Shrimp and grits originated as a hearty breakfast for southern fishermen. Over time, there has been many varying interpretations on the dish, but I've started with a pretty common recipe including cheddar cheese and bacon. My own contributions are little tweaks to better accommodate our nomadic limitations.
Traveling on the road, even when it's the two of us, can get kinda lonesome. I have a brilliant, kind, rational, hard-working, funny, and adventurous travel companion. But sometimes, we want to also have friends. Traveling does allow us to visit friends who have scattered all over the place, but there are also long friend gaps, were it's just us. So, when I can convince a friend to join us for a few days, I get really excited. And I express this excitement with cooking. (That and, I want them to have so much fun eating and exploring with us that they will join us again.) So, once I had the confirmation that some friends would be visiting for a long weekend, I started launched into overdrive to come up with some memorable recipes. Of course, I made the Campfire Bacon And Eggs Hash. But for this special occasion, I also concocted the Dutch Oven Breakfast Ring.
We are curious omnivorous. We are ready to try new and odd meals. If we see some animal on the menu that we have not tried, that will be our order. Even so, we are not above a mammal free meal. If it is tasty, we will eat it, and that includes vegetarian fair. One of my favorite examples of such a meal is the Grilled Sweet Potato, Kale, & Goat Cheese Baguette.
My driver is a huge fan of bacon. I like it but try to approach it with moderation. All the same, we tend to find ourselves sneaking bacon into all sorts of dishes. Bacon is no longer just a breakfast food. It can be ground into sauces or garnish drinks. But sometimes, we like to return to the classics. Such is the case with the Camper's Club Sandwich.
I post a lot about cooking, but that may bely the amount of times we go out to eat. Somehow, this reliance on others to cook us food most often translates into hamburgers. It seems like many more remote eateries…
So, we got a grilling basket and like the proverbial hammer finding nothing but nails, I now see all cooking challenges as sandwiches. Now I walk down the grocery store aisles and consider: how could I use this in a sandwich? So, when I came across a pretzel roll, I thought, "this I can work with." And so, I present to you: Hiker's Cheesy Ham Pretzel Roll.
Sometimes, it is uncertain if two desperate groups can cohabitant. We look on with hope and fear. Savory can be so dominating, can it really allow room for Sweet? Sweet is very particular, could it derail Savory? But we all breath a sigh of relief when we take our first bite of the Glamper's Bacon Brie Apricot Toasted Sandwich and know that finally, these two opposing forces have come together in harmony.
When I want the luxury of fine ingredients in a simple recipe, I bring together two of my best friends: prosciutto and mozzarella. I call this pairing the Class in the Campground Prosciutto Mozzarella Sandwich.
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.
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.