Camping Fuel

We have been busy at Knitsburgh. Well, maybe busy away from Knitsburgh, I guess we should say.

There was camping. It was wonderful and quite delicious too. For us, the forest is the best part, then the food. We always have an easy meal of dogs or burgers (meat for Nature Boy, meatless for me) for dinner the night we set up camp. The next morning, we make what we call "hash." We cook some chopped taters, onions, green peppers and a jalapeno pepper in some oil over the fire in our big campfire pot. We flavor it will generous amounts of dill, salt and pepper. This trip we also had sausages (again, meat for Nature Boy and meatless for me), roasted over the fire in our mountain pie makers. Breakfast was quite tasty.

Lunch is usually a granola bar and an apple on the trail. I made some homemade vegan bars using this recipe with a few substitutions. I used oats (ground into a flour in my food processor) instead of the almond and rice flours. I also covered the pan with vegan chocolate chips which melted and when I took it out of the oven, spread them with a knife evenly over the bars to make a chocolate icing. Then I put on some shredded coconut and some almonds and baked another 5 minutes or so. They were divine!

My favorite camp meal is our dinner on the 2nd night. We always make mountain pie pizzas. I use a local bread called Italian Peasant Bread, spread the outsides with some Earth Balance, lay down some pizza sauce, chopped onions, green peppers, olives, shrooms and even some fake pepperoni, top it off with some vegan chreese (used Daiya this trip, the mozz flavor and it was so melty and cheesy-like) and cook it over the fire until I can't take it and need to eat it right away. I usually burn my tongue. I usually don't care a bit. It's that good, hands down the best damn pizza I have even eaten in my life. I don't know if it's the fire that does it or the magic of the woods and the stars and the bullfrogs croaking or if it's how it actually tastes, but it's my favorite thing to eat. Until I've eaten two and then...

...s'mores!!! Vegan marshmallows, vegan chocolate and homemade vegan grahams (recipe featured here.)
So melty and sweet and crispy and smoky and messy and fun. I love roasting the marshmallow, not letting it get too burnt, not letting it be too undone. I love squishing it off the stick onto the cracker atop the chocolate, then holding it over the fire to help the chocolate get really gooey. So good.

After that, there's not much more. The last day we eat a breakfast of granola bars as we take down the tent and say goodbye to our chipmunk friend who is at our same site, year after year, with his little den under the stump. The feasting is over; on the ride home we much on the leftover chips and pretzels and plan the next trip. We can't wait to do it all over again!