Campfire Dessert - Chocolate Orange Cakes

We are no gourmet cooks around here when it comes to camping.  Truth be told, I am often so worried about all the rest of the gear and getting ourselves there that food falls to the wayside.  We just don't get too fancy (though stepping it up a little is in the plans this summer.)

Melissa over at Adventure Tykes is linking up a bunch of us outdoor bloggers sharing some camping recipes today (so check her site for links to all of them!)  I, personally, can't wait to see what everyone else offers (maybe I'll get some great ideas!)

So when are are NOT having hot dogs and S'Mores, this is our tried and true dessert recipe. Sadly, somehow I don't have any photos of it at all, so you'll have to use your imagination for now (or check out this or this post of others doing the same/similar recipe!)

Chocolate Orange Campfire Cakes:

- Oranges for everyone (1 per serving)

- Chocolate Cake Mix

- 1 Can 7-Up or Sprite

- Tin Foil and Knife

1.  Cut off the top of the orange so that most of the orange remains in its "ball" shape.

2.  Dig out the meat of the orange without tearing the peel (just go slow and easy!)

3.  Mix the cake mix with the soda (I usually just mix them up in the plastic packaging the mix comes in to save dishes.)  

4.  Spoon the cake mix into the oranges about 1/2 full.

5.  Replace the lid on the orange and double wrap it in foil.

6.  Place the package in campfire coals for about 15 minutes (though this depends on the heat of the fire, the thickness of the peel, etc. etc. so check often!)

Yummy Yummy!  

Anyone ever tried this before?  Any great variables I should know about?

Hydration & Nourishment on the Trail + Gear up Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of "Gearing Up Families to go Screen Free"!  If this is your first time hearing about the event, please check out our updated tab here.  Make sure you check out the giveaways at the end of this post (they are ONLY open for 24 hours- midnight to midnight EST!)

Photo courtesy of Jenny

Proper hydration and nourishment are crucial all the time, but especially while you are outside being active.  Sun, wind, sweat-loss, energy-used and altitude all contribute to the importance of keeping your body running smoothly. by being properly fed and hydrated.  While the subject is vast, I want to address at least parts of it in the light of a full week of lots of active time outside (right?!?! :)) next week.

**Hydrate Up!**
Water accounts for nearly 60% of our total body mass.  Therefore, it obviously plays a huge role in how our body runs and performs.  Way too many people just don't get enough water, plain and simple.  Unfortunately, the long-term effects of severe dehydration are pretty serious and could eventually lead to death in extreme cases.  On the upside, a well-hydrated adult/child feels the benefits of:
- Better blood flow
- Higher energy levels
- Decreased muscle soreness after exercise
- More attentiveness and an easier time concentrating
- Healthy kidneys
- Body temperature regulation (which is HUGE as we head into the summer months.)

Signs of Mild Dehydration (don't let it go further than this!):

- Dry mouth

- Fatigue

- Head rush

- Dark/yellow urine (you should "pee clear"!)

- Chills

- Dry Skin

- Thirst (Do you know when you feel thirsty you are actually already too dehydrated?!?!)

- Constipation

Snacks on the Hill + Go Go squeeZ Giveaway

*Congratulations to JLJMommy (#12), Blair(#2), and Connie(#4)!  Email me at mountainmamatales(at)gmail(dot)com to claim your samples!*

When you have kids and are outside and active, snacks are a must (for the sanity of all involved!)  A few weeks ago, I did a post about some of the food we regularly pack when we are out adventuring (which also includes a recipe for Homemade Pocket Sandwiches.)

As a general rule, we tend to stay away from a lot of the pre-packaged stuff.  If I had all the time and energy in the world, we would honestly eat completely from scratch.  However, reality sets in and the truth is that I would rather spend that time with my young boys and husband than in the kitchen all day long.

As a trade-off, I am picky about what we DO eat pre-packaged.  I try to limit sugar, unnecessary preservatives and waste from packaging.

A few months ago, I ran across GoGo squeeZ applesauce packets and they have turned into one packaged snack that we consistently use for the boys.  I believe in them enough to share them with you!

What we love about GoGo squeeZ:
- portioned out packets that result in no-mess (even when we are feeding them to P.)
- easy for on the trail, ski hill, car and general travel (we have to ration them out to J because he loves them that much - they are his "treat"...without all the sugar!)
- all natural and no added sugar
- gluton, dairy and nut free
- 100 % fruit
- resealable (J easily finishes a packet, but P usually is eating on it for a few feedings.)
- Plenty of applesauce-based flavors: apple, apple-stawberry, apple-peach, apple-banana, apple-cinnamon, and apple-berry.  We have only tried the regular apple, but would love to try the others!
- Their recycling system (see my corrections below!)

*Guest Post* Little Helpers Make Happy Campers

This week we welcome Tiffany AKA The Campy Mom to the blog.  She is the queen of camp (at least in the blogging world) and we are thrilled to have her here today.  Even better, she is sharing one of our very favorite camping recipes.  As always, please feel free to leave her some love in the comments and make sure to check out her bio below (and awesome blog too!)  

My kids are camping kids.  They love camping and all the outdoor activities that go along with it.  I love that they are spending time outdoors exercising and learning to appreciate nature.

Our kids love to help around the campsite.  They feel useful, needed and confident when they are allowed to get involved.  Of course, the level of a child’s involvement depends on their age and maturity level.

Ways to Allow Children to Help Around the Campsite

Allow children to carry their own gear to the campsite.  We allow each child to have their own backpack or duffle bag for their clothes.  They are proud to have their own bag.  Each child has a small personal lantern, their own fishing rod and bug habitats. They feel very independent with their own equipment.

Kids can help setup the campsite.  Older kids can help setup the tent.  Younger children may be allowed to setup the table with the vinyl tablecloth and plastic ware. My kids love to put together the foam floor tiles (like you see in preschools) which we use as flooring in our tent.  The older kids take turns deciding the pattern we will use for the floor tiles (such as red-blue-green-yellow or yellow-blue-red-green).

The Food We Eat: Homemade Pocket Sandwich Recipe

This past weekend we were thrilled to be able to attend the Winter Outdoor Retailers Expo in Salt Lake City.  A maze of incredible gear, like-minded people and fun demos wore us out completely. :)  Watch the blog in the coming months for sneak-peaks and reviews of what we saw (and some super exciting partnerships with other companies.)


Aside from all the excitement of the weekend, however, we spent a LOT of time in the car (thanks to snow and closed roads) and a lot of time on our feet.  We were also trying to do our best to be as frugal as we could and brought a lot of food to supplement hotel breakfasts and one meal out a day (because we were also trying to be reasonable.)  Quite honestly, we pushed our kids to the limit and definitely used snacks to bribe more than once.  


As a family, we try really hard to stay away from pre-packaged snacks that are full of sugar and additives.  Admittedly, I sometimes fail on this as life gets busy, I but certainly try!


Some of our favorite on-the-road snacks (that work well for on-the-road to hike, ski, play, etc.)
- Cut up carrot sticks (with peanut butter if it is reasonable depending on the situation)
- Our favorite granola bars (I make double batches and freeze these for adventures.)
- Apples
- Oranges (I always pack napkins too for these)
- Trail Mix
- Trail Cookies (AKA "Those cookies")
- Goldfish crackers (or something like that) in these cups:

- Homemade "Pocket Sandwiches" (based on a recipe from a dear friend of mine!)

  *These are MUCH better for us than regular sandwiches because of the less-mess factor.  They stay contained and J does just fine holding them on his own.  They are good enough to share....

The Bread Part:

2c.             Warm Water

2tsp.          Yeast

2                Eggs

3 tbsp.       Sugar

¼ c.           Canola oil

1tsp.          Salt

6c.+           Flour (I often use a mix of bread flour and light wheat flour)

Filling (the fun part because it is completely up to you):

Ham

Cheese

Turkey

Mushrooms

Dissolve yeast in water; add sugar, eggs and salt; add oil and enough flour to make a stiff, yet pliable dough.  Cover and rise in a warm place for fifteen minutes.  Punch dough down and divide into 14 balls.

For each sandwich, take one ball of dough and roll into a 6-8”circle on a lightly floured surface.  Place 1 piece of cheese and 1 piece of ham (or whatever you are using) in the middle.   Bring edges of dough together and pinch together over the filling (make sure it is closed well!)  Pat dough to form a bun around the filling.  Place on a greased cookie sheet (or stoneware), 2” apart, and cover with a kitchen towel to rise for 1 hr.

Bake in oven at 350* for 20-25 min.

The pocket sandwiches may be frozen after baking when cool.  I either freeze them all together in a bag or individually wrapped in foil.  Reheat unwrapped in microwave for 1 min or in the oven, wrapped in foil.

What are your favorite trail-foods? Feel free to link up blog posts and recipes!

Post-Adventure Eats

Especially on the weekends when we can be outside with a family a lot more, I don't spend a whole lot of time cooking.  I would much prefer to enjoy my husband and children and NOT the kitchen.  We have a family tradition of Mass and then pizza (usually homemade recipe on that another time) on most Saturday nights and then I seem to be always throwing something together for Sundays.  This is one of the easiest, mostly-healthy meals I have up my sleeve (coming from my own mom's kitchen.  Thanks, Mom!)  The ingredients can be kept on hand easily in your pantry and freezer and enjoyed with post-adventure hot chocolate.

Yam-Pineapple-Kielbasa Casserole (I have no idea what it is really called)

*1 can pineapple chunks
*1 can yams (I try to get the ones in at least light syrup and do a lot of draining and rinsing)
*1 package Kielbasa (flavor up to you!)
*3 T. butter (or less per your preference) cut into small chunks
*3 T. brown sugar

Drain cans and pour into casserole dish.  Cut kielbasa into bite-size chunks and mix in with other ingredients.  Top with a light sprinkling of brown sugar and butter chucks.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until bubbly.

Not the most picturesque meal, but here is a snap shot anyway so you get the idea!

Whole Wheat Rolls

When we are out hiking, skiing or just traveling, we often bring sandwiches with us.  It is just easier (and cheaper) than eating out or cooking fancy.  Rolls tend to stay together better than sandwich bread and I love that these are whole wheat.  I also use them for hamburger buns!  I found this recipe here and make them weekly.  Tip - as much as you are tempted to do so, don't make a double batch.  Most bread makers can't handle it (we had a dough mess when I tried!!!) :(

Taken from "Cooking for Compliments":

This recipe is terrific without adding the salt, it rises perfectly. This recipe is designed for 1.5 lb size, most machines can easily accommodate this amount of flour. 1 cup water 1 egg 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 3/4 tsp salt 1/4 cup shortening 1/4 cup sugar 3 tsp dry yeast 1 Place all ingredients into your bread maker as manufacture directs. 2 Set machine to dough, press start. 3 When dough is finished in the machine, gently roll out dough on a floured surface into a 12-inch rope. 4 Divide the dough into 8 pieces for hamburger buns, or 12 pieces for hot dog buns with a sharp knife. 5 Grease a baking sheet, or use parchment paper. Roll pieces of dough into balls for hamburger buns or 6 inch rolls for hot dog buns. Place them on your prepared baking sheet. 6 Let rise in a warm oven for 10-15 minutes until almost doubled. (hint: To warm oven slightly, set oven to lowest setting for 2 minutes, then turn off.) 7 Remove the buns for the oven and pre-heat your oven to 400*. Bake your buns for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, and cool on racks. 8 These freeze very well. Make a double batch!

Would love to hear any of your favorite recipes or if you tried this one (or another one on the blog!)

Whole-Grain Daily Bread

Due to the fact that we live in a small town, the grocery store is not always super accessible.  We do have a great little one in town, but hours are limited and if you roll into town hungry after 8 pm (especially in the winter) you could just be out of luck.

For this reason (and the fact that I just like to do it,) I make most of our bread (unless I am pregnant or have a bitty newborn and doing anything extra is completely out of the question.)  When we invested in a Zojirushi bread machine, I also bought "The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook" by Beth Hensperger.  I honestly only use a few of the recipes on a regular basis, but have not tried one that hasn't turned out well.  If you like making bread at home in a machine, get this book!

So with my little modifications noted (If you haven't noticed, I am not super great at following recipes 100%) here it is:

Whole-Grain Daily Bread

2 pound loaf (it is embarrassing how fast we can go through this)

1 1/3 cups buttermilk (I often just use baking buttermilk powder)
1/2 cup 5 grain cereal (or 7 or 9...)**
1/2 cup water**
**or you could follow their directions and use 1 cup of cooked whole grain, firmly packed**
3 T. canola oil
3 T. honey

3 1/3 cups bread flour
2/3 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cups rolled oats
1 T. + 1 t. gluten
2 t. salt

2 1/2 t. SAF yeast (or 1 T. bread machine yeast)

Use basic cycle on your machine!

I have to note also that one thing I love about this bread machine is the fact that it has a pre-heat function.  This is especially handy when your home is often less than 60 degrees before noon (until the sun warms it up...or we make a fire!) and bread can be sensitive to temperature.  I highly recommend it!

Obligatory Photo (not the most beautiful loaf in the world, but yummy anyway!):

A chocolate chip cookie that is HEALTHY! Thank you, Katie!

Tell me this doesn't look amazing!?!?!?!?!

Found a great site, Chocolate Covered Katie, where the author, Katie, is revolutionizing desserts.  We love dessert and we love to be healthy, so I was all over it!

J was a big helper as we tried out this Deep Dish Cookie Pie.  It is healthy, delicious and totally deserves to be eaten with a spoon.  Mine wasn't as beautiful as hers, but our taste buds loved it anyway!

You can find the recipe here and I copied and pasted it from her site to make it easy for you:

Deep-Dish Cookie Pie

(High in fiber… and gluten-free!)

• 2 cans white beans or garbanzos (drained and rinsed) (500g total, once drained)
• 1 cup quick oats
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 3 T canola oil
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar (Seems like a lot, but this makes a big pie. I think we got like 20 servings from it! You can try adding less, if you’re used to healthy desserts; I chose to use this much because the people to whom I served it are used to “normal” desserts. Also, white sugar will work if you don’t have brown.)
• 1 cup chocolate chips

So easy to make!

Blend everything (except the chips) very well in a food processor. Mix in chips, and pour into an oiled pan (I used a 10-inch springform pan, but you can use a smaller pan if you want a really deep-dish pie.) Cook at 350F for around 35 minutes. Let stand at least 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

Try it and let me know what you think!

Magic Muffins

When we are out adventuring, I really HAVE to have food with us or things just never go well.  I will often grab a bunch of fruit and some granola bars, but sometimes we want something different...  I have made and brought these muffins a few times and they always go over well (in a the-entire-batch-is-gone-in-a-day way.)  They just have to travel in a container of some kind to avoid smashing (less trash that way too!)  I found the recipe here and improvised a bit.  I doubled the batch and then froze half of them.

This is the recipe I used:

1 cup wheat flour (again, that Prairie Gold that is a light wheat flour)
2 T wheat germ
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats (we buy them by the 50 lb. bag)
1/4 cup bran flakes cereal
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 t. ground cinnamon
a dash of other spices (nutmeg, ginger, etc.)
pinch of salt
1 large egg
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 T. olive oil
2 t. vanilla extract
2/3 c. + 1 T. milk
1/2 cup grated squash
1/2 cup cooked chopped spinach
1/2 cup grated, chopped carrots
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup craisins
1 finely chopped apple.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line your muffin pans (I actually used stoneware ones so no lining needed.)

Whisk the dry ingredients.
Whisk the wet ingredients (minus the fruits and veggies)
Add the wet ingredients (plus the fruits and veggies) and stir until just blended.

Bake for about 20 minutes (or until done....depends on the size of muffins you are making) and cool.

Hide from all family members until the adventuring begins. :)

Yes, my kid IS the one with the dirty face....

The Joys of Trail Mix...

Trail Mix is a beautiful thing. In our family it is almost considered a staple.  Packed full of protein, crunch and, of course, chocolate.  It is great for Husband in his lunch since his job by its very nature requires a lot of energy.  We love it for hiking, for skiing (it won't even freeze!) and try to not let it be just a daily snack.  

This is a batch I made up the other day (the Pretzel M&Ms were on sale + I had a great coupon for them.)  It is never really the same from time to time, but this time it included:

M&Ms

Light Popcorn

Rice Chex Mix Cereal

Raisins

Craisins

Lightly salted peanuts

Cheerios 

And I just had to show this....taken from our wedding.  I filled a HUGE tub of whatever I could find - a bunch of different kinds of cereals, a few different types of M&Ms, pretzels, raisins, peanuts, cashews (we went all out!) - and it was the after-dinner snack for our 150 wedding guests (plus a center decoration.)  People still talk about it (or how they got to go home with a jar of it themselves.)

**Happy Weekend Adventuring!**

"Those" Cookies

Confession: We love cookies at our house.  Husband calls my KitchenAid mixer the "Chocolate Chip Cookie Maker."  J can be bribed to do anything nearly with a cookie (uh not that I ever have to bribe my children....)  The good news is that everyone is ok with healthy cookies (which are often like a trail mix in a cookie) and I don't mind having them around quite as much (though they are still a treat!)  Here is a recipe I have adapted, changed, etc. etc. and we love (*note, we are cooking at 7000 feet here so you sea-level folks may not need as much flour!)

Cream together:
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup which sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs

Our Favorite Snack

Keeping busy and active and being outside a lot requires ample energy. These are the very best granola bars I have found and we make them nearly every other week in our home (they don't manage to last long.) We buy our flour (Montana Wheat is incredible and the only flour I buy now!!) and oats in bulk. You can find the recipe here at Kitchen Stewardship.  J and I made a batch this past spring and I managed to get some pictures and scrap with them (digiscrapping is my creative outlet!)  This is also one of those recipes you can modify (I always replace some of the butter with peanut butter and often add chocolate, coconut and extra nuts) without messing it up. :)

**click on the image to read journaling**