Camping Food...

Whew!! I have neglected my poor little cooking blog for nearly 3 weeks now! Partly I have found myself slightly distracted with other "stuff" (wink, wink) and partly I have just not been doing much cooking. My cute little kitchen in my cute little apartment turns into a veritable sauna right around 5pm every day as the sun is going down and even cooking things on the stove top will having me breaking a sweat just standing there. I know... Its totally gross to talk about sweating and cooking at the same time, so I will spare you further details. Suffice it to say that I have been eating a lot of lunch meat with avocado on wasa crackers for dinner :)

However, I went camping last weekend with some girlfriends and I got newly inspired to pick up my writing again because of our dessert one night. Now... my family did not camp a ton when I was growing up but in my adult years, thanks mostly to my dad and my brother-in-law, we get incredibly gourmet with our food when we camp. Those two men have figured out how to do unbelievable things with a smoker, a cast iron skillet and hot coals so we typically eat things like freshly caught, smoked trout or cinnamon rolls or I think Jonathan even made green bean casserole once.

All of this camping food fanciness has left me somewhat oblivious to the simple pleasures of things like a basic bratwurst over the open fire and corn on the cob roasted in coals and hobo dinners AND the glorious banana boat!

That there were camping dessert options beyond s'mores had never really occurred to me. But last year when camping with my sweet friend, Stacey, she introduced me "banana boats." They are basically a banana stuffed with chocolate, peanut butter and/or butterscotch chips and then heated in the fire. It sounds pretty basic and I don't know that it would get me all that excited at home, but after a day in the sun, on the trail, romping through the rocky mountains, these were my undoing!

Here is a little picture tutorial:

1. To begin with, leave the banana in the peel, but cut out a triangular wedge and gently peel it back:




2. I have a weakness for chocolate and peanut butter so I used chocolate and peanut butter chips, but butterscotch chips or white chocolate chips would be pretty wonderful as well. You can also put in some nuts or dried fruit or anything else that sounds yummy.






3. Lower the wedge and wrap the banana securely in sturdy foil.






4. Here is where you might get irritated with me... I did not keep track of how long we let it sit in the coals. I just left it in there until I "figured" it was done. I am guessing it was about 15-20 minutes, turning once or twice.




5. Remove from coals and eat with a spoon.
(And don't turn your nose up at the way this looks. I know it doesn't look super appetizing, but it was DELICIOUS!)





If you have any interest in seeing more pictures, I am going to attempt to embed a little slide show in here from the rest of the trip. We were in the San Juan mountains in southwestern Colorado, near Ouray, and it was stunning! Man, I get to live in such a beautiful place! I was feeling very grateful this weekend :)

(P.S. You will need to click on the "play" button at the bottom of the slide show box and not in the center. If you click in the center, it will just route you to the website with the pictures instead of playing the slide show.)

(P.S. 2 - The "house" pictures are an old abandoned cabin next to one of the old mines)