Old Trapper Jerky A Tasty Summer Treat

One of the best camping and hiking treats is beef jerky. It's easy to carry  around and easy to eat. It's even a great snack if you're roughing it or glamping out in the back yard.

Old Trapper originated out of the hearty backwoods around Tillamook,Oregon, a beautiful town on the Pacific Ocean. Tillamook  may sound familiar to cheese lovers since it's also the home of Tillamook Cheese and Tillamook cheddar. The jerky and their other products are now made further inland in Forest Grove, Oregon. The company offers a variety of different types of jerky and beef sticks.

Beef jerky is usually made with molasses which is not good if you're watching your sugar and calorie intake.I wanted a low calorie alternative and their Zero Sugar Beef Jerky did the trick.it's only seventy (!) calories per serving, the perfect quick bite.

It doesn't disappoint. There's a peppery taste and aftertaste that makes it a nice alternative to the other types out there. Those on the Keto diet can incorporate it into their diets.Another plus is that the pieces are all uniform in size which makes for easy eating. No big hunks or little tiny pieces that get stuck in your teeth.

If you want a good snack that won't put on the pounds then try Old Trapper's new Zero Sugar Beef Jerky. It's a tasty alternative , perfect for local hiking and backyard camping. Try it today.

The Guide To Wilderness Cooking

Cooking in the wilderness can be daunting. Many wonder what will they cook on and what ingredients to use.Mostly it's how will the dish taste and if it's cooked enough. Now there's a new cookbook that shows how to cook safely and effectively in the wild.

Wilderness Chef :The Ultimate Guide To Cooking Outdoors  (Conway Publishing 2020) was written by outdoorsman Ray Mears. Mr. Mears is not really a chef but an adventurer who has camped around around the world from Venezuela to Wyoming. He's a television personality, with his series, Tracks, World Of Survival  and The Real Heroes of Telemark,along with Trips Money Can't Buy with Ewan  McGregor. The book is truly fascinating with large nuggets of information.There are section on the different kind of rations along with the most important aspect of outdoor cooking : hygiene. Cooking outdoors isn't cooking in the rough. It's the same as cooking in a home or restaurant kitchen. There's even a picture of an "Andy Handy" a simple gravity tap that comes with a spigot,. Antibacterial soap can also be rigged up to it to for cleaner washing. There are instructions for every type of outdoor cooking and even baking. Campers and hikers can learn how to cook using an outdoor griddle or frying pan for simple dishes or try their hand at building a dry oven in the ground or successfully using a cast iron oven. There's even a chapter on boiling all sorts of drinks , from hot tea to coffee to even hot cocoa. Mr. Mears also shows how to clean up grills and utensils up afterwards.

The recipes are very interesting too. There are sections on all sorts of frying and baking simple recipes like scrambled eggs and streak in embers, cooking a beef cut on glowing coals. Yet there are some truly sophisticated dishes too. There's Persian inspired rice spiked with such colorful jewels as sultanas, raisins or apricots along with cinnamon and turmeric.Pasta lovers will enjoy the venison bolognese. made rich with pancetta and red wine. For those who love game there are a few rabbit recipes too, one with the foraged burdock and wild water mint while the other is Spanish style with tomatoes and white beans.Of course there are fun recipes. Mr. Mears even includes s'mores (with an Englishman's disdain for them) and Nakkisoppa, Finnish hot dog soup. made with the dogs and different veggies like onions , parsnips and potatoes. There's also comfort food recipes such roast chicken , Yorkshire pudding and crispy fried  rosti potatoes in a pan. There are tasty curry, soup and fish recipes too.Yes, there is bread - all sorts of it.  Campers and outdoorsmen can make the famed bannocks, a kind of English muffin type of bread , and its' cousin, damper. Johnny cakes , made on many a Civil War campfire are here too.  There are even regular cakes and a pineapple upside down one too. Campers who like to forage wild fruit will have an apple pie and crumble recipes to try out.

Wilderness Chef : The Ultimate Guide To Cooking Outdoors is the perfect book for those who love the outdoors. It's full of good advice and good recipes. It's perfect for the great outdoors, whether the campground or backyard.

A Chef's Take

This being my Mom's birthday ,I just want to share some of her favorite and our favorite recipes. One is a three bean salad, tanged up with some vinegar. The other is our pomedori e uovi, tomatoes and eggs, one of the best summer recipes.

Three bean salad
1 can (16 oz) chickpeas
1 can  (16 oz) kidney beans
1 can (16 oz) cannelini beans
1 dash red wine vinegar
good glug or two of olive oil
1 chopped onion
dash of dried oregano
2 to 3 basil leaves  de-stemmed and roughly chopped
salt and pepper

Chop onion in food processor until fine.
Mix together beans and onions with the oil, vinegar, oregano, basil and seasonings Chill about two to three hours before serving.

Pomodori e uovi
Butter or margarine for sauteing
six to eight large eggs
four to five sliced vine ripe tomatoes
two cloves garlic finely minced.
salt and pepper
loaf Italian bread

Melt about two to three tablespoons of butter or margarine in a large pan
Beat eggs as if you're scrambling them. Add to pan along with the two cloves of finely minced garlic. Mix in tomatoes until they and the eggs are cooked and form curds. Season. Serve with large slices of Italian bread (although you may need two loaves to sop up the juices)

These were some of my Mom's favorite dishes to make and to eat. We always enjoyed them, especially for her birthday.,

Vegan Food Porn The Best Vegan Cookbook

Mention vegan cuisine and most people will make a face. To them it's a restrictive diet full of blah and bland dishes and desserts.The truth is it really isn't. These days a meatless and dairyless is not only easy to create but downright delicious, thanks to a new cookbook.

Vegan Foodporn :100  Easy and Delicious Recipes (Lotus Publishing 2020) is by vegan Bianca Zapatka who also has a vegan blog has written this entirely delicious book . Vegans will rejoice at the wide and tasty variety along with the new spins and twists on classics. The book starts off with what a vegan kitchen needs.. Ms Zapatka explains why ingredients such as flax and chia seeds are needed and their use There is also an important list of plant based protein sources such as soya and broccoli and lesser known ones as canihua, a cousin of quinoa, and spirulina.There are also list of fresh ingredients with long and short shelf lives. The first chapter is Basics which as recipes for such needed ingredients as vegan mozzarella, vegan mayonnaise along with nut butter and nut milk. (although you could use the commercial brands if you don't have the time to make it yourself). The chapters are divided into Breakfasts Main Meals, Finger Food, Vegan Classics, Light Meals, Cake, and. Dessert. The index contains a grams to cup conversion.

I love this book and plan on making many of the recipes.They truly are amazing!!!! There is a French toast sandwich that looks yummy along with breakfast wraps with vegan egg salad. The French toast rolls made with just white bread , apples and spices is another have to try. There are unusual spins as with the stir fried gnocchis and avocado pasta that is linguine with an avocado sort of pesto. For fun there are the finger foods such as the ever fun potato wedges with guacamole. Pizza lovers will go mad over the pizza toast with vegan mozzarella made just with bread slices. Burrito samosas full of arborio rice, vegan cheese and sweetcorn would be perfect for dinner or a small backyard party.As anyone will tell you go vegan means missing out on the truly tasty such as wings. Yet there's  a good recipe for BBQ cauliflower wings that gets them as crunchy as the real thing with a tangy sweet homemade sauce.  A phenomenal dish would be savory crepes with spinach, guacamole and garlic mushrooms. Dessert lovers will go crazy for such recipes as Black Forest gateau rich with, vegan whipped cream cocoa powder and cherry compote along with strawberry and cream layer cake., made light with mineral water. There is cookie dough  made with the surprising ingredient of chickpeas and Linzer cookies , a take on the classic Linzer torte.

Vegans will rejoice at Vegan Foodporn: 100 Easy and Delicious Recipes. It is packed with great recipes for all sorts of meals from breakfasts to snacks. Get the book and say goodbye to the myth of bland and boring vegan food.

The Ultimate Veggie Burger

We forget the time before Beyond and Impossible Burgers where we had to create our own unique vegan patties. Sometimes they worked, Most times they didn't. However there'a a recipe out there that might outdo every kind of meatless burger - one that combines beans with spices - to create a heady bite. It's the perfect one for these summer days.

Dave Tanis gives us the recipe in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Mr. Tanis, known for his well loved and well copied dishes gives us the ultimate bean burger along with sides and even a dessert! His idea started out not with the luscious vegetarian bites seen on Instagram but a kind of not so pretty one that has the yummy flavor of Mexican refried beans. The beans are emphasized with a mix of cumin, cilantro, scallions, green chiles and pimenton or paprika. Bean burgers have a tendency to fall apart no matter how you cook them yet Mr. Tanis stops this by adding brown rice for body. There's also cornstarch and egg for binding. The patties are then dusted with cornmeal on both sides and pan fried. Could an air fryer be used in this? Maybe.It would get them crisper. He then gilds the lily with a fried egg on top such as they do in Paris bistros. This is called a cheval or on horseback. I would do it a little differently, maybe just adding some salsa or a few avocado slices. His is on a soft potato bun. Again I'd just have mine plain.

As for sides he has a chopped cucumber and tomato salad along with Mexican style jalapeno pickles.  It's not just a mix of cucumbers and tomatoes. Garlic, onions and roasted yellow and orange peppers are added along with celery hearts and queso fresco (or feta if you want a more Middle Eastern vibe, perfect with kebabs) . As for the pickles, just add a chopped one to your pickle recipe.  The dessert is true summer. It's a strawberry coconut ice cream cake with a kick of vodka. This last comes in handy along with the added whipped cream and coconut milk. Mr. Tanis takes advantage of it being strawberry season with two quarts of berries that will be pureed along with granulated sugar, coconut milk, vodka and a pinch of salt. It's then mixed with the whipped cream and poured into either an eight in springform pan or a similar sized Pyrex pie pan.It needs to be frozen for four to six hours until quite firm. Then there's the sauce, also made with the strawberries blended with sugar. It's topped with toasted coconut which has been coated with simple syrup and then baked for ten to fifteen minutes in a 325 degree F oven.

A tasty bean burger can be achieved. Try this spicy recipe for it when you want something homemade and delicious. Serve it with the salad and pickles and then finish it off with that glorious strawberry ice cream cake.

The New Dining Hall Dilemma

Colleges and universities are scrambling around , trying to figure out how to have classes this fall. Many, like Harvard, have cancelled until 2021 or 2022. Yet there are some that will be open.With it comes all sorts of problems, especially in the dining hall. What's to be done? How will students eat in  the new normal that awaits them? There are a few plans set in place.

Jane Black,a well known food writer, wrote this interesting piece for today's New York Times Food section.where students are going to eat in another month is a true concern. Many campus dining halls will be operating at reduced capacity with restrictions set in place. Gone are the salad and make your own taco bars. If the campus keeps the first, it will be limited in ingredients to keep the line moving. Masks and gloves will be mandatory everywhere  Big universities as Rice  in Houston , Texas will have daily temperature checks along with reducing staff. The Bon Appetite Management Company ,a food service firm operating at more than one hundred campuses including Furman University in North Carolina, Portland, Oregon's Reed College , the University of Chicago and M.I.T.  is using robots in the kitchen. They did this before the pandemic, installing automatons at schools across the country. There are Blendid robots that have made smoothies, "Sally" that whips up salads and a so-called pizza ATM that can whip out a hot pie in three minutes.

Yet there are directors of dining services that will try to bring some fun to eating and meal time. Garett DiStefano, , food director at the University of Massachusetts already has two food trucks and mobile kitchen. The last serve student favorites such as burgers and grilled cheese. he plans to expand those menus along with creating additional options like a falafel bar under a tent outdoors. Another campus food service, Sodexo, another food service giant will be offering another form of robot, basically a cooler on wheels. It delivers meals and snacks from such student hangouts as Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. Dorm eating will be popular. Ethan Hodge, an Asian studies major at Furman, stayed at the campus when it closed. its' classes.He couldn't leave because his family is homeless and he had no where to go. His college apartment was the safest place to be for him. He and roughly eighty other students picked up prepared food at the dining hall. as the student population dwindled , there was reheatable and prepared meals. They also ordered groceries on line so they could cook their own meals.

This fall will be interesting as campus scramble to open. The dining situation will have varied ones. Will they work? Hopefully so.

Salsa Crudo A Summer Favorite Returns

One of my favorite summer time dishes is salsa crudo with rotelli pasta. I took the recipe from the blog A Sweet And Savory Life. and added some of my own twists. The basil is fresh from my pots in the yard and I also added a good dash of powdered garlic.

The tomatoes came from Target and Stop & Shop.I used six.

Six will give you the pound and a half required. They were coarsely chopped and added to a quarter cup of coarsely chopped fresh basil.

Then a good sprinkling of garlic powder and six tablespoons of  Filippo Berrio olive oil.

As for the pasta I used  Banza chickpea rotelli and cooked it for seven minutes.It has a slight chickpea flavor yet still as flavorful as ones made with white flour.

It's then draining the pasta and adding the raw sauce to it.

It was really delicious and the perfect summer dinner. It's one of my favorites to make and to eat.

You can use any kind of pasta but make sure it's the shaped kind like rotelli and fusilli along with shells. They hold the tomato chunks well.

If you want an easy and tasty summer meal, then make salsa cruda.It's a cinch to create , and the perfect way of using good for you summer produce. Try this delicious dish when the temps rise.