluble fiber, which helps keep things “moving along.” One whole baked potato has 7 grams of protein, 46 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin B6, 48 percent of vitamin C, 46 percent of potassium, 21 percent of phosphorous and magnesium, and 33 percent of manganese. B6 helps to produce serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, sleep, and appetite. Magnesium – a nutrient that’s pretty difficult to get from most foods – can help muscles relax, improve sleep, and reduce stress. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that supports your adrenal glands, which is very important after long days of hiking and strenuous outdoor activities. But perhaps the best part about the potato is how incredibly easy they are to pack and cook. They require no refrigeration, just throw them in your bag. When you’re ready to eat, poke some holes into the skin with a fork, wrap in tin foil, and place on a hot bed of coals or on a rock next to a low fire. They’ll be ready in about half an hour. We recommend slathering with grass-fed butter and sea salt.

Trail Mix

This one might come as no surprise, but have you ever thought about why this snack is so popular amongst trail trekkers? It tastes amazing, true, but, both nutritionally and logistically, trail mix is exactly what you need when heading out into the wild blue yonder. One cup of trail mix can contain anywhere from 500-700 calories, which, in many situations, is not ideal, but when you’re on the trail all day you need a dense source of fuel that’s not going to weigh down your pack or your body. Contained in those calories is more than 20 grams of protein, 40 grams of (healthy) fats, 60 grams of carbs, and nearly a third of your daily value for 14 different vitamins and minerals. Meanwhile, the salt from the nuts and the glucose from the dried fruits help replenish electrolytes and keep you hydrated.

To ensure you get the healthiest mix, go for kinds that include just fruit and nuts. Salted nuts are good, but make sure the fruit doesn’t come coated in extra sugar. We like mixes that include a majority of nuts such as almonds and macadamia nuts (rather than peanuts), dried bananas for potassium, pumpkin seeds for zinc, and dried blueberries for their low sugar and high antioxidant content.

Canned Fish

If you’re thinking “Ew, gross,” you can skip this one, but, before you go, you might be interested to know that canned fish is, hands down, one of the healthiest, most affordable, convenient, camp-friendly foods on the face of the planet. Wild-caught sardines have more calcium and phosphorous than milk, more iron than spinach, more potassium than coconut water, and as much protein as steak. Plus, they pack over 300 mg of omega 3 EPA and 650 mg of omega 3 DHA. If you’re not into sardines (you should try them, they taste just like tuna, we swear!) Try wild-caught salmon. We recommend opting for varieties that include the skin and bones. You can’t taste them, and these are the parts that contain the majority of the vitamins and minerals. Our favorite brands are Wild Plant and Trader Joe’s BPA-free options.

Chili

Chili is the definition of maximum return, minimum investment. Everything you’d want or need to put in chili you can find in a can, it can be modified to suit almost any taste and dietary preference, and it’s incredibly nutrient dense. A simple vegetarian chili made out of beans, veggies, and tomato paste contains 10 grams of protein, a whopping 16 grams of fiber, and only 4 grams of sugar. In addition, you’re also getting a sizeable serving of lycopene – the antioxidant that gives tomatoes their red color and is in our new SmartyPants Men’s Complete. Unlike many antioxidants that are destroyed by heat, lycopene content is actually enhanced by cooking. Add in some grass-fed beef or bison meat for extra protein, vitamin A, iron, and a hefty dose of B vitamins, which will keep you energized on the trail.

Jerky

For camping and hiking aficionados, jerky may be old news – dried meats have been a staple of outdoorsmen (and women) for hundreds of years, as they’re an almost perfect balance between fat and protein, a good source of B vitamins, and zinc. The good news is, jerky is so popular now you can find it almost anywhere, from Whole Foods to the airport gift shop. But all jerkies are not created equal. We recommend opting for brands that are 100% grass-fed – an important thing to look for when buying animal products, as grass-fed products are often more sustainable, raised in a more humane manner, and have been shown to have higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega 3 fatty acids.

Grace is a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP) and a graduate of Duke University. She received her nutrition certification from the Nutritional Therapy Association, and her training is based on the work of Dr. Weston A Price, as well as the latest peer-reviewed, scientific research. In addition to managing all things on the SmartyPants blog, Grace has been featured as a regular contributor for Refinery29 Wellness. Grace continues to work with clients as a private nutritional coach, “The Primal Blonde”. You can read more of Grace’s nutrition knowhow, and find out how you can work with her one-on-one, at www.primalblondenutrition.com. To check out what kind of kale-infused, bone broth concoction she’s cooking up, or her latest adventure in the world of fitness, follow Grace on Instagram @theprimalblonde.

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.

One thing I’ve learned while on a plant-based diet is that in order to feel satiated, I’ve really had to fill up on healthy foods like fruits and veggies, beans, nuts and seeds. This seems obvious, but it’s easy to be a junk food vegan. Before I would reach for things like cheese and crackers when I got hungry and that would be enough. Without the cheese, I’ve had to retrain my brain to make these other healthier foods my go-to. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s getting easier.

Breakfast feels like an opportunity to cram in as many nutrients as possible in order to start the day feeling satiated. My breakfast of choice lately has been oatmeal and I’ve been making it on a timer in my rice cooker, so it’s ready to eat when we get up in the morning. I always mix in some flaxseeds and top it with homemade almond milk, but the other toppings vary depending on what we’ve got in the house.

One of my favorite combinations has been raspberry, almond butter and cacao nibs. I love this combo so much that when I ran out of fresh raspberries I even started reaching for the freeze-dried ones in the back of my pantry that I had purchased for a backpacking trip. After I did this a couple of days in a row, it occurred to me that this is perfect backpacking food. It’s filling, but still energizing, and it tastes delicious.

I would use regular rolled oats for this because I don’t care for gluey instant oats and I don’t mind the bite of slightly undercooked oatmeal. If you are concerned about fuel use and don’t mind the stickier instant oats, then you can certainly use those. This recipe serves two, but can easily be scaled up or down.

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.

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!