camp food: part 1.

dinner

Well, our trip to the coast was basically pretty awesome. I can't think of anything more colorful than that to describe it. Watching my son run around the camp site, try to help us start the fire, etc. it was all pretty great. But, as with most trips, my favorite thing about it was the FOOD. We thought about what we'd eat on our trip for weeks, but when it came down to the wire, we just scrambled around and picked up a bunch of random, delicious-looking stuff.

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I don't get to go to the big downtown farmer's market very often, because I usually work on Saturday mornings, but I took the day off for my son's birthday last weekend and we picked up some goodies for our trip. A pint of padron peppers (a Portland foodie favorite- I'm seeing them everywhere) to snack on, a handful of amazing heirloom tomatoes that got sliced into sandwiches and eaten plain or sprinkled with flakes of sea salt, and some lovely ears of triple-sweet corn.

padrons

The padrons were quickly blackened on a hot cast iron skillet, then sprinkled with sea salt. Most padron peppers are rather mild, with the occasional hot one. Every single pepper in our pint was BLAZING HOT. They were good, but difficult to eat.

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Of course, the corn was grilled. I love a slightly blackened char on my grilled corn. I didn't even bother to butter mine, I just inhaled it.

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Our big protein of the trip was this massive hunk (this is only half, we saved the other half for this week!) of tri-tip beef that Jason marinated in whiskey and barbecue sauce, and then grilled a few hours later.

Usually when I go for a picnic or do something that requires me to really plan my meals out in advance, I end up not wanting to eat what I've planned to eat. Like, suddenly a pre-made sandwich just doesn't seem as delicious, or that hummus you packed just isn't appetizing anymore, right? But this trip was great. I just snacked on my homemade bread, sliced tomatoes with sea salt, and little hunks of fresh mozzarella. Everything was delicious.

We came home a little early because we forgot one of our sleeping bags and it was wicked cold on the coast at night, but I'm glad we got to take out kid out and live out our fantasy of having a backyard for a day and a half.

dinner6

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