Camping Food Volume 1: Dinner!

Recently I had the pleasure of joining some of my best friends on a camping trip to celebrate my lovin husbands birthday! I am an old pro at camping food and I knew that I wanted to do some super yummy fair rather than my usual lazy black beans and rice that I make when it's just Todd and I camping. I decided on a favorite that is something that i even make at home. I have heard this dish called a multitude of things from hobo stew to foil packets. I just call them veggie packets!

One thing about camping with friends is that I knew I wanted to make it as easy as possible and do much of the prep before we hit the campground. There are about a million ways and combinations to serve this up but here is my favorite way!

First, I prepped all of the vegetables at home. What you want to remember is that the potatoes are the base of the dish so you want to cut up more than you really think you will need. Also, I like to give people options so I packed a couple of different flavor options for the crew.

Foil Packets
(This is for a single serving, which is nice because the single servings cook faster than a multi person serving.(AND this is how I like my pockets)
1 1/2 c. sliced potatoes
sliced onions to taste
a hand full of broccoli florets, cauliflower, carrots and zucchini
1/4 pound of ground beef flattened into a hamburger patty
a tsp. chopped olives
a few slices of polska kielbasa
butter
salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder
Worcestershire sauce
Once you have your ingredients all together in front of you take some heavy duty foil and pull two pieces off about twelve inches long and cross them on top of one another. Take some butter or oil (I made life easier and brought along squeeze butter.) and squirt a little on the foil the lay down a bed of potatoes and then sprinkle the rest of your veggies on top and then the burger patty on top of that. Spice to your taste (I like garlic powder, salt, pepper, worestchire sauce and onion powder.) You can also do more of a Mexican flavor with chili powder, salsa, cumin etc or Italian with tomatoes, oregano, basil and garlic.

Once you have everything compiled in your foil, wrap it up well, making sure to roll your edges, tight.

Set the foil packet on the fire out of the direct heat for 45 minutes to an hour, flipping half way through. Before you deem it ready you want to open the packet and make sure that the burger is done.
voila! And clean up??? That's as easy as tossing your foil in the trash!













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Beef and Cheese Enchilidas

Have I ever mentioned I absolutely hate getting dirt/dough/meatycheesey mixtures under my fingernails? Yep, its true, its up there on my top five things that give me the heebie jeebies right next to feet and being touched by people I don't know(and that my friends is a whole nother story!).  What does that have to do with tonight's recipe? Well, when I make up a batch of enchiladas I like to make two! One for dinner that night and another to freeze sans sauce.  This makes me life easier and more importantly, I only have to touch the meaty cheesy mixture once!
A couple of months ago I stumbled on Debby's recipe over at A Feast for the Eyes and I was THRILLED!  Living in the PacNW there aren't a lot of places that do Tex Mex and being that I am from Texas this was OBVIOUSLY a problem in my book.  The first time I made her recipe I cried a little with joy  was very excited to taste the chili gravy of my childhood again in my own kitchen!  I'm not going to lie, I have made that recipe no less than four times since seeing it and each time I have changed it a little this is the latest version:

TexMex Chili Gravy
1/4 c. Crisco (I know shocking right? But its only 1/4 a cup!)
1/4 c. Flour
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
2 large garlic cloves finely chopped
2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. Mexican oregano
1 tbsp. ancho chili powder
1 tbsp. chili powder
2 cups of organic chicken broth

To me the key to this recipe is having all of your ingredients ready. 
First melt your Crisco over low heat and add in flour, stirring until your flour has turned light brown.  Then add in spices and stir until combined.  Add in chicken broth and stir until well combined and cook until thickened (This took about 20 minutes for me.) stirring occasionally.

For the beef and cheese enchiladas I simply prepared some ground beef like I was making it for taco's and stuffed it into warmed corn tortillas with a little bit of cheese, and topped it with the gravy and more cheese and baked it in the oven for 20 minutes on 350.

p.s. In my book you have to have horchata, and guac with your enchiladas!

Beef, Shiitake and Snow Pea Stirfry

There is only one dish SA asks for other than cheeseburger meatloaf and that is stir fry.  I normally suck at making stir fry. Seriously. I know what you are thinking. How can you screw up a stir fry? It's a relatively simple dish, a simple idea and a simple preparation.  However I absolutely hate my stir fry.  I think it always melds into too many flavors and I don't like the way the sauce tastes. This however is a recipe I modified from a Bon Appetit recipe and it ROCKS my SOCKS! The sauce... oh let me talk about the sauce for a moment.  THE SAUCE was amazing velvety and spicy sweet and savory, it embodies everything I never knew I always wanted  a stir fry to be.  The shiitake were meaty and woody, the snow peas crisp and green and the meat was delicious.  I'm sold. I LOVE MY STIR FRY!

1 1-pound top sirloin steak, cut into 2-inch-long, 1/4-inch-thick slices

1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil

1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger

12 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, thickly sliced

8 ounces snow peas

1 med size shallot thinly sliced.

5 tablespoons hoisin sauce

2 teaspoons chili-garlic sauce

1/4 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder

Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add ginger, scallions and mushrooms; stir-fry until mushrooms are tender, about 3 minutes. Add beef to skillet; stir-fry until beef browns but is still pink in center, about 2 minutes. Add snow peas stir-fry 1 minute. Stir in hoisin, chili-garlic sauce, and five-spice powder; saute until peas are crisp-tender, about a minute.