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.

The celebration of the actual holiday in the outdoors adds to the revival of what truly matters about it- bonding with the people you love.We have heard many stories of Thanksgiving camping trips, and love spending it in our local wild areas ourselves. Even more exciting are the trips venturing deeper into the backcountry. In these cases, it is important to keep the logistics of food simple to allow you plenty of time to reach your destination and enjoy a relaxing time with your loved ones. Keep the meal confined to the essential dishes, and spread out the work among all the guests.

We thought through a few of our must-have dishes and adjusted to make them possible in the backcountry. Cranberry Bourbon Compote is simple and perfect to accompany any other Thanksgiving dishes. It is not as saucy as a standard cranberry sauce, but has the same flavor profile and is lightweight and non-perishable. It is delicious spooned over your other Thanksgiving dishes and would also be a great addition to a breakfast made out of leftovers.

Both grandparents lived a long and happy life, and left us with tons of happy memories to cherish for many more years. Memere was the grandmother that Aimee and I shared from our dad’s side, and she passed away this week last January. She and Pepere used to travel across the country from North Carolina to see us every year. They’d sleep in the camper shell on top of their pick up truck, even when that truck was parked in our driveway for the summer. The original #vanlife?

My grandfather on my mom’s side passed away last month. He was known for seeing the most pleasant side of all things, and his puns. Every time I visited my grandparents growing up, there would be a Costco-sized tub of sour cream waiting for me to turn it into as many pound cakes as it would make. I just used Nana’s recipe, but somehow Grandpa would convince me that I made it best.

My parents came to visit me for Christmas, and my mom brought with her a pound cake. We took it with us cross-country skiing last week. It’s really the perfect snack for a day in the snow. It is tough enough to pack well, and goes great with a warm drink. It is by no means a low-calorie food, so an active day outside is a good time to consider it truly justified.

If you’re cooking up breakfast for a crowd:

• If you’re cooking for a crowd and you own a dutch oven, this Dutch Oven Breakfast Casserole is a sure hit.

  

• Dust off your old pie iron and make some Campfire Cinnamon Roll Waffles. It’ll work just fine if you have a regular pie iron, but waffle irons are fun if you’re looking for a new camping toy.

  

• Campfire Breakfast Potatoes are perfect with scrambled eggs and bacon.

  

For snacking during the day:

• Make this Spicy Peanut Dip at home and dip carrots, cucumbers and bell peppers in it for a healthy and satisfying snack.

  

• These Spicy Potato Flatbreads are one of my favorite snacks. They’re savory, and totally satisfying even if you eat them at room temperature (i.e. they’ve been sitting in your pack all day)

  

• Sometimes a packaged bar won’t do. Take these Blueberry Coconut Almond Bars along for a day hike.

  

Some of our favorite hearty and easy camping main dishes:

• We’re all about communal eating and a Bruschetta Picnic Potluck is one of our favorite ideas. Lots of little dips and spreads complement each other to create a fun eating experience.



• This Albondigas Soup is warm and filling, yet still feels summery and fresh.

  

• For a simple and delicious meal, Crunchy Skillet Fried Tacos are a crowd-pleaser.

  

Dessert, of course:

• If your trip includes kids, s’mores are a must, but mix it up a little bit and make some Campfire Cones one night.

  

• Impress your friends by making a from scratch caramel sauce at camp. This Toasted Pound Cake with Pineapple and Coconut Rum Caramel recipe is easier than it sounds!

  

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!

Everyone loves pie and potatoes on Thanksgiving, so we put them together into one dish. It’s a rustic, free form pie that is hard to screw up. Cook it in your dutch oven over the campfire. We roasted the vegetables a bit before our trip, so assembling and cooking pies takes very little time. This is helpful if you have only one dutch oven and lots of hungry guests.

This Roasted Potato Squash Galette should be finished with a drizzle (or generous dollop) of Cashew Garlic Sauce. It’s a simple sauce that is creamy, yet vegan, making it less perishable than a dairy option. The sauce makes this dish. The recipe included makes a full mason jar, which should be enough for the galette, along with all the side munching of extra butternut squash pieces going on around you while you’re cooking it. If you’re lucky enough to have leftover sauce, it’s also great as a sandwich spread or vegetable dip the next day.

And where would Thanksgiving be without a good stuffing? Bird or no, the stuffing is an important staple on every Thanksgiving menu. Our friends at Fresh off the Grid created this gorgeous Apple Fennel Stuffing that adds needed heartiness and fall flavor to the table. I’m already imagining my day-after leftover squash, stuffing and creamy garlic spread sandwich on my hike. Click here to check out their recipe.

While trying to decide which overwhelmingly sweet flavored alcohol I was going to buy a whole bottle of, I realized they make airplane bottles of most of the flavors! I narrowed my experimentation down to five, and landed on vanilla vodka as the best choice for this cocktail. I expected to like the honey flavored whisky or orange vodka better, but vanilla warmed the whole thing up just one more level. It also made sense when I dolloped a scoop of freshly made mason-jar whipped cream on top.

The difficulty of the trip hadn’t even dawned on me by the time we’d finished our first steep mile and arrived at the trailhead to Angel’s Landing. We saw the hoards of inexperienced tourists starting up the 1.1 mile round-trip death rock, and thought “That’ll be a quick fun addition to our already quick, easy hike. Let’s do it!” And so we did. And it was the scariest place I’ve ever been. If it wasn’t gonna be me that went over the edge, I thought for sure someone else would. Maybe the guy with the baby on his back who’d been climbing off the trail ahead of us all day. Thankfully, we missed the action if there was any to be seen. This little side trip took a lot more out of us (physically and mentally) than the lunch break that we originally had in mind.

After that, the trail continued, straight up the sides of sheer cliffs, covered in snow (which I tackled in my trail-runners), until we finally reached the point which we could walk no more (we called it Campsite 4 ½) at around 6:30pm. The view was as breathtaking as I’d remembered. Wes started using the word “bitchin” a lot once we finally reached the rim, so I stopped worrying that I’d be boyfriendless before dinner. We pulled out our tall PBR’s and layered up for the long anticipated best sunset of our lives- which never happened. Clouds rolled in at just the wrong moment after hours of blistering sun, and day turned to night with nothing in between. The stars didn’t even come out, so we quickly made dinner and went to bed before 9. I was awoken by leg aches around 4am, and invited Wes outside for a pee date and we finally got to see some stars. We also got a spectacular sunrise over the other canyon, so we didn’t go home feeling jipped.

Ok, so I have to admit something. This was not the most well-planned Dirty Gourmet trip. We made some “grate” stuff on the campfire in a campground the night before, but due to forgetting the can opener and salt and pepper, we resorted to a backpacker meal and ramen for the hike. Backpacker meals tend to be dehydrated food mixed together in a zip-top bag. You just pour hot water in and let it reconstitute. These are typically the meals we aim to avoid- one of the main reasons our blog exists. Its not that they don’t taste good exactly, but they lack personality. There is no opportunity to add your own flare, and this takes a lot away from the overall healthy and soulful outdoor experience.
The backpacker meal I purchased (Thai peanut sauce flavor) was fine at dinner, but I’d added too much water, turning it into a sort of soup rather than a thick sauce. This is when my gourmet senses turned on. When most of the rice and vegetables were gone, I zipped up the leftover soup and saved it for the morning. At breakfast, we made a package of oriental flavor ramen, but boiled it in the leftover peanut butter soup. The flavors combined perfectly and breakfast was delicious. It was much heartier than was (not very well) planned. The lesson is: even if you’re a professional like me, you can screw up, but you can always do something to jazz up a meal and make it “dirty gourmet.” I hope you all had or plan to have an amazing Spring Break if you’re lucky enough to get one.

Luckily ramen was not the only form of calories I’d brought with me for the hike down. I had some leftover Orange Coconut Macaroons that Aimee had made for a meeting last week. I was beyond thrilled when I found those in my pack. Here’s the recipe for those.

*Adapted from Dave Lebovitz’s recipe in Ready for Dessert

Aimee came over today with (chicken) eggs that she dyed using natural dyes, and I have never been so impressed with colored eggs before. I no longer see the point of buying artificial colors to do this, especially since reading about the health hazards potentially associated with them. Supposedly some people don’t even eat their dyed eggs, which I think is a crazy silly waste-especially since the egg actually turns pretty colors too, which I love. These eggs are more brilliantly colored and you can feel good about eating them, because the dyes are made using items such as red cabbage (the blue- can you believe it!) and turmeric. Since Easter happens to fall on the same weekend as Earth Day this year, we figured this would be a great way to celebrate both in one fell swoop. Even better if you can get local eggs too.

Speaking of Earth Day, we wanted to let you know that we’ll be helping out the San Gorgonio Wilderness Association with their Mill Creek cleanup on May 14. If you’re interested in participating, contact us and we’ll get you the details. Otherwise, you can still help out by donating some money to the cause by clicking on our new donation button. We’d like to use the money to provide Dirty Gourmet snackies for the volunteers.