Waving In and Out

No food pics today... camping food is uh-guh-lee! No, really, it's usually so crazy I'm just glad to get the food out there, much less photograph it!! But I did find some good recipes and for sure, one hit!

First off, an apology and an admittance of wrongdoing on my part! I did not include the 1 1/3 C brown sugar when I posted the Morning Glory Muffins post!!! I made it for this camping trip and was like, hmmm, that's wierd, where's the sugar? and then I tasted it and thought, well, I'll add 1/4 C molasses (which was good, but not enough, sadly). Och ach, so please, please forgive me if you tried this one, I am a bad blogger!!!! I did go back and edit that post to reflect reality.

Onward.

I tried this peach crumble again, this time with 2 T brown sugar added and 1/4 C chocolate chips, both definitely good additions. I really like that this can become, suddenly, Breakfast! if you were too lazy to make it have been dessert the night before. Or vise versa... I think the next time we go camping (just a few weeks!) I'll use a can of apple pie filling with cinnamon and the oats and chocolate chips... drool. Sorry Shmooed Food, I know this is, like, the antithesis of what you were going for...

Okay, so the hit of the trip as far as food wise was a red lentil curry I devised all on my own. Eating vegan is very conducive to camping, actually, so a lot of what we eat is similar, with one caveat, however- we eat pretty healthy at home (well, I guess you can be the judge of that), but when we're camping it's no holds barred calorie wise. For example, I was not shy with the brown sugar and the whole can of full fat coconut milk in this one. Plus oil. Whoah. Be forewarned.

Red Lentil Curry

2 C red lentils
1/4 C TVP
1/4 C dried apricots/golden raisins
1/4 C chopped roasted salted cashews
2 T brown sugar
2 T curry powder
1 t salt
1 can coconut milk
2 T olive oil (optional)
small onion (optional)
small carrot (optional)
garlic clove (optional)

Put all the dry ingredients into a Ziploc bag. At camp, if you brought any fresh veggies, saute them in the oil, then dump in the red lentil bag and mix well, then add the can of coconut milk and another can's worth of water. Cover and bring to a boil. Stir and cover alternately, adding water as necessary.

I also made Veganomicon's black bean burgers with a Vegenaise based cilantro mayo which were good and traveled well...
Made Kalamata Olive Tapenade, White Bean and Garlic Scape Dip and hummus for eating for lunch with carrots and pitas and my flax meal crackers (btw I oopsed and added 1/2 C olive oil instead of 1/3 C and so I upped the flour by a cup and got more crackers, plus I used tin foil instead of the pizza stone- still good, but not as good as the original way)...

Kalamata Olive Tapenade

1 C pitted kalamata olives
1/4 C chopped walnuts
1/4 C drained capers
2 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 t Dijon mustard
black pepper to taste
1/4 C fresh parsley (optional) or 2 t dried parsley or
2 t thyme (optional)

Process all ingredients. Serve at room temperature with crackers, pitas or on toasted bread.
Notes;
can leave out walnuts
can double recipe and use a can of regular black olives (or sub 1 C with black olives in place of kalamata).

Oh, and I tried parsley pesto, it was good. Pesto is great for camping with especially if you use angel hair pasta because it cooks up quick. I just used my standard recipe but with parsley in place of basil.

Ideas I did not try;
making sweet dumplings for dessert in coconut milk and making ice cream in a bag.

A chipmunk ate our chocolate! We heard loons! We saw an eagle! We swam to 'the rock' (well, D. and E. did, my husband and 3 year old)(well, he swam, she was along for the ride). We got a picnic table! It was all very fun.

I read "Farewell Summer" by Ray Bradbury and I have to say, I was so nervous about reading this and I was so pleased by it when I did! I loved it! I am a huge Bradbury fan, he was one of the first I found on my own when I started reading as a young kid and I just devoured all of what he wrote and then reread and reread it over the years, I mean, I REALLY like Ray Bradbury, so I was a little nervous to read a new book, but it was great and perfect and a fast read and fun and so forth. Even a little philosophical.

Did barely a few rows of knitting on the way home in the van and just enough to realize that the fabric is NOT biasing, it's just how it waves in and out along the sides so I should end the row by repeating the first repeat. No complicated alternating of stitches every other row necessary. I WILL conquer this pattern!

Gotta go do some laundry...