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.

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.

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.

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.

We had planned to paddleboard camp on Lake Minnewanka while we were in Banff, but the cold rain just kept coming. It had been raining all week, but Thursday was supposed to be the worst of it. We’d already made reservations, but called the very nice lady in charge at Bow Valley SUP, who helped us switch to a half day on Friday.We drove out to Canmore that morning, and the clouds parted. It became a perfect day.

They suggested we just drive up the road to the reservoir instead of heading back into Banff, since we now only had 3 hours. I was pretty disappointed when I heard that, but couldn’t believe how gorgeous just the little town reservoir was! A backdrop of the incredible Canadian Rockies and the glacial blue color of the water were still with us.

Paddleboarding was much easier and more relaxing than I expected. We rented inflatables, which were very stable, and took them up to a nice pullover point to have delicious falafel sandwiches for lunch. I wouldn’t recommend the chopping methods you see here, unless you’re desperate. Knives and inflatables usually don’t mix well. I had a LOT of supervision. You’d really “falafel” if you popped a rental board.

First trip was a short fun overnighter with the girls (and the boys) in Mount Pinos. The goal was to keep it local and keep logistics to a minimum (KISS). We made too much food (as usual) with each of us wanting to test out new recipes (check out Sweet Potato and Sausage Savory Pie Bomb, Herby Cheese Crackers, and Eggs in the Backcountry).

The other trip I took was in Mineral King in Sequoia National Park. What an amazing place! This is off the beaten path away from the main area of the park where all the giant trees are. The landscape is a mix of conifer forests that give way to rocky Eastern Sierra vistas and alpine lakes. I highly recommend it.

Wherever it is you are headed, you will need some food. This Coconut Lentil Stew uses typical backpacking ingredients and combines them in a satisfying creamy sauce. Besides being delicious, the coconut brings a fatty component that really hits the spot. Once everything is cooked, the texture is more like a porridge than a soup. I used zucchini because I was on a quick overnighter in cool temperatures. Dehydrated veggies or other sturdy vegetables could easily substitute the zucchini, especially if you expect hot weather. As always, feel free to experiment with the seasoning and spices to create your own comforting meal.

These are delicious and spicy. Taco meat and puff pastry- what could be better? Just don’t forget the hot sauce! (I learned my lesson on this trip).

We started planning last winter. Everyone had grand ideas of the activities we should include in our week. Climbing in the Bugaboos, backpacking, peak bagging, and paddleboard camping in Banff National Park, roadtripping up to Jasper National Park on the Icefields Parkway, and hot springs of course! Planning as a group of 4 (our husbands got to come) ain’t usually easy, because people aren’t often on the same page. It was only hard for us because we were all into cramming in everything!

When the trip finally happened, we decided officially on “the no plan plan,” which worked out very well. Though some of our activities were thwarted or cut short due to constant rainstorms or long drives, we did mostly everything on the list! Except see a moose. Still waiting for that one…

I was responsible for all the camping food for the trip, so I spent a month or so dehydrating things. Probably the best thing we ate was this Backpacking French Toast. I dehydrated my own eggs at home (here’s how), and we simply dipped fresh Canadian bread in them, fried the bread up, and smothered it with local Canadian maple syrup. It was a perfect mix of lightweight, hearty, locally sourced, and rustic.

It was wonderful to finally get to spend a whole week with my Anne and Drew, especially in such an incredible place. It’s rare to find people you get along with so easily that you can all truly go where the adventure is, but these people are those people for us. I can’t wait to plan another adventure in another new amazing location. The world has a lot of them!