Tuesday, October 11, 2011

anniversary camping!

since i was away for our first anniversary, i surprised josh this past weekend with an anniversary camping trip!

we drove down the coast on the beautiful coastal highway, winding up, down, and around the sheer cliffs overlooking the magnificent pacific ocean. we randomly found a camping spot at the quaint san simeon creek campground, a little bit south of hearst castle. our campsite was nestled in the trees, nice and private on the first night with a vacant site on our left and a site housing ghost campers (gone all evening!) to our right.

because we love food so much, we prepped some tasty meals for this trip.

night one: grilled pork chops accompanied by parmesan basil orzo.
night two: fresh pasta topped with chicken and a sun-dried tomato basil cream sauce.

delicioso!



our secrets to gourmet camp cooking:
  1. plan a grill night (burgers, pork chops, chicken) -- something easy to throw on the grate and go
  2. pick easy to prep sides -- pasta and rice are easy. potatoes, less so. we did orzo cooked in chicken broth and water. the chicken broth added a lot of flavor with no extra work. topped with fresh grated parm and fresh sliced basil, it was delicious!
  3. prep at home -- for our fresh pasta night, we cubed and cooked the chicken ahead of time. we also chopped the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes and ziplocked them together with the red pepper flakes our recipe called for. lastly, we made sure we had grated up a bunch o' parmesan for our orzo and to top the pasta.
  4. make something with wine/beer -- there are a lot of good recipes that call for wine or beer. it adds a lot of flavor and then you get to drink the leftovers!
our recipe is an adaptation of this one.

happy camp cooking! :)