With a Little Help From My Friends

Last weekend a group of friends and I went out to Donner Summit in North Tahoe for some climbing, camping and some of the best campfire cooking I've had in a long time. My friend W. and I cooked tacos on Sunday night, but this blog post is dedicated to S. and K. who came back from a recent trip to the Middle East inspired to cook a Bedouin Desert style dinner for us all.



So many of my friends are foodies - and a few are new climbers. It was not until this weekend I realized how much cooking and climbing have in common. Both require an attention to detail - whether it is tying a knot or setting an anchor, or driving all over town to find kaffir lime leaves. Both also take a great deal of creativity, patience and invention. Knowing how well my friends cook - they are destined to be great climbers.



Saturday was the first time S. and S. climbed outside. We took them to School Rock and set some top ropes on the practice slab. They were pretty easy for everyone - but it was a nice warm up. I had forgotten how hard it is to climb in the heat and sun. We ended up hiding in the shade for a good portion of the day. It was our first time out to Donner Summit, so even though we did not get much climbing in we did learn a lot about the routes out there - and the best times of day to climb them! It was a good enough day to get everyone excited for climbing up at Big Chief the second day. We headed back to camp and rewarded ourselves with a swim in Donner Lake.



After swimming, K. and S. got to work on making our Bedouin style meal. Dinner included a chicken dish cooked in a cast iron pot, babaganoush, bread baked in the fire, and a cucumber-tomato salad. A sincere thanks to S. and K. for sharing the recipes below and to B. and A. for the great photos!




Bedouin Desert Chicken
For this meal you will need a hot coals from a wood fire and a large cast iron pot w/ lid. Start the fire about an hour before cooking, let the wood burn down to nice red coals. While the fire is going, prep the ingredients for the chicken and make the babaganoush and salad.

8 - 12 boned chicken thighs or 1 whole chicken cut up into pieces
1 lb. baby potatoes (red, yukon or fingerling)
1/2 lb.carrots cut into big chunks
2 red onions cut into chunks
1/2 lb. Anaheim or bell peppers
4 cloves of garlic chopped
1 Tbsp ground coriander
1/2 Tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne (or more if you like spicy)
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 medium tomatoes peeled seeded and chopped or 1 20oz. can of whole tomatoes (drained and chopped)
Beer or water
salt and pepper to taste

Prepare a good, hot fire of coals and lay a grate over the coals. Mix all ingredients together and place in a doubled large foil packet (fold the long ends together first and roll several times, then roll each of the ends towards the middle so all the folds are at the top) or place in the cast iron pot (If using a pot add beer initially and keep adding so ingredients don't burn on the bottom). Cook over coals about 40 minutes or until chicken is tender.

Babaganoush
6 small eggplants (clean and dried)
2 Tbsp tahini
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt

Roast the eggplants over campfire until soft and the skin is charred completely. Remove the skins and mash the eggplants in a bowl. Add the tahini, salt, lemon juice and olive oil to taste.

Bedouin Fire Bread
2 cups white flour
1 cup wheat flour
2 Tbsp kosher salt or 2 tsp table salt
1 Tbsp baking powder



Blend all ingredients and add enough water to make a soft dough. Knead dough for 5 - 10 minutes with your hands, dipping your kneading hand in water periodically to work into the dough. This should make a soft and pliable dough. Cover the dough with a cloth and set it aside to rest for at least 15 minutes. While dough is resting, clean fire pit of debris and build a fire with small sticks or small pieces of kindling to create small coals. When the fire is ready, work the dough into a round about 1/2 inch thick making sure the thickness is pretty even throughout. Push the coals aside and place the dough on the cleared space, then push the coals over the dough so they cover it completely.



Let the bread cook 10 - 15 minutes under the coals. Scrape the coals off the bread and flip, then cover the bread with coals again to bake the second side. After 10 minutes, pull the bread out of the coals and dust it off scraping a bit to get any dirt or large coal pieces off the surface. Break apart and serve with hummus or Babaganoush and salad.

A Recipe for the Playa

I have many friends who are getting ready for Burning Man. Over the years that I have been, I have taken many different approaches to eating and cooking in the desert. My first year I ate canned beans and pasta heated on a propane stove. Other years I was fortunate enough to have friends who brought entire kitchens with them and cooked communal meals - and once I lucked out and camped next a group who had brought an industrial sized grill and cooked up meat all week long!



This latest recipe was inspired by a pasta salad I used to make and eat on the Playa. That of course reminded me of all the adventures to be had there. While people bring out a wide variety of contraptions to simulate a real city - there is something enriching about going without certain creature comforts for a week. If I were to go back, I would take a similar approach to the one I do backpacking. I hope this recipe is useful for some Burners - unless you are running a cooking camp, quick meals leave more time for play and art gazing.



Chicken Pesto Couscous - 2 - 2 person servings

For pesto
1 1/2 cups packed basil leaves
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
2 Tbsp pine nuts
2 Tbsp water
1/4 cup herbed feta cheese



Puree the basil, pine nuts, garlic, salt, pepper and water in blender or food processor. Spread pesto mixture out on to fruit roll sheets and place in dehydrator. Crumble herbed feta evenly over pesto mixture. Dehydrate at 95% for eight hours or overnight. When dry, distribute evenly between two Ziploc bags. Set aside.

For rest of salad
1 cup whole wheat couscous
2 can or pouch of chicken (packaged similar to tuna)
6 sun dried tomatoes, diced
4 Tbsp pine nuts
2 packets olive oil

Put 1/2 cup couscous and 2 Tbsp pine nuts in each Ziploc bag containing the pesto. Divide sun dried tomatoes evenly between the two bags. Remove as much air as possible from each bag and mark 3/4 cup H2O on each bag with a Sharpie.

On the trail:
Boil 3/4 cup of water for each bag of pesto salad. When water boils, pour in contents of bag, chicken from pouch and packet of olive oil. Cover and let sit for 10 minutes. Stir with a fork and enjoy!

Note: you can also make this in the morning and then pack into containers to eat at a lunch break.

Climber's Curry

On Sunday I went out to Indian Springs in North Tahoe for some climbing. It was a perfect day. Warm and sunny. The snow was melting and there were even a few waterfalls. Flowers were beginning to bloom and small black lizards came out to sun themselves on the rocks.



I managed to pull down two 5.9s and practice my first rappel. I ALSO got an opportunity to test another recipe for our Alpine trip in August.

In the past, we often just snacked all day on odds and ends while climbing. Sitting down to a hot lunch was actually really nice and gave us an opportunity to talk about the climbs we'd done. Share what we had learned, share beta, and gather our strength for a few more.

I call this recipe Climber's Curry in honor of our trip out to Indian Springs. If you are willing to bring a stove and a small pot, this recipe will reconstitute in a plastic mug or Tupperware type container.

Climber's Curry - serves 1
1/2 cup instant rice
1/2 cup freeze dried chicken
1/2 of one dehydrated jalepeno, diced
1 Tbsp dehydrated roma tomato, diced
1/4 cup dehydrated chickpeas
1 Tbsp dehydrated onion
1/4 cup coconut cream powder
1 Tbsp crushed roasted cashews, no salt
1/2 tsp salt
1 star anise
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ginger powder
1 1/2 tsp curry mix*
1 packet lemon juice
1 Tbsp cilantro, diced
1 1/4 cup of boiling water

*I make this from scratch but store-bought will work.

At home:
Add all ingredients to a zip lock bag, except lemon juice and cilantro. Write 1 1/4 cup H2O on the bag with a Sharpie.

On the trail:
Empty contents of into a mug or Tupperware type container. Bring water to a boil. Pour boiling water into dry mixture and stir well. Put lid on container and let sit for 10 minutes. Stir again, adding lemon juice to taste. Top with cilantor and enjoy!

From Scratch: Food Dehydration 101

This morning I got up early and put in some time on the Stairmaster. Not my favorite activity, but as the Alpine Class approaches, I am feeling a bit unprepared for the summit. Putting one foot in front of the other, over and over and over and over- a seemingly endless climb. It was only 20 minutes - then on to another 40 on the elliptical for cardio. In addition to getting my training out of the way for the day, I also had time to think about new recipes.

chicken curry - fried rice - breakfast couscous - bean salad - sausage gravy - chipotle lime corn - minestrone soup - - -

I promptly went home from the gym and had breakfast. Then got out my food dehydrator and dried some veggies for my next recipe.

If I had known ten years ago how easy and cheap dehydrating my own food was, I would be an old pro by now. Instead, I am still experimenting with different foods, dehydration times and what I like. Some foods dehydrate better than others, and some change enough that personal preferrence comes in to play. You may like tomatoes - you might not like dehydrated tomatoes.




There are tons of books on food dehydration and you can read about it endlessly on the internet - in fact there is so much out there that it can be overwhelming. Here are a few resources I think are pretty helpful. Choosing a Food Dehydrator Dehydrating Meat And a few tips to get you started.

1. Buy a food dehydrator that comes with screens, fruit roll sheets, and can handle additional trays. The screens make sticky foods easier to remove and also work well for smaller foods like herbs, beans, and ground meat. Don't be fooled by the name - fruit roll sheets can be used to dehydrate spaghetti sauce and salsa!

2. Don't try to dehydrate all the ingredients in your recipe the first time. Pick one or two ingredients to experiment with and buy the rest. This way, if they don't turn out (or you don't like them) you don't have to start from scratch.

3. Rehydrate your experiments before you head out on the trail! Some things rehydrate better in recipes or on their own. Test them out before you get in the woods.




4. Blanch most vegetables before dehydrating. Asparagus, broccoli, carrots, corn, eggplant, potatoes,etc. I cook onions before drying them since raw onions make me a little sick.

5. Start with beans and/or salsa. These two things are super easy, dry fairly fast and can be used together in a recipe. Canned beans and a jar of non-junky salsa can be dried at the same time on the same setting. The beans will finish drying before the salsa - just remove the tray and let the salsa finish.

Castle Peak Biscuits

In August, my husband and I are taking an Alpine climbing class through the American Alpine Institute - which finishes with a summit of Mt. Baker. While we have been backpacking for more than 10 years, we have never climbed a mountain before. Last week we received our itinerary, packing list and reccomended training schedule! I have many things to purchase and rent, and a whole lot of training to do. As part of our preperation, I have planned to work on some new recipes.

Since backpacking is one of the only places I think I can manage to eat biscuits & gravy one hundred percent guilt free - I have decided to add it to the menu for this adventure.

On Sunday, I took my new biscuit recipe out to the test kitchen - Castle Peak (up at Donner Pass).



My test kitchen is at 8,320 feet. On what I call "lunch rock" about two-thirds of the way up to Castle Peak. We have been out on this snowshoe trek three times this year, and this is the first time we made it all the way to the top. I am pretty sure it was the biscuits that sustained us.




I read up on backcountry baking, most of what I found online involved baking instruments and contraptions - which I wanted to avoid. I also wanted something that was easy to clean up and did not create too much waste that I would eventually have to pack out. This is a pretty standard biscuit recipe, with the baking powder adjusted for the elevation. Powdered milk is substituted for the real thing, and water is added on the trail. These biscuits are a bit on the savory side, since I intend them to go along with sausage gravy in the near future.

Backcountry Biscuits - Makes 12 biscuits
2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup powdered milk
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup all vegetable shortening
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 cup water
1 Tbsp olive oil - or olive oil packet
1 ziploc bag - gallon size
Medium-size cook pot with lid

At home:
Add flour, milk, baking powder, salt, and pepper to ziploc bag.
Add shortening to bag and work in to flour mixture with hands
Place olive oil packet or sealed container of olive oil in ziploc
Seal ziploc bag, removing as much air as possible
Write "1 cup" on bag with a sharpie

On the trail:
Remove olive oil from ziploc bag and pour 1 cup of water into bag and seal.
Massage the outside of the bag, working the water into the flour mixture until a thick dough forms. Set aside.
Rub a small amount of olive oil on the bottom and half way up sides of pot. Place pot on lit stove.
Rub a small amount of olive oil on your hands and reach into the bag and grab a golf ball size amount of dough.
Roll dough quickly in your hands to form a ball. Press ball between your hands to make a patty.
Place biscuit patty in pan. Continue until bottom of pan is full.
Place lid on pan and cook on medium heat until the bottom of the biscuits are brown and dough has begun to rise.
Flip biscuits with a fork or spoon and place lid back on.
Cook biscuits until second side is brown and crisp.
Remove from pan and repeat process with remaining dough.
Serve with jam, butter or gravy.

Off to a Good Start: Bacon & Cheese Grits

I came up with this recipe for our honeymoon trip through the wilderness in Olympic National Park. It was the beginning of August, but spring was just beginning to bloom. We hiked the High Divide trail for five days. Cold nights, lots of bugs, and a little bit of rain. All the flowers bloomed in the five days we were there. We were blessed with a wide variety of wildlife - all coming down from the hills to munch on the spring greens. Elk, goats, bears, and marmots were just a few.

It was definately a memorable trip - and not just because it was our honeymoon. Cold mornings beg for hot breakfast - something warm in your hands and in your belly to make that pack seem less heavy and help you put one foot in front of the other till the sun warms your skin and the blood starts flowing.

If you are on a multi-day trip, I reccomend having these more than one morning - you will be wishing you did.

Bacon & Chedder Grits - Serves 2
2 packages instant grits
4 pieces bacon*, cooked
2 Tbsp chedder cheese powder
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 sandwhich size ziplock bags

At home:
Empty packages of instant grits into each ziplock
Dice the cooked bacon and divide among the ziplock bags
Add 1 Tbsp of cheese powder to each bag
Add 1 tsp of onion powder to each bag
Add 1/2 tsp garlic powder to each bag
Add 1/4 tsp black pepper to each bag
Write 1/2 cup H2O on each bag with a Sharpie
Seel bags, compressing as much air out of them as possible.

On the trail:
Boil 1 cup of water
Pour grit mix into insulated mugs with lids
Divide water among mugs, and stir.
Place lids on mugs and let sit for 7 minutes.
Stir again, and enjoy!

*You can use bacon bits instead of fresh bacon in a pinch, but it is not as good.

A Girl and Her Burrito

Last summer my husband and I spent five days in the back-country of Yosemite. We started out in the meadows and hiked down to the fork of the Merced and back. Despite the Big Meadows fire burning the whole time - we ended up with mostly smoke-free days. The fires seemed to keep people away - it felt like we had the national park to ourselves for most of the time.



For this trip I made all of the food from scratch. Many of the recipes were a success, one was a total failure. It is really tough having to eat something that taste gross because you know you need the calories and there is nothing else around. I learned from those mistakes! Test everything before you leave for the woods!

On our first morning at Lake Evelyn I impressed my husband with breakfast burritos. I was going to make up the grits - but it was so cold that morning, I thought something spicy and hearty would do the trick. For these burritos you will need to purchase some freeze-dried scrambled eggs. I found them online at http://www.wildernessdining.com/

Be sure to buy the cooked scrambled eggs and not the egg powder! You can also find the cheese packets there.




Back-Country Breakfast Burritos - Serves 2
1 package freeze-dried cooked scrambled eggs
1 can black beans - dehydrated
1 cup of your favorite salsa - dehydrated
2 whole wheat tortillas
2 chedder cheese packets

2 16oz plastic containers with screw lids
2 sandwhich size zip lock bags

At home:
Divide the dehydrated black beans and salsa between the two zip lock bags. Gently fold each tortilla and place in zip lock bags. Place one cheese packet in each bag. Seal.



On the trail:
Prepare eggs using package directions. While eggs sit, boil 1 1/2 cups of water in a pot. Remove tortillas and cheese packets from zip lock bags, and set aside. Place bean and salsa mixture in plastic containers. Divide boiling water between the two. Screw lids on and let sit for 7-10 minutes. Lay tortillas on a flat surface and spoon dehydrated beans and salsa on to each. Divide the scrambled eggs between each tortilla. Squeeze packet of cheese on each tortilla. Roll up and eat!