Fall is (slowly) taking over now, which is a great time for us to think back before we think forward to the next season. What went right? What went wrong? Did we find new places to explore more? Did we come up with any new ideas to put into practice? The answers are all yes for us. What about you?

Some things we learned:

• Maple sugar can be melted into water to make pretty perfect maple syrup that doesn’t spill in your pack. Coconut oil can be found in individual packets fairly easy, and is solid at room temperature, coming close to solving the same spillage issue for backpacking with oil.
• If you’re cooking for a crowd, this Camp Chef Explorer stove is an awesome thing to own. A cast iron griddle is, too. We’re excited about having a large propane tank so we don’t have to waste so many small green canisters, since we do so much camp cooking.
• Leave Los Angeles for a road trip north at 4:15am, and you’ll sail. You’ll be in San Francisco by 10:30am, or Tahoe by noon. This is very doable for a quick 3-day weekend trip. We’re going to start planning more camping trips around there.
• If you’re not sure how much fuel is left in your compressed gas canister, you can float it in water and it will float at the line the fuel is down to. Thank you to the Outessa participant that taught us this one!

While teaching our Campfire Cooking classes for the REI Outessa events this summer, we came up with a few recipes. The Mountain Berry Cobbler we recently posted was one, and here is another. This is a simple sandwich that reminded us how good simple can be. We used a spicy dairy-free pesto, which is a good option to have around for sandwiches in warm weather, where perishability is a factor.

We started looking at our pie irons as leftover transformers. The pesto and cheddar were reused ingredients from other meals we’d made. When we eventually ran out of these ingredients, we switched to a chocolate and Probar Almond Butter sandwich, which was also incredible.

Fall doesn’t mean camping season is over. It means you get your favorite trails to yourself. Let this beautiful season begin!

Making pancakes while backpacking is easy and just what you need to fuel you up for another day on the trail. We made these Cornmeal Blueberry Pancakes on our last day of a short 2-night trip. It was perfect for a leisurely morning while enjoying the tranquility and immensity of White Chief Dome in Mineral King, Sequoia National Park.

All the batter ingredients where pre-measured at home and put into a gallon-size zip-top bag. At camp, the only thing left to do was to add water directly in the bag and mix. Tip: write how much water to add on the bag before you leave.

The Trader Joe’s dried blueberries we used are moist and naturally sweet. They melted in the batter and made for delicious sweet and tart bites against the earthiness of the cornmeal. If you don’t care for a sweet breakfast or want to save the weight of maple syrup, these pancakes are perfectly good without syrup as well.

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.

Adan is a pro fly fisherman (we’ll be demanding lessons soon), and he doesn’t just cook his trout- he smokes it. When I was growing up in Florida, I had a few lucky New Year’s parties where my best friend would show up with her family’s smoked mackerel. That was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. I haven’t even had Adan’s smoked trout, but I’m sure it’s just as delicious.

Where are you going to camp with your ENTIRE family and all your friends next year? Now’s the time to start planning (especially since the planning process requires a BBQ!) Let us know so we can be your neighbors!

We take a lot of climbing day trips or quick overnighters whenever we can get away with them. These are usually not well-planned (“Oh hey, we both get off of work early today and go into work late tomorrow- let’s go!”) so it’s hard to plan our meals very well. The idea behind portable packet meals is that you can whip up a batch of rice or grits or mashed potatoes (or just use leftovers from last night), stuff them with cheese, sausage, vegetables, or anything delicious that you have in your house, and you’re good to go. If you want to take it a step further, wrap that whole thing in some sort of dough and bake it for 20 minutes.

I don’t have muffin tins in my house, or I’d probably have used them for this. I used individual ramekins, so the serving sizes were on the large side. We’re planning to make empanadas in this style for our backpacking trip this weekend. Do you have another idea I could try? I still need a lunch for the second day.

Fritters are always fun in the summer. This recipe, another great one thanks to Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen, uses black eyed peas and peanuts as the base. These are fun ingredients that are easy to work with and less perishable than a lot of other options, which is wonderful for camping recipes. I prepared the mixture and put it in a zip-top bag before my trip. Then I fried the fritters in a cast iron skillet at camp. The leftovers took the place of falafel when combined with pita bread and hummus the next day. Thank you again to our friend Ryan Miller, who took this beautiful photo.

Did you get out for National Trails Day last weekend? If not, you’ve got National Get Outdoors Day to look forward to this coming Saturday. Find an event near you and go play!

Maybe it’s old school, but we have loved making cheese fondue for a while. We’ve made several different variations to one recipe, but it always includes mustard, garlic, beer or wine, and gruyere cheese. This is a recipe that can be made low and slow in a crock pot at home or dutch oven at camp. It can also be made rather quickly in a cast iron skillet for an appetizer or full-on meal.

This is a nice recipe for camping because it really is a one pot meal, with no need for any other dirty dishes. We do basically nothing to the dippers, besides chopping and blanching the vegetables. The dishes they sit in are very easy to clean in the end.

Another bonus is that a cast iron skillet retains heat beautifully, so the fondue actually stays warm for longer than you might think.

Beer Cheese fondue is a fun meal that will bring your whole group together to eat. There are a lot of possibilities for a second round meal with the leftovers as well. We’ve done some awesome grilled cheese sandwiches, but mac ‘n cheese or a broccoli cheese soup would be super easy as well.

Thank you Ryan for the beautiful photos! We learned a lot about food styling and outdoor lighting in one little afternoon in the mountains. Here are some things we learned:

1. Try to even out harsh mottled light by holding a scrim or light diffuser over the subject. We’re thinking a tent may work for this in a backcountry situation, but haven’t tested that out yet.
2. Ryan swears by his apple box as a multipurpose tool to help stand over your subject.
3. The wilderness is full of beautiful background props, so use what you can find (while practicing Leave No Trace techniques, of course), but Ryan brought a few boards with him that were beautiful and natural for times when we couldn’t find something big or flat enough.
4. Slow down, focus, and take your time styling the food on the table. It will make a difference.

All photos by the talented Ryan Robert Miller.

Potatoes were an easy choice for the wedding meal. There’s never been a potato-hating human that I’ve ever heard of, they’re easy to make ahead, and they pair well with sausages. But we’ve been trying to come up with a fancy enough option. We found this recipe first, and thought it was unbeatable. Until I made these olives. We tested them as an appetizer, and they were delicious, but they shriveled too easily in the oven. I can’t be worried about watching them while also getting pretty on wedding day, so I’ll have to do something different with olives. But using the same recipe on fingerling potatoes produced the best potatoes I have ever eaten. Super flavorful! Almost like salt and vinegar, but with more interest and a little more kick. These are perfect. Now, I just have to find bulk fingerling potatoes, and remember to buy twice as many as I think we’ll need. They’ll make a perfect midnight snack.

Last week, I enjoyed the delicious hot bowl of oatmeal I had been craving for weeks. It was everything I wished for and more. The cold congealed leftovers that remained – not so much. But it was perfectly good oatmeal so I decided to find a way to give it a second life. My first thought was oatmeal cookies. I made a cookie batter, folded in the cooked oatmeal, plopped tablespoons of batter on a baking sheet and waited. What came out of the oven was closer to bready scones than cookies. It was very disappointing, another confirmation of my lack of baking skills. I still had lots of batter left (and motivation) so I decided, if it’s bready, then I’ll make bread! I grabbed one of the apples that came in my CSA box, chopped it and added that to the batter. Into a pan it all went and out came a moist and delicious Oatmeal Apple Bread. I guarantee you won’t have to worry about leftovers with this recipe!

I’ve not had an easy time satisfying my need for good ol’ southern cookin out here in the west. You know my frustration with locating favorites like grits, and now that I have a vegan boyfriend, I gave up and thought it was just impossible. The Vegan Soul Kitchen cookbook has changed my attitude. The nicest thing about it is that it doesn’t rely on all the overprocessed fake foods. He uses things like coconut oil and homemade almond milk (which doesn’t sound that difficult to make).

Along with grits, I love lima beans. They were one of those things you were told to hate as a kid, so I avoided them for a while. When I found out what I was missing, I cooked them all the time, spreading their deliciousness throughout college. Lima beans aren’t any easier to find out here than grits. Not even frozen. I found some dried the other day, and asked Aimee to help me ready them for dinner. She lives in a household of about 15, so she soaked and cooked the entire package, and I was stuck with a pile that seemed to grow every time I ate some. I found this Garlicky Lima Bean Spread recipe in my new cookbook, and the rest of the lima beans disappeared into bellies instantly.

The spread is like a hummus, and very good on sandwiches or with crackers or hunks of bread. It calls for a lot of garlic, and didn’t taste like enough when the spread was still warm, so I added more. It got a lot garlickier after chilling, though, so go with the amount listed. This is a great make-at-home food to take on your next camping trip, or you could definitely try making the whole thing in a dutch oven over a fire if you’re out for a long trip with a lot of people.