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Totally Delicious and Easy Campurritos

June 26, 2014 3 Comments
I may have stumbled upon the most perfectly transportable, absolutely delicious breakfast food ever. These breakfast burritos are fantastic for your next camping trip because they can be made in advance and just thrown on the fire. Camping + burritos = campurritos. Thanks to Ninth and Bird for the awesome name! What other breakfast food can you eat outside in mismatched jammies, while hanging with horses? They’re also fantastic for busy mornings at home. My kids are 5 & 7 and they’re completely capable of heating these up on their own from frozen. You know, while mommy catches up on her beauty sleep gets in an early morning workout.
This recipe is easily adaptable to your own tastes. You can use sausage, ham, bacon, leftover ground taco filling…whatever you’d like for the meat. I added potatoes, onions, eggs and cheese to a Hillshire Farm Smoked Sausage and they were fan-freakin-tastic.

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Genius Golden Grahams Smore Bars

May 29, 2014 6 Comments

A couple housekeeping items before we get to the deliciousness here. Notice the new watermark gracing the corners of my photos? Isn’t it lovely? Hopefully it will help keep people (who are not me) from passing off my stuff as theirs. Sometimes I’m so disappointed in humanity. Also, just above the actual recipe details, you’ll find a link to print a pdf of my deliciousness. Hooray! No more highlighting text to print it! Now, on to something that makes me very happy. Camping food.

(happy sigh) I love camping food. It’s the best. I’ve shared my smore bars before, with a graham cracker crust, chocolate middle and mallow topper. They’re quite delicious. But, they aren’t very camping friendly. It’s hard to broil the top of a layered dessert when hanging out around an open campfire. Leave it to Betty Crocker to have a solution. Crunchy graham cracker cereal tossed with buttery marshmallow goodness, with chocolate chips and mini-marshmallows sprinkled throughout. Like a delicious graham cracker rice crispy treat. With all the flavors of smores mixed in. Genius! These gorgeous bars take just minutes to put together and require no baking!

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Ghirardellis Caramel S’mores

May 29, 2012 1 Comment

No, this isn’t a “real” recipe. Just something I want to share with you all since campfire season is upon us. And that means kicking back listening to the crackle of wood burning and being mesmerized by logs turning to coals. I have to give a shout out to my amazing father. The beautiful stone fire pit you see in the background? Yeah, he built it.  He threw it together this afternoon for my mom so all us kids could come over for a campfire this evening. I’m not kidding. He’s so awesome.

When the embers are just perfect, it is time to make s’mores. Classic campfire food. Did you know s’mores are not required to have plain chocolate on them. No, there’s a world of other possibilities for making gooey, melty marshmallow goodness.

My favorite is using Ghirardellis caramel squares instead of regular old Hershey bars. First of all, it’s better chocolate. Second, it’s filled with gorgeous oozing caramel. It is amazing. Try it at your next campfire. You’ll never go back! Do you have a go-to chocolate replacement in your s’mores?

Ghirardellis Caramel S’mores

Graham Crackers
Marshmallows
Ghirardellis Caramel Squares

First, you take the graham. You put the chocolate (caramel square) on the graham. Then, you toast the mallow. Onto the chocolate it goes, top with another graham and mmmmmmmmm, enjoy.

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Graham-O-Toffee Candy

May 24, 2012 2 Comments

The “O” is for oats. These treats are to DIE for. Incredibly easy and layered deliciousness. I’m taking them camping this weekend. If they last that long. I love recipes where the finished product seems like more work than it actually took. Shhh. It’ll be our little secret how simple these are.

Start with a jelly roll pan and line it with foil, then a single layer of graham crackers.

Mix up some oats, sugar and flour.

Then mix in an egg and some butter (mmmmm – melted butter).

Spread over the grahams. Don’t worry about getting it totally perfect. As it bakes it will spread and layer itself nicely.

Bake until golden, then top with chocolate, almonds and toffee chips.

Break apart into bars or chunks and shove into your face.

These bars are perfectly balanced. They have sweetness and crunch in all the right places plus the earthy goodness of oats.

They are a great camping food. Especially if you’re going somewhere you can’t have a fire. They are a little reminiscent of smores, except better, because they’re toffee. I love caramel buttery toffee. (happy sigh) Enjoy!

Print Recipe for Graham-O-Toffee Candy

Graham-O-Toffee Candy
adapted from BHG

15 whole graham crackers (rectangles)
1 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2/3 cup butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 12 ounce package semisweet chocolate pieces
1/2 cup whole almonds, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup heath bar toffee chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 15x10x1-inch baking pan (jelly roll pan) with foil, extending foil beyond edges of pan. Arrange whole graham crackers in a single layer in prepared pan. In a large bowl combine the oats, sugars, and flour. Stir in melted butter, egg, and vanilla until well combined. Spoon over graham crackers and spread evenly to edges of pan to cover graham crackers.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until oat mixture bubbles and is lightly browned on top. Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate pieces. Return to oven for 1 minute. Spread melted chocolate over top to cover. Evenly sprinkle with almonds & toffee chips. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Use foil to lift from pan. Remove foil. Cut or break into bars. Makes 30 bars.

Filed Under: Baking, Candy, Desserts, Snacks Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Rocky Road Clusters

May 26, 2011 Leave a Comment

These should have an aka after the title. Also known as “pieces of heaven”. When I read this recipe I started drooling after the first two ingredients. Chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk. Yeah. You really can’t go wrong when those two things are going to be combined. I’ve never been a fan of rocky road ice cream because the good stuff is surrounded by chocolate ice cream – which I despise. I’ve finally found a version of rocky road that I love. These are a fudgy base filled with marshmallow and pecans. You all know how I feel about nuts, but in this case, it just works. These candies are super quick to put together and make for perfect camping food in my opinion. Throw them all in some tuperware and off you go. I love food that travels well. And to top it off, they are gluten free! Yippee! [Read more…]

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S’mores Bars

May 14, 2011 1 Comment

Baseball equals s’mores. Bear with me. I swear my thoughts make logical sense in my head. I’ll try to help you keep up. Today, I went outside because I saw a bright yellow orb in the sky. I had to find out what it was. The sun! Fantastic! My husband used the opportunity to teach our son how to catch a ball. Thankfully, Zack is wise enough to start with a tennis ball instead of a baseball. Donovan need a little work on keeping his eye on the ball.

Catch it!

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Crispy Peanut Butter Balls

September 1, 2010 Leave a Comment

A few days before any family trip I turn into somewhat of a baking monster. Something inside my brain clicks over into crazy bakerlady mode and I make piles of food. Seriously – if the end of the world happens when I’m away somewhere camping, my family will survive for at least 3 months just with the food on hand. This weekend we’re hanging with some friends and today began the baking craziness. First on the docket, my peanut butter balls. Part rice crispy treat, part peanut butter cup, they are completely addictive! I mean really, does it get any better than peanut butter and chocolate?

Crispy Peanut Butter Balls

Crispy Peanut Butter Balls

  • 1 cup peanut butter*
  • 1 (7 ounce) jar marshmallow creme
  • 1 1/2 cups crisp rice cereal
  • 1 C milk chocolate chips + 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 T shortening

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter and marshmallow creme; add cereal and stir until well coated. In a small microwave-safe bowl, combine chocolate chips and shortening. Microwave, uncovered, for 1-2 minutes or until chips are melted; stir until smooth.
  2. Roll cereal mixture into 1-in. balls; dip in chocolate. Place on a waxed paper-lined pan. Refrigerate until set. I like to melt some peanut butter for a few seconds in a plastic ziploc baggie and drizzle it on top. Mmmmmmm.

*Reduced-fat or generic brands of peanut butter are not recommended for this recipe.

Filed Under: Baking, Desserts, Friends Tagged With: , , , ,

First Snowflake Freakout Lady and the Blue Tarp Camper

March 12, 2009 4 Comments

Blue Tarp Camper:

This weekend, dad says “We’re camping on the coast.” And what dad says, goes. “We don’t need to check the weather report, we brought our own blue skies with us” Blue Tarp Camper, you’re one of us.

First Snowflake Freakout Lady:

This is a seasonal saga of tire chains, kitty litter, all wheel drive and one woman’s willingness to simply walk away.

She knows it’s coming. There on the double Doppler: a slight chance of accumulation mainly near the Puget Sound convergence zone …on higher hills of 500 feet or more. In other words, climactic Armageddon. Somewhere out there in the dark there’s a slippery, malicious snowflake with evil in its heart. And neither she nor her urban assault vehicle (with optional winch adventure package) will be going anywhere tomorrow. So what if there’s a major presentation at work tomorrow – don’t you understand? She lives on a hill! First Snowflake Freakout Lady, you’re one of us.

Pemco Insurance launched an ad campaign  a while back with “Northwest Profiles”. I saw the Blue Tarp Camper on TV a couple months ago, and just heard First Snowflake Freakout Lady on the radio. These two profiles are hilarious to me because they accurately describe my parents. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Camping, Life, Parents, Weather Tagged With: , , ,
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