At camp, put the cooked vegetables and cheese between two flour tortillas in a lightly oiled pie iron. Tear off the edges of the tortilla after you close the pie iron. Then heat over the campfire until the cheese melts and the tortilla is lightly toasted. 

Top with salsa and guacamole and enjoy!

Pie Iron Fajita Quesadillas

Makes 6, Vegetarian

Ingredients

• 3 bell peppers (some combination of red, yellow, orange or green)
• 1 large onion
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Fajita seasoning, to taste
• cooking spray
• 12 flour tortillas
• 6 slices cheddar
• salsa
• guacamole

Supplies

• pie iron
• butter knife

Directions

At Home

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add peppers & onions and sauté until onions are translucent. Add fajita seasoning to taste and cook for an extra 2 minutes. Let cool and store in refrigerator or cooler.

At Camp

1. Spray pie iron with cooking spray. Place a tortilla in one side of the pie iron.
2. Fill tortilla with cheddar slice and fajita mixture.
3. Top with another tortilla and close pie iron. Tear off the edges of the tortillas.
4. Heat pie iron over fire, turning occasionally, until the tortilla is toasted and the cheese is melted.
5. Release quesadilla from pie iron, using butter knife if necessary. Serve with salsa and guacamole.

Another great thing about this recipe and my Campfire Pierogies is that the frozen rice and veggies keep your cooler cold. We had a long drive to the Smokies from Illinois, so starting with frozen foods helped keep the ice in our cooler from melting.

Start by heating up frozen veggies in a little oil. I used one pound sugar snap pea stir fry mix and one pound of broccoli.

Then add frozen rice and baked tofu.

Add teriyaki sauce and cook for 3-4 minutes.

Enjoy!

Camp Stir Fry
Serves 4. This recipe works equally well over a campfire.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups brown rice
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 2 pounds frozen vegetables
• 7 ounces baked tofu
• teriyaki sauce (I used Soy Vay Veri Veri Teriyaki)

Supplies

• Large Skillet
• Spoon or spatula
• Knife
• Cutting board

Instructions

At Home

Cook rice according to package directions. Let cool, and then freeze in a plastic bag. Or skip the prep work and buy frozen rice at the supermarket.

At Camp

1. Preheat 1 tablespoon oil in a skillet.
2. Add vegetables and cook until heated through.
3. In the meantime, cut tofu into 1/2″ cubes.
4. Add tofu and rice to vegetables. Cook until heated through.
5. Add teriyaki sauce to taste.
6. Cook an additional 2-3 minutes and serve.

Gotta love nighttime photography…

Here’s how to make them at camp.

You only need four ingredients, plus salt and pepper.

Soften the sliced onion in butter.

Then add sliced green pepper and cook until tender.

And finally, add the defrosted pierogies. Cook until golden. Season with salt & pepper and devour.

In this recipe, I keep things traditional with beans, cheese and salsa. For more creative options, fill your tortillas with pizza toppings, canned pie filling or ham and cheese.

Spray the pie iron with cooking spray and then fill it with tortillas, refried beans and cheese.

Buy tortillas that are slightly larger than your pie iron. Once the pie iron is closed, tear off the edges of the tortilla to prevent burning.

Heat over the fire, turning for even cooking.

Pie Iron Quesadillas

Makes 6, Vegetarian

Ingredients

• cooking spray
• 12 flour or corn tortillas
• 16 oz can refried beans
• 12 ounces shredded sharp cheddar
• salsa

Supplies

• pie iron
• butter knife

Directions

1. Spray pie iron with cooking spray and lay a tortilla over each side of the pie iron.
2. Spread refried beans in the center of tortilla.
3. Top refried beans with shredded cheese.
4. Close pie iron and tear off the edges of the tortilla.
5. Heat pie iron over fire, turning frequently, until the tortilla is toasted and the cheese is melted.
6. Top with salsa and serve.

These breakfast sandwiches are filled with egg, cheese and sausage. You don’t pre-cook the egg, so it kind of coats the bread and tastes a bit like french toast. Yum.

Even this guy stopped by to beg for one. Sorry Mr. Squirrel, we don’t give handouts.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe over at Pocket Change Gourmet. Her recipe didn’t quite fit in our Original 1960’s design Rome Pie Iron, so I made a few changes.

Start by melting butter in a pre-warmed pie iron.

Place two slices of bread in the pie iron and squish down the middle of both slices to make room for the fillings. Pour egg into one of the slices of bread, being careful to not overfill it (I forgot to snap a photo of this step).

Cover the egg with a slice of cheese and put a sausage in the other side of the pie iron.

Cook over a fire, turning every few minutes until the egg is set and the cheese is melted. Enjoy with a mug of hot coffee!

Pie Iron Breakfast Sandwiches
Makes 6, Vegetarian (or not)

Ingredients

• butter
• 12 slices sandwich bread
• 4 eggs
• 6 defrosted vegetarian sausages (or pre-cooked sausages)
• 6 slices sharp cheddar

Supplies

• pie iron
• bowl
• fork
• butter knife

Directions

1. Preheat pie iron over fire.
2. Meanwhile, lightly beat eggs.
3. Coat inside of the pie iron with butter.
4. Fill both sides of pie iron with bread. Squish down the middle of the bread to make room for the filling.
5. Pour egg into the indentation in one of the slices of bread. Do not overfill. Top egg with cheese. Put sausage on other slice of bread.
6. Close pie iron. Cook over fire, turning frequently, until the egg is set and the cheese is melted.

Here are some great looking recipes that I’m planning on making this fall.

1. Campfire Baked Apples

Bake up Family Spice’s campfire apples for a fall treat.

2. Dutch Oven Pumpkin Corn Bread

Nothing says fall like pumpkin. Try this dutch oven pumpkin cornbread from Overland Trailer.

3. Veggie Chili

My veggie chili is the perfect meal to warm you up on a crisp fall day.

4. Salted Carmel Hot Chocolate

Check out this Salted Carmel Hot Chocolate from one of my favorite blogs, A Beautiful Mess.

5. Apple Cider Toddy

Try an Apple Cider Toddy from The Boys Club as you sit around the campfire.

Chili is perfect fall camping food, especially when there’s a chill in the air.

Maybe that’s why they call it ‘chili.’ Or maybe not.

I made a batch of chili and dehydrated half of it for our recent camping trip on the Wisconsin River. Dehydrating is a great way to go, but if you’re planning on car camping you can freeze the chili instead. It freezes well and it’ll keep your cooler cold until you’re ready to thaw it.

To make dehydrated chili, start by cooking up a batch of chili at home. Then leave it in your dehydrator overnight.

At camp start by covering the dehydrated chili with water. Let it soak for about 15 minutes. Lay in the sand, recline in a camp chair, etc.

Then heat it over a stove or fire. So easy!

Dehydrated Veggie Chili
Vegan

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, diced
28 oz can crushed or diced tomatoes
2/3 cup salsa
2 teaspoons chili powder
pinch of crushed red pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cans (15 oz each) pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 large red bell pepper cut into 1/2″ chunks
1 large zucchini cut into 1/2″ chunks
1 medium yellow squash cut into 1/2″ chunks

At Home:

1. Sauté onion. Add tomatoes, salsa, chili powder, crushed red pepper and salt. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes
2. Add remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer 50 – 60 minutes.
3. Let chili cool slightly and then spread over solid ‘fruit roll’ dehydrator trays. I dehydrated half of a batch of chili, but if you have enough trays you could dehydrate a full batch of chili. Set dehydrator to 135 degrees. Once chili is dry (about 8 hours), put it in an air-tight container or zip top bag.

At Camp:

1. Cover chili with water and let sit 15 minutes, or until it’s nearly rehydrated. 
2. Heat and serve.

The Wisconsin River is a wide, shallow river with a pretty strong current and lots of sandbars. The Lower Wisconsin Riverway is ideal for a multi-day paddling trip, especially because there are no dams in the 92.3 mile stretch from Prairie du Sac, WI to the Mississippi River.

We always try to take a weekend camping trip for my birthday. This year Billy planned a trip to Yatesville Lake State Park in Kentucky. We were going to camp at a boat-in site, so I dehydrated a bunch of meals in preparation for the trip. On the Thursday before our trip, I checked the weather. The forecast said rain, and flood warnings to boot. So we scrapped those plans and decided to kayak the Wisconsin River instead.

On Friday, we loaded up the car and headed out. I wasn’t able to find a campsite, most of the state parks in the area were booked up. We decided to try Tower Hill State Park, just outside of Spring Green. Tower Hill has a handful of sites, all of which are first come, first served. Luckily, we were able to get a nice campsite and set up camp.

We headed into Spring Green and had a great lunch at Freddy Valentine’s, a historic bank building that is now a bar restaurant. Then we drove around trying to find an outfitter that would be able to shuttle us and our kayaks. Wisconsin Canoe Company was able to help us out. They charged us about $60 to shuttle us and our kayaks from Peck’s Landing to Prairie du Sac. We planned to kayak 25 miles down the Wisconsin River and return to our car at Peck’s Landing.

We returned to camp and Billy figured out how to fit all our gear into the kayaks. Here’s a complete list of what we brought. Most of our food did not require a cooler. The only things in our small, soft-sided cooler were a few beers and some sharp cheddar  (American Cheese is a good alternative, since it does not require refrigeration).

This was our menu for the weekend:

• Friday Dinner: Tortellini with Dehydrated Tomato Basil Sauce
• Saturday Breakfast: Oatmeal with Dehydrated Peaches, Blueberries and Bananas
• Saturday Lunch: Dehydrated Chili, Pita Chips and Dehydrated Hummus
• Saturday Dinner: Broccoli Noodle Salad and Pie Iron Grilled Cheese
• Sunday Breakfast: AlpineAire Bandito Scramble, Cheddar and Dehydrated Hash Browns
• Sunday Lunch: Leftovers (I had planned a Dehydrated Feta Dip, but it didn’t turn out. I won’t be dehydrating feta again)

I’ll link to recipes as I post them. It’s not necessary to dehydrate foods for a trip like this, but I found it convenient since I didn’t have to worry about food spoiling. Dehydrating food does save some weight, but without a reliable source of water (see cow below), you have to pack water anyway. Canned food would work just as well.

On Saturday morning Amy from Wisconsin Canoe Company shuttled us up to Prairie du Sac. On the drive up, she gave us a lot of information about the river. We unloaded our gear, packed up our kayaks and we were off.

Right after we left Prairie du Sac, we started seeing wildlife.

We spotted a Bald Eagle flying, and then landing in a tree off in the distance. We’ve seen a few Bald Eagles this summer. It’s great that they have made such a comeback.

We knew we were in Wisconsin when we spotted this cow chillin’ in the river.

We stopped for lunch on a little island. The river is really shallow, only 5′ on average. Our kayaks bottomed out a few times trying to get to the island. By the end of the trip, we got better at avoiding shallow areas.

I sat on the beach and made lunch, while Billy hiked to the end of the island to check out a bird on the shoreline. It was an Osprey. We ate pita chips, hummus and veggie chili for lunch.

After lunch, we set back out. A little ways downriver, we stopped off at Ferry Bluff State Natural Area for a hike to a lookout point that Amy had recommended. She said that the hike would take about ten minutes, but the bugs were so bad I think we did it in five.

Bugs aside, the view was well worth it. Breathtaking!!

We hopped back in our kayaks. Shortly after, we came across Wisconsin’s only nude beach. Did you think I was going to get closer for a photo?

As the sun started to set, we found a nice little island with a sandy beach to set up camp. We had the whole island to ourselves!

Billy started a fire, and we got dinner started.

We had Broccoli Noodle Slaw and pie iron grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.

After dinner we relaxed on a blanket by the fire. The sunset was gorgeous, and once it got dark, you wouldn’t believe how many stars were in the sky. I used the Sky Guide App on my iPhone to locate stars and constellations.

When we woke up the next morning, it was raining. We made some tea and coffee and hung out in the tent waiting for it to stop.

Around ten o’clock it cleared up, and we made a breakfast of freeze-dried eggs, hash browns & cheddar. It was cloudy with a chill in the air. It felt like fall day. We packed up and headed out to complete our last nine miles.

We paddled along the shoreline, checking out the wildlife on the shore. We stopped off at a few sandbars along the way.

Shortly after lunch, we saw Peck’s Landing and our journey was complete. I’ll definitely be back someday, and maybe I’ll even paddle all 92.3 miles of the free-flowing Lower Wisconsin Riverway.

Some tips if you’re headed out to the Lower Wisconsin Riverway:

• You can’t bring any glass – no glass containers, beer bottles, jars, etc.
• Bring 1 gallon of water per person, per day. You may want to bring more if it’s really hot.
• If you can fit a bundle of firewood in your kayak or canoe, bring it. By the end of the summer there isn’t much wood to collect for campfires.
• You can camp on islands and sandbars in the Wisconsin River for free, but you can’t camp on the shore.
• Select a sandbar that is 18″ above the river. A rainstorm upriver can quickly flood low lying areas.
• Mark the shoreline of your sandbar with a stick. That way, you’ll know if the water is rising.
• I don’t want to sound like your mom or anything, but wear your life jacket. Especially if you’re drinking.
• Check out our packing list from this trip.

If you’re headed out to the backcountry or you just want to pack light, dehydrated meals are the way to go. I am planning on bringing an assortment of dehydrated meals for our trip. I don’t want to weigh our kayaks down with heavy cans and jars of food. I’m dehydrating a jar of our favorite spaghetti sauce right now. It’s really easy, and when it’s done dehydrating, it will be small enough to fit in my pocket.

You don’t even need a dehydrator to make dehydrated foods. You can just use your oven on its lowest setting, with the door cracked slightly. If you don’t mind spending a little more, REI has some freeze-dried meals that are pretty good, though I tend to prefer my own cooking. I think the Mountain House meals are the best of the bunch. I really enjoyed their dehydrated eggs when I went backpacking in Sequoia and King’s Canyon National Parks. I just topped the eggs with some Taco Bell taco sauce and they were awesome. The Mountain House Pasta Primavera was decent as well. Another option is to find dried foods at the supermarket or bulk food store.

Readily Available Supermarket Dried Foods

• dried tortellini
• soup packets
• dehydrated chili mix
• ramen noodles
• sun-dried tomatoes
• wasabi peas
• dehydrated onions (spice aisle)
• dried fruit
• oatmeal
• cous cous
• minute rice

If you decide to dehydrate foods at home, there are three rules you should follow.

3 Rules of Dehydrating

1. Prevent Spoilage: Keep all dehydrated foods in the freezer until you are ready to head out. Oil causes dehydrated foods to quickly become rancid. Try to cook with a minimal amount of oil. Rinse greasy foods like ground beef with water before you dehydrate them.
2. Don’t Mix Flavors: For example, don’t dehydrate bananas at the same time as onions – you’ll end up with banana-y onions and onion-y bananas. Nasty!
3. Use the Right Temperature: Foods like meats have to be dehydrated at a higher temperature to make them safe to eat. Other foods like fruits and vegetables can be dehydrated at a lower temperature. Refer to the manual that came with your dehydrator for the exact settings.

Hungry yet? Here are some recipes that look especially tasty.

Dirty Gourmet has a lot of really good recipes for dehydrated meals and snacks including this Coconut Curry Soup.

Ramen noodles aren’t just for broke college students. Check out Dirty Gourmet’s Not Your Average Ramen.

These Maple Olive Oil Apple Chips look delicious as well.

Dehydrated Bushwalking Food has some great dinner ideas, including this Tikka Masala.

Check out this savory Roasted Red Pepper, Garlic, and Goat Cheese Rotini from Happy Tramper.

Or try this healthy Lentil Soup from Powered by Plantz.

Laurie Ann March authored two backpacking cookbooks. Take a look at her recipe for Sunny Garlic Hummus.

Backpacker’s Packable Dehydrated Salads look great if you can’t live without salad when you’re on the trail .

Their Spicy Curry Noodles look great as well!

This One Pot Vegetarian Chili mixes wet and dried ingredients and looks incredibly healthy.

Check out YouTube for tons of step-by-step videos on food dehydration.

Do you have any go-to recipes for packing light? I’d love to try them out on our trip!

The camping menu planner has five sections you can complete: day, menu, grocery list, supply list and prep list. It will keep you organized when you’re trying to think through everything you’ll need to prepare meals at the campsite. The menu planner is for a weekend camping trip, but you can print out extra copies if you’re planning a longer trip.

Here are the downloadable versions of the camping menu planner:

Also, be sure to check out my matching printable camping checklist!