Overlanders are world travelers who glory in the road less traveled. They explore on motorcycles, jeeps, and trucks across gravel, dirt, and mud roads and even into regions barely reached by vehicle. They love the wilderness and bring their homes with them, be it a hammock, tent, or truck bed camper. And every year, there is a gathering for those wanderers who may have rolled into North Carolina to meet and learn at the Overland Expo East 2016.
Some things travel well. Canned tuna travels very well. That can can sit in the back of your van for a year and all will be well. But the mayonnaise you stored with it will not come out so well. All the same, I am not one to allow mayonnaise to come between me and my undiagnosed need for a tuna melt. Instead, I present an alternative: the new and improved Road Tripper's Tuna Melt.
Today, we engaged in some mini dog sitting. Oh so mini. A friend just got a very little yorkipoo. She is so young that the fur is still growing in and, as a runt, she does pose pretty easy pickings for the resident hawk.
So, back in the Tetons, I learned that I am not good at cooking fried eggs over the fire. Honestly, I'm just not good at frying eggs. It comes down to a matter of getting the heat and temperature right so that the egg whites are cooked through but the egg yolk hasn't congealed into some chalky mess. So, I am continually searching for breakfast recipes that introduce some buffer between eggs and pan.
Green beans have often been a cornerstone of my cooking. I love them fresh and crisp with a little bit of citrus. But only now am I transitioning my frying pan recipe to tinfoil packets.
BTSP (Before Tinfoil Scalloped Potatoes) I was of the mind set that scalloped potatoes are too fancy for camping. Camping calls for hearty meals, plaid lumberjack shirts, harmonicas, and neckerchiefs. Ideally, conversations should revolve around close encounters with bears or fish and be punctuated by spitting into the fire. Scalloped potatoes would be too "frilly" for such an ambiance.
After traveling through Kentucky, I got on a bit of a bourbon kick. So, along with a few other bourbon-y experiments, I thought it only appropriate to try out a recipe meant for a kitchen with power plugs and food processors. My results were the Campfire Bacon Bourbon BBQ Chicken Kebabs.
Look, when I was 7, I loved sugar like all the other kids out there. But after graduating from puberty and passing through the nihilistic black hole of my teens, I started to look for a bit more nuance in my life. There was more to life than just stuffing as much butter and sugar as possible into every pastry. So, even when I take a short cut and use pre-made dough and oven ready rolls, I need to bring something original to the fire.
Campfire Bacon And Eggs Hash is the perfect recipe. It combines all the necessities for a hearty breakfast: bacon, eggs, and cheese. Plus, it adds some nice extras like onions and hash browns to form a padding between the eggs and the hot pan bottom.
It's fall in the South, but the weather hasn't quite gotten the memo. I had been looking forward to our latest camping trip for a while, but found that the heat really deprived me of much motivation to do much more than sit out in my camp chair and observe: "Warm today. Warm yesterday. Warm tomorrow, too."