Cooking While Camping

Rain was our biggest challenge this year during our camping trip. One night we ended up rushing out of our flooding tent and into our car. Since a packed full New Beetle is almost as uncomfortable to sleep in as a cold and wet tent, we ended up going to a hotel. Despite the rain this year, we were quite pleased with what we managed to cook.

Above we started to cook a one-pot dish of rice and garbanzo beans just as we realized it was beginning to thunder. We rushed the best we could, but ended up running with a boiling pot of rice (not the smartest thing to do) to my parent's camping trailer to finish simmering inside on their stove. We intended to accompany the dish with grilled asparagus and a nice salad but were lucky to even have the rice dish with the weather challenges.

Above is the most complete cooked meal we managed, as we were offered the use of my parents' trailer kitchen, making use of all three burners. We made quinoa with sauteed chard and garlic and a curry with coconut milk, tofu, shitake mushrooms, and bell pepper.

Here's an idea for vegan s'mores: place a big chunk of not-too-soft banana on a roasting stick, and roast it over a bonfire until the banana gets nice and hot. Then place it between two graham cracker squares with a piece of chocolate and a bit of peanut butter. The hot banana melts the chocolate and peanut butter just as a hot marshmallow would. It's quite delicious.