Jam session: Peaches with thyme and almonds

We brought home about ten pounds of the most amazing peaches from our trip last weekend. They were sold by a cute lady straight out of her house, which was surrounded by nothing but orchards and beautiful rolling hills. I would have bought more, but I knew I would have to hold them on my lap the entire drive home since the car was completely stuffed with camping gear, so I limited myself to two flats. I knew they were good because our friends had picked some up on their way there a few days earlier, and we had eaten them all weekend.

Since we arrived back home, I have been busy devouring fresh peaches and figuring out how to preserve the rest of them. The other day I cooked up a batch of peach jam with almonds and lemon thyme, a recipe from Liana Krissoff's fantastic book "Canning for a New Generation". I picked it up a month or so ago, and it's a great, fresh resource on the subject of canning, with a focus on techniques that require less sugar and no commercial pectin. The book is divided by seasons, and has lots and lots of great recipes for preserving fruits and vegetables, as well as ideas for meals that make lovely use of the canned goods, both in the sweet and the savory department.

The peach jam came together beautifully (the recipe has been published here, if you want to give it a try), and I whipped up a batch of crumpets according to this recipe. Together, they are a match made in (breakfast, tea time, or anytime) heaven!

Great camp food, part II: Breakfast

Here is part II of my recap of camp food ideas that I was really happy with on our recent trip to Clear Lake. You can check out part I right here to read about fun gourmet hobo packs!

While a yummy dinner by the campfire certainly is a great way to end a day, I think breakfasts may be my favorite meal when we're out camping. It's just so lovely to climb out of your tent in the morning, find yourself in the middle of nature, get some coffee going, and start the day off with a hearty breakfast.

Since I was already experimenting with different types of tin foil-wrapped food combos, I decided to try and come up with a great and easy breakfast burrito. Great, because it's filling and delicious and you can completely adapt it to whatever you'd like to have in it. And easy, because you can prepare most of it at home; all you do at camp is heat up the filling, cook some eggs, and wrap everything in a tortilla.

To heat the filling packs, fill a pan with about 1" of water and set your packs on something that will keep them from submerging too much, you'll want them right above the water line or only slightly below. I made a big ring out of tin foil for this purpose, but you could use a small heatproof dish or something along those lines. Cover the pan with a lid and bring the water to a low boil. Check after about 10 minutes and remove the packs once they feel nice and hot. Set them aside while you prepare a batch of scrambled eggs — which you can do in the same pan to cut down on dirty dishes. Nifty!

Scoop some filling and eggs on a tortilla shell, add garnish as you wish (hot sauce, sour cream, etc.), roll up and enjoy!

Here's how I prepared the filling:

Camper's Breakfast Burrito:

• Scrub, rinse and boil potatoes (I prefer Yukon Gold) until tender when pierced with a knife (~20 minutes). Let cool and cut in 1/2" dice.
• Heat some olive oil in a pan over medium heat and gently sauté whatever mixture of vegetables you would like in your burritos (and of course you could add meat, too — crumbled sausage might be nice!). I used onion, red and yellow bell pepper, jalapeño, and mushrooms, all coarsely chopped. Sauté until fragrant and lightly roasted, but don't overcook. Season with salt and pepper and let cool.
• Combine potatoes and vegetables and scoop portions onto lightly oiled sheets of tinfoil; wrap into a package that will fit your camping pan and make sure to tightly crimp your folds to seal.
• Refrigerate packages until use. Heat over water bath as described above. Combine with scrambled egg, garnish as desired and roll up in a tortilla shell.

Campside Pancake Breakfast:

On Sunday morning, we cooked up a batch of bacon, eggs, and... mini pancakes! I had come across this great idea of freezing made-ahead pancake batter in ziplock bags for quick and mess-free pancakes, and figured why not use this for camping? I made and froze the batter at home, then threw it in the ice box with everything else, where it had slowly thawed by the time I wanted to use it. Snip off the corner of the ziplock bag and squirt the batter right into your pan. My advice: cook the bacon first and fry both the eggs and the pancakes in some of the bacon fat. (You can always eat healthy the next day.)

I brought some syrup in a small squeeze bottle, and a bit of butter to finish off those darling little pancakes. Yum... Give it a try the next time you're camping, it's so easy and fun!

Great camp food, part I: Gourmet hobo packs

When we went camping the other week, I wanted to bring along some good homey food so that we could eat well without much fuss. Don't get me wrong, I'm not above grilling up some sausages and opening a can of chili to go with it (in fact, I like that a lot, especially if it's a good sausage). But I wanted to mix things up and experiment a bit.

Turns out, with a little bit of prep work at home you can have really tasty, exciting meals at your campsite — without spending hardly any time on them! Another plus of this approach: no fussing around with leftover ingredients, and minimal trash and clutter.

My husband introduced me to the so-called "hobo pack" years ago — raw ingredients wrapped in tin foil and cooked on the fire or grill, typically containing a piece of meat (he was used to ground beef) and some vegetables (aka... potatoes). I picked up the basic concept, dug around a bit on the internet for some ideas on how to improve it, and then came up with my own creations for mains and side dishes, all of which turned out fantastic.

The basic idea is the same, no matter what you put inside: combine ingredients on a piece of lightly oiled tin foil (I recommend the heavy duty kind, or two layers of the regular stuff); wrap into a package and crimp your folds tightly to seal; refrigerate until use; cook on fire or grill; enjoy. When choosing ingredients, pick at least some with a good amount of moisture in them: bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, etc., or add a bit of water to the package so that steam can develop inside. The cooking times depend on the heat of your fire, the size of your packets and what's inside — we found that 10 mins for the veggie packets and 20 minutes for the meat packets over a hot fire worked well (rotate packets half way through the cooking time).

These are the packs I made for our trip:

Gourmet hobo packs — Main dishes:

• BBQ Beef: seasoned ground beef, sliced onion, sliced red and yellow bell pepper, halved and sliced tomato, 1 tbsp barbecue sauce. Season with salt and pepper and flat parsley.
• Pork loin: thinly sliced pork loin rubbed with a honey-and-mustard mix, sliced fennel, quartered and sliced apple, halved and sliced apricot. Season with salt and pepper and fennel fronds.

Gourmet hobo packs — Veggie side dishes:

• Zucchini and corn: small sliced zucchini, fresh corn kernels cut off the cob, sliced red onion, 1/2 tbsp olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
• Asparagus: green asparagus cut in 3" pieces, chopped parsley, 1/2 tbsp olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Fold package and before making final fold, pour in 1 tbsp water, then fold to close.
• Green beans: trimmed green beens, thinly sliced garlic clove, a pat of butter. Season with salt and pepper. Fold package and before making final fold, pour in 1 tbsp water, then fold to close.

Our campsite had a fireplace with an iron grate across it, so we placed our meat packets right over the hot part of the fire and the veggie packets off to the sides with the lower heat. The meat went first, cooked for 10 minutes, then we rotated it and added the veggies. After another 10 minutes we called it done, took the packs off and let them rest for a few minutes. Be careful when you open them, the steam is hot!

Of course we had to had some sausage and chili one night, too. But look how much that camp classic can be dressed up with a side of bright green beans! Trust me, even the Mister thought it was an improvement.

I also brought some salad fixings, washed and trimmed and ready to go. I stored them in the tiffins we brought home from our trip to India last year, and the stainless steel containers kept everything crisp and ultra-moist. All I did was to slice and combine. It was such a treat to have a crunchy salad with our meal.

Watch out for part II of our camp food adventures — we're talking breakfasts! Until then: happy Friday!

Update: Here is part II, check out how to make quick and easy camper's breakfast burritos and a campside pancake breakfast!

Sure, or you could put a candle in there.

We finally made that pumpkin. You know, the One Stuffed With Everything Good? Yes, exactly, that one. One year later, and we finally tried it. And boy-oh-boy was it good.

The hardest part about this recipe was to find the right pumpkin. Not so much the right kind: apparently you can eat any ol' pumpkin, although not all of them may taste very good or have a nice texture. No, size was the real issue here. See, while you may be inclined to eat yourself silly on this delicious stuffed gourd, it will still need to fit in your oven (important!), and you really want it chock-full with stuffing. So, you will need to find a pumpkin with a cavity in line with the amount of goodness you want to stuff in there.

We found a couple of darling pumpkins at the produce store, 8 inches or so in diameter. Aren't they cute? All innocent, thinking they're going to be Jack O' Lanterns when they grow up? Nope, not them. These were stuffed with cheese, bacon, bread cubes, fresh thyme and cream, and baked into the most delicious stuffed vegetable that has ever hit our table. Cut in wedges, and you are being served with a tender, moist, aromatic piece of pumpkin alongside a savory, fluffy, cheesy dream of a filling.

Carve me, stuff me, eat me

What is it about pumpkins? I just can't get enough of them this time of year. I like to look at them, I like to carve them, I like to eat them.

I much prefer them in savory recipes (I actually didn't know you could turn them into pies and other sweet concoctions, before coming to the US). And thanks to the Mister, who listened to this story on NPR the other day, I've got my eyes on a new recipe to try: a "Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good." I like recipes titles like that. Although, in my opinion, a filling made from cheese, garlic, bacon, and herbs deserves to be called "Heavenly", or "To Die For", rather than just "Good."

The recipe appears in Dorie Greenspan's book "Around My French Table", and after looking at what else she is stuffing, kneading, and sprinkling with Gruyere in there, I think I might have to treat myself to an early Christmas present and buy that beautiful book.

Surprise office birthday bash

My friend and former coworker C. is an amazing party planner. For years, she threw the most adorable and custom-themed birthday parties for her colleagues at her job as an office manager. Her sense for party styling is legendary, and yet it's always obvious that the birthday boy or girl's likes and interests are front and center.

Now that it was on me to throw a birthday bash for a colleague at my new job, I channeled my inner C. and organized a small Italian-themed surprise party for my boss, who has a deep passion for everything bella Italia. The green-red-and-white birthday banner was easily crafted from letters I printed on our office printer, and I served up rustic antipasti platters for lunch (easy to prepare the night before and then served on simple white plates).

Rustic antipasti platters:

Cut tomatoes and fresh mozzarella in slices. Serve with fresh basil leaves, good olive oil and a bit of salt.

Peel carrots, cut long ones in half crosswise, then cut lengthwise in ¼” thick pieces. Steam in a pot with little water, minced garlic clove, and a tad of olive oil or butter for about 5 minutes or less. Make sure to not overcook the carrots, they should keep some of their crunch. Drain and let cool. Season with salt and freshly chopped parsley and basil, mix in a couple spoons of olive oil. Let the flavors mingle in the fridge, ideally over night.

Serve with salami, prosciutto, olives, and Ciabatta or a similar kind of rustic bread.