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Monday, October 14, 2013

Campfire Chef

Over the Columbus Day Weekend, Brian and I decided to head west to Perry Lake for a little kayaking and camping.  (I was pretty excited when my instructor told me he would let us borrow the kayaks for the weekend!) On Saturday morning, we hit the farmers' market in Leavenworth and picked up some fresh veggies - new potatoes, broccoli, onions, zucchini, and green beans. Then we stopped at the grocery store to grab some eggs, mushrooms, steak, foil, and s'mores supplies! (More about why I've listed out all of the food later!)

Once we arrived at the lake, we found an excellent camping site and got the tent set-up.  After that we took the kayaks down to the water (no pictures...I was too nervous to take my phone near the water).  We had a great time though and there weren't many speed boats, so the water was pretty calm.  Once our arms were too tired to continue, we got the kayaks back out of the water and Brian set out to try out his "new" fishing pole.  

After an unsuccessful attempt at fishing, we were both pretty hungry and decided it was time for dinner. Brian got to work on building a fire to cook our "hobo stew." I was pretty excited about our dinner plans because I'd done some searching online for new campfire dinner ideas.  We put together foil packets that had lots of cut up veggies, potatoes, and meat (soy "meat" for me), added some spices and a few pats of butter and threw those on the fire.

Some lessons learned from this experience:
1) Always plan to not have a grill top at a campsite.
2) Bring tongs.
3) Dish towels are NOT a good way to retrieve hot items from the fire pit.
4) There's always a way to make do...even if you forget the important stuff!



Despite all of these issues, dinner was delicious once we got it cooked.  We also had fresh green beans that I boiled on our cookstove.  It was a pretty fancy meal for a night of camping!  After that, we settled down with some beers and hung out by the fire.  Of course, no night of camping is complete without s'mores!



The next morning, I was super excited to test out something my friend Christina told me about - Omelets in a Bag!  We used some of the leftover veggies from the night before and shredded cheese. First we cracked the eggs into plastic bags and "scrambled" them.  After that, we added the veggies and cheese and did our best to get all of the air out of the bag.  Cooking them was super easy - just place the bag into a pot of boiling water for 13 minutes!  Sorry for the blurry pictures!
 


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