Delicious Things We Eat

We love food.

This fact combined with three more (1. that we are often too busy or too cheap to go grocery shopping 2. that we both have revved up triathlete appetites and 3. that at any given time a majority of our pantry consists of leftover camping food) have made for some pretty interesting culinary experiments this summer, leftover marshmallows dipped in peanut butter anyone?

That being said, sometimes we do get inspired to take a trip to the store and bake, mix, or grill up something awesome. This page is where you can find recipes and colorful instruction for the most delicious of aforementioned experiments as well as some suggestions on cheap and easy camping food.

A Trail Mix called "Crack"

Essential to any great day hike, backpacking trip, long car ride, or boring day at work is a really delicious, well-balanced trail mix. The kind with just the right balance of salty and sweet, where even though you're still going to favor the chocolate, you eat the other parts instead of discretely putting them back in the bag. We came up with our own before our most recent trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, and given that we managed to go through two gallons of it in three days, I'd say it turned out pretty good.

1/2 box of Honey Nut Cheerios (...or Safeway Honey Toasted O's...)
1/2 bag pretzel sticks
1 cup of toasted peanuts
1 cup of toasted almonds
3/4 box of some sort of granola-ey cereal
1 bag dark chocolate M&M's
1 bag Reese's Pieces
1 cup banana chips
1 cup chopped dried pineapple
1 cup giant corn nuts (ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.)
1 cup raisins

Homemade instant Oatmeal (perfect for backpacking)

6 cups of steel cut oats
1/2 cup of flaxseed meal
1/4 cup of powdered milk
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 cup of raisins

cook it over the stove or just add boiling snow melt straight from Odessa Lake like we did! (see "Weekend in Rocky Mountain NP" if you're confused)


Banana Oatmeal "Muffins"

So this recipe is actually really healthy, which would be good if we actually made it into the individual servings for which it was originally intended. We prefer putting the batter into a large bread pan so that it comes out in one large, dense "muffin" that can be more easily finished off in the 10 minutes it takes for it to cool out of the oven. Anyway,  I found the original recipe at "Half Baked" and we have adapted it slightly. The calorie content for the whole batter is about 1800, which when I made it originally made 18 delicious little 100 calorie muffins but has more recently been made into one loaf and thus two even more delicious little 900 calorie snacks :)

Bake: in 400ºF oven for 20 minutes (for muffins) or ~30-40 minutes (for bread)

11/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup yogurt, plain or vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 apple sauce (cinnamon is flavored is good too)
2 bananas, large, ripe, mashed
1 egg or equivalent egg substitute
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Instructions
In a bowl mix together rolled oats, yogurt and milk. Let soak for 10 minutes.
Mix flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.
Add brown sugar, mashed banana, egg and oil to rolled oats mixture. Mix well.
Add dry ingredients to the rolled oats mixture. Mix well. Fill greased or paper lined muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake for 20-40 minutes (depending on muffins or bread)

Homemade Clif Bars

 Clif Bars are awesome. They're delicious and convenient and because they're marketed as organic and natural, you sorta feel like you're eating something healthy when really it's basically just an organic cookie. Anyway, when you consume them in the quantities we do, it gets to be an expensive habit. So we made our very own homemade Clif Bars!


1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup oats
1 cup rice krispies
1/4 cup flax seed or flax meal
1/4 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup chopped dried fruit/raisins

Heat up the brown rice syrup and peanut butter in a pot until it's mixed really well. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a big bowl, then stir in the hot liquid mixture. When it is mixed well enough that it all sticks together, press it into a big rectangle about half an inch thick on a cookie sheet. Stick the cookie sheet in the freezer so they'll cool off quick then cut 'em up into bars.
Hint: if you press it badly on to the cookie sheet, there will be plenty of crumbs to guiltlessly clean up with your mouth.


For peanut butter flavor: don't use dried fruit, add extra peanuts
For pumpkin flavor:  substitute pumpkin puree for peanut butter and add a teaspoon or so of pumpkin pie spice