Bannock

Bannock is a great quick bread to make while camping or while doing anything outdoors. You can find recipes all over the interweb...here is the one we tried this summer:

What you need:

a bowl

a pan or vessel for melting earth balance

a pan for frying or sticks for roasting

a campfire or a camp stove 

1/4 melted Earth Balance (or other margarine/butter product)

1 1/2 c water

pre-prepared flour mixture:

3 C flour

2 TBSP baking powder

1 tsp salt

Instructions:

1) Melt Earth Balance (EB)

2) Put flour mixture into bowl

3) Pour EB and water over flour. Stir with a fork to form a ball

4) Turn dough onto gently floured surface and kneed gently approximately 10 times

5) Pat into circles for frying or wrap around the end of a stick for roasting

Eat warm with jam! 

Campfire Chickpea Picatta

Here is a camp modified recipe of a PPK favorite: Chickpea picatta! You can find the original here. You can also check out the slightly more complex Seitan Picatta in the Veganomican cookbook. These recipes have produced some of the more special vegan home cooking that we have ever pulled off...usually reserved for Christmas and anniversaries. But I thought after trying the PPK chickpea version that it could be even more simplified for camping. Warning: this recipe involves a lot of shallot chopping! This is not your friday night, just rolled into the campsite meal. Save it for day 2 or 3, when you have your campfire mojo in check and have the time to lovingly tend to a meal over the fire. It will be worth it.

What you need:

Large cast iron skillet (you can do this over a camp stove - but directly over the fire in a large skillet is the preferred way)

1 can opener

1 TBSP olive oil

A cup of shallots (thinly sliced)

6 cloves garlic (thinly sliced)

1 broth cube (good for 2 cups of water)

2 cups water

1/2 cup white wine (we usually pick up a small travel bottle at the liquor store)

Pre-prepared spice blend: (2 TBSP bread crumbs, pinch dried thyme, pinch pepper)

16 - 24 oz can chickpeas (depending on how many people you are serving)

1/4 cup capers with brine

1 large lemon

4 cups arugula (or other seasonal green, last time we used asparagus)

4 - 6 potatoes - depending on how many you are serving

salt to taste

Instructions:

1) Boil potatoes in a covered pot of water over the fire or roast in foil. I would recommend starting this before you even chop a shallot, this can take much longer than the stove top at home. Cut potatoes into spall pieces to speed things along. 

2) Heat pan on grill over cooking fire. In olive oil, sautee shallots and garlic until golden, aprox 5-10 minutes

3) Add crumb minutes, toast until a little darker, about 2 minutes. 

4) add crumbled both cube, water, wine and salt to taste

5) Boil and reduce to half

6) Add chickpeas and capers. Heat through. Cut lemon in half and squueze apric 3 TBSP lemon juice in. 

7) Drain cooked potatoes reserving a small amount of liquid (couple tablespoons) in the pot. Mash with fork.

8) Fill bowls with large spoonful(s) of mashed potatoes. Sprinkle 1 cup arugula on each. Top with Chickpea Piccata sauce. 

This was from last year when we proteined out with both seitan and chickpeas. It can happen!

'Chicken' Chermoula

Chermoula is a Moroccan sauce traditionally paired with fish. I first came across this Chermoula sauce recipe in a Martha Stewart cookbook before I was vegetarian. In the original recipe this sauce is poured over wine poached chicken. These days we pour it over Gardein vegetarian chicken breasts.  This sauce is so vibrant and flavourful you will find it delicious with any protein. Try it with tofu or seitan.

What I really love about this sauce is the simplicity. There are alot of ingredients but there is no cooking involved. So for camping or cottaging it is easy because you can pre-pack a spice blend and then just add the wet ingredients at your site. Or just pre-make the entire recipe and bring it in your cooler. I promise, it will brighten up the most spartan of dinners.

What you need:

A container to mix the sauce in
1 TBSP ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 TBSP minced garlic
3 TBSP fresh lemon
2 TBSP olive oil
1/3 cup finely chopped parsley
1/3 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/3 cup tomato juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Instructions:

1. Combine all ingredients
2. Serve 1/4 cup sauce over your preferred protein

BBQ Seitan and Peaches

I think this dish was our bbq hit of the summer. Summery, sweet, salty, meaty, fruity and simple! We make out seitan ahead of time, using the Veganomicon simple seitan recipe which you can find here if you don't have the cookbook (btw, you should probably get that cookbook). Anyway, make sure you travel it in a container with the cooking liquid otherwise it will dry out. Peaches and seitan cook at different times so thread them on individual skewers so you can start them at different times. Also we find that if you put bbq sauce on your grillables to early the sugar in the sauce will burn, so cook your seitan for the most part before brushing on the sauce.

What you need:

Skewers
Seitan, 1 x 1" cubed
BBQ sauce
Peaches, halved and pitted
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

1. Coat, by brush or by gently tossing in a bowl, peaches in a little oil.
2. Thread peaches on a couple of skewers

3. Thread seitan cubes on skewers. Brush with oil so they don't stick to the grill.
4. Cook seitan until the edges start to brown, turning several times to cook evenly.

5. Once the cooking time is almost complete start slathering bbq sauce on the seitan and cook until a nice glaze has formed. You will need to watch to make sure it doesn't burn.
6. Depending on the ripeness of your peaches you will probably want to put them on the grill when you get to the bbq sauce stage with your seitan.
7. Cook your peaches until they have grill marks and are nice and soft.
8. Plate cooked bbq seitan and peach on a plate. Serve with salad or fresh corn.

Admittedly, I am a terrible food photographer.

Campfire version:

Same but ditch the skewers. Do the seitan in a pan and peaches in foil on the grill!

Campfire Vegan Featured on Buzzfeed 41 Camping Hacks that are Borderline Genius!!!!

Our grilled polenta cakes recipes makes the list at the number 32 borderline genius hack! Here is the link: camping hacks that are borderline genius

borderline genius?

(also thanks buzzfeed!)

Check back for more posts over the summer. This year we will be cottaging more than camping so expect to see some more bbq recipes! Also I will be trying to update older posts with photos.

Happy summer!

Mushroom Hobo Pack

This is so simple it hardly deserves a recipe but I am working on compiling a solid list of good foil packs and mushrooms are one of our favorites.
  
What you need

button mushrooms, halved or quartered
a few dollups vegan butter or margarine or 1-2 TBSP olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tsp fresh thyme or rosemary, chopped or in tact
foil 

Cooking method

Over campfire or bbq, resting on a grill preferably

 
Instructions

1. Prepare your foil pack by laying out your foil on a flat surface

2. On the foil spread out your mushrooms, try to evenly distribute dollups of butter, salt, pepper and herbs.

 

3. Seal up your foil pack

4. Cook over the fire on a grill until done.

 

5. Open foil pack carefully to avoid burning. 

Roasted Red Peppers and Sausages 2.0

This is a basic alternate method to prepare the Roasted Red Pepper and Sausages recipe I posted a while back here. In this version that we made on the bbq at the cottage we carefully cut and seeded the peppers, keeping them in one piece. 

We then pre-grilled the peppers and sausages. 

After that we wrapped the peppers around the sausages, securing with toothpicks and gave them a few additional minutes on the bbq to finish up. Remove the toothpicks before eating.

They were delicious!

If you haven't heard there is a new vegan sausage on the market. The brand is called Field Roast and they make very tasty, soy free, vegan grain meats including sausages, franks, roasts and slices. Check them out.