Last week Joe and I went on a little vacation to Minnesota with some friends (Todd, Gage, Robert, & Joshua), Todd and Joshua are brothers who have a family house set on beautiful Lake Ossawinnamakee, where the water is clear! We spent most of our time on the pontoon boat floating around playing games and enjoying treats; when we were off the boat you would most likely find us cooking around the fire or up in the cabin kitchen.  All of us happen to really enjoy cooking, so there was no shortage of good ideas for tasty meals.

One of my favorite parts of the whole trip was cooking with the “camp cooker” over the fire.  The camp cooker is essentially and iron sandwich press that is suitable for cooking in a camp fire.  Before going up there, Todd mentioned that we would be using this device to cook little apple pies, one of his favorite ways to use it- and that we did! It was our first item cooked on the fire.  In the cabin we cooked up some spiced apples and pears and with bread & butter headed down to the fire to crisp up our pies. Sadly there are no photos of these delicious apple pockets. Luckily this cooking method was so much fun that we used it a few more times in varying ways.

A couple mornings later it was time for our next Camp Cooker treat- breakfast style.  To make our breakfast sandwich we used a dozen eggs, 2 Field Roast grain meat sausage links (Mexican chipotle flavor), mushrooms, red and green peppers in between a mix of wheat and white bread for each sandwich (because that’s what we had). I have to say it was definitely one of the most satisfying breakfast sandwiches I have ever had- and there’s a lot to compare to! Here is how we did it:

Here in Chicago there’s no problem finding fake meat products.  There’s a good chance the corner store carries tofu dogs or something related.  But in central Minnesota where the population of all near towns just barely top 200… even the large grocers don’t have many options in the way of imitation meat. They all seem to carry Morning Star but it was quite challenging to find tofu dogs or anything that we might be able to put on a stick to roast just like the carnivores do. The reason I mention any of this is because if we had not been on such a quest to find Smart Dogs, we would have never come across this fake sausage which we used in our Camp Cooker breakfast sandwiches.  Just as we were about to head back to the cabin, after a long drive and several stops in search of meatless dogs, we spotted a store called Crow Wing Food Co-Op.  It was a great little shop full of all things natural and organic, we found more than enough options here. Definitely somewhere I’d go more often if it wasn’t a ten hour drive away!

Preparing the filling was easy and straight forward.  We first chopped up our peppers and mushrooms, then unwrapped the soy sausage links from their plastic casing and crumbled them into a cast iron skillet. Fry until peppers are cooked they way you like it and the soy pieces are warm enough. Scramble the eggs. Keep covered and head towards the fire with the filling, butter, and bread.

Heat your camp cooker up, this will help clean it and will warm it up so the butter will melt and evenly coat the two sides. Once you remove it from the heat allow it just a moment to cool so your butter doesn’t immediately burn. It’ll still be very hot so use caution as you add the butter.  Place it on an appropriate surface (not plastic or dirt) and put one slice of bread on each side. Get ready to fill!

It doesn’t really matter the order of which you add your filling, but we decided to put the sausage pepper mixture on first and then we added our eggs. The second time we made these we combined all of the ingredients into one mixture.

To complete the filling we topped it with some sliced Swiss cheese and closed up the camp cooker.  It’s now ready to cook!

The cooking time will vary depending on how hot your fire is and how close you hold it to the heat.  We found the best results by holding it just above the coals turning it from side to side often in order to avoid burning the bread. The faster you cook it the better your chances are of having a burnt sandwich. Take an extra moment to hold it over the heat, with constant flipping you’ll end up with a nice golden crispy sandwich with a steamy filling. You can check the progress as it’s cooking by carefully peeking at it.

With a small amount of preparation we were able to make several breakfast sandwiches that were most excellent. It was amazing to be able to cook them in the sun on a fire within feet from such a clear lake. It’s not often that we allow ourselves time like this- something so simple and so necessary really reminds me how important it is to take a break from the usual!

Over winter Joe and I fell in love with kale.  Because it is more of a cooler climate crop it was easy to find and very inexpensive in the fall/winter months.  Kale has become a little harder for us to find as spring has been approaching, meaning it’s not always at our local produce markets.  So what we have been doing is grabbing several bunches of it every time it’s available and freezing whatever we can’t use fresh.  We cut and prepare the kale in pieces (remove the stem), blanch it for a minute or two, cool it down quickly with cold water and/or ice cubes and let it air dry. Shove it in a baggy to freeze.  It becomes surprisingly condensed as well when you squeeze air our of the bag. The first time we did this I was worried that it would all stick together and be difficult to use later, but that wasn’t a problem at all.  All of the pieces pulled apart without struggle.  Using it once frozen is practically like using it fresh, except all of the work of cutting it up has already been done!  Yesss! Do it!

One of our favorite things to do with it is to make kale smoothies.  I know it’s not unheard of, but people who have not tried it before might scoff at it thinking it would taste gross.  It’s actually extremely delicious and anything but gross.   To start, the color of it is an amazing and bright green, & who doesn’t like ingesting beautifully healthy food?

We make the basic kale smoothie with a few simple ingredients :: kale, banana, orange juice, & flax seed.

We use about 2 cups of kale, 1 cup of orange juice, a tablespoon of flax seeds, and 1 banana per smoothie.  Add a bit of honey for sweetness and a heaping teaspoon of nutritional yeast for an extra boost of nutrients.  Adding nutritional yeast to the smoothie does give it a bit of the flavor which I don’t mind, but it doesn’t necessarily make it taste better. (I think Joe would prefer to leave it out ;)

Instructions :: blend all of the ingredients together. Add more orange juice if you like it thinner. We use our Magic Bullet which was an awesome gift given to me by my buddy Dave a few years ago — thanks Dave!  Still using it regularly, it’s a great little tool for smoothies and sauces, but a regular old blender would do the trick just fine ;)  I don’t think the Magic Bullet airs infomercials anymore, but I’m sure many of you remember them — “it’s as easy as ooooone, twooooo, threeee” as if it has magically made your meal. Extend the twooo about another hundred oo’s.  Also, it suggests you can make a lovely diced pico de gallo; not true. This thing pulverizes everything and dices nothing, which is fine with me because I don’t know how to pulverize with a knife!  Plus I love to dice my own vegetables. It’s perfect and extremely convenient for smoothies, dips, and sauces.  It’s super easy to use and clean — I love it and use it often!

As usual we make a lot of variations of this smoothie, you can add just about any fruit to the mix. Frozen blueberries are one of our favorite fruits to include — it’s delicious but turns the beautiful green into a drab grayish purple….  mmmm purple!

Our never-ending quest for health has brought us to the young coconut. For the past six months, we have been doing Kundalini Yoga via DVD with Ana Brett and Ravi Singh. After falling in love with Kundalini and Ana and Ravi’s teachings, we wanted to further explore how these two yogis live their dietary lives. As it turns out, they eat a vegetarian and raw food diet including daily young coconut smoothies (no word as of yet on their opinions of onions). We’ve got the vegetarian thing down, but we’re trying to become better raw foodies. So we figured the young coconut was a perfect place to begin our foray into the raw world.

A young coconut smoothie is simple to make and it tastes absolutely delicious. Added bonus, this thing is great for your health. Young coconuts contain the good kind of fats, are pretty low in calories, and are cholesterol-free. The water in young coconuts is a natural isotonic beverage with electrolytes, and in addition to being completely sterile inside the nut, it’s of similar make-up as human plasma. During the Pacific War, both sides used young coconut water in blood transfusions for wounded soldiers. This stuff is incredibly good for you. It’s a natural energy drink!

However, there is some “green” controversy with young coconuts. Many of the young coconuts you might find at your grocery store aren’t organic and come from Thailand. Pesticides are used in their farming and usually the young coconuts are given a fungicide dip before exporting. This is to ward off bacteria during shipment. And then there’s the shipment. Young coconuts are relatively heavy and think about how much energy it takes to ship them to your grocery store; ultimately, if you’re concerned deeply with sustainability you might want to do further research into the brand of young coconuts you use and decide if they’re right for you. You can get organic young coconuts, but at a higher price.

So what do you need for the smoothie? Here are the ingredients to make two coconut-banana smoothies:

1 young coconut
2 bananas

Pretty straightforward. But maybe you’re looking at your young coconut and thinking to yourself, “How the heck do I get this thing open?” We’re here to help.

We’re going to assume you’re right-handed but for all you southpaws out there just reverse the directions (you’re probably used to this by now). Hold the coconut on its side with the top pointing to the right on your cutting board. Use a large kitchen knife to begin shaving off the white fibrous “wood;” go all around the coconut and shave it down until you begin to see the brown shell underneath.

Once you see the shell, position the coconut upright on your cutting board.  See the sharp, square edge at the bottom of your knife closest to the handle? You’re going to use this to puncture the shell. It’s really not as hard as you think. You’ll have to do this swiftly and with some force if you want to crack the nut. It may take you a couple of times initially to figure out the force, but once you figure it out it will become easy. Give the coconut three or four punctures, providing a slit big enough to ease your knife into. You’ll probably splash a little coconut water on yourself during this step.

Be careful with this step. Hold the coconut closer to the bottom of its shell so you don’t injure yourself. Slide the knife into the slit you made and carefully slice the coconut’s top off in a circle pattern. We find it best to slide the knife toward your body to get better leverage, but you really need to take this slowly.

Once you’ve got the top off you’ll notice the coconut is filled with water. It may have some shell chips in it so you’ll need to strain it. We find it easiest to put a wire colander over a bowl and strain it that way; do whatever seems easiest to you. Try not to spill any water – it’s too delicious to waste.

Next you’ll want to scoop all the white meat out from the inside. We find it best to use a mellon baller. Make sure to get all the meat out and don’t be lazy about it. You paid $2-$3 for this young coconut and you’ll want to get your money’s worth. Also, don’t forget the meat from the top of the coconut that you cut off. When scooping the meat out, you may get shell bits on the meat; remove all these fibrous particles or else you’ll be picking them out of your teeth later.

Now that you’ve got the water and the meat all removed, put these ingredients into your blender. Next, peel two bananas and cut them up into smaller parts for easier blending. Put the top on and blend! Depending on the quality of the coconut meat, blending time may fluctuate. You’re looking to achieve a well-blended, frothy mixture. Sometimes, depending on the coconut, the consistency will be thicker or thinner. Sometimes you may have coconut meat chunks that just won’t blend. Just keep making these smoothies and you’ll figure out your own method for making the perfect coconut-banana smoothie.

Once you’ve got the frothy mixture in your blender, pour into two glasses and serve. We try to drink these everyday for breakfast. They’re a great way to start your day. Enjoy!

Huevos Rancheros can be served in many different forms. It seems as though every restaurant has their own way of preparing essentially the same meal.  This is because there are many ways to make this concept delicious! The staple ingredients of Huevos Rancheros include tortilla, eggs, sauce/salsa, avocado and beans. Joe and I make this meal frequently and have about 4 or 5 different “preferred” ways to do it. This particular style is referred to “huevos rancheros, B-style” or “huevos rancher-B’s”  (soon to come- Huevos Rancher-Joe’s and Eggs Arhar Daal).

B- style rancheros require crispy corn tostadas to be stacked vertically. We use 2 fried eggs, shredded cheese (usually cheddar), homemade salsa, avocado, black beans & spinach.   If you didn’t make your own salsa use another delicious salsa and add some diced tomatoes to freshen it up.

Ingredients : Tostadas, black beans, spinach, 2 eggs, salsa, cheese, avocado,

Begin with preparing your black beans. Drain one can of beans and add frozen or fresh spinach, warm up. Spinach is good for you, add as much as you’d like.  We also like to add a bit of cayenne pepper or black pepper, cumin, and a dash of cinnamon for some extra spice.   Other ingredients to consider are mushrooms, corn, artichoke hearts, and edamame.

Next get your plate ready with one tostada and some cheese on it.   Begin frying your eggs (we fry four at once for two dishes), once eggs are flipped put your first layer of beans & spinach on the tostada.  Place one egg on the first layer of beans.   Add another tostada and repeat with another layer of beans, the 2nd egg and another sprinkle of cheese.  Top it off with some salsa and avocado.  Serve with a glass of orange juice and eat with a fork & knife… or if you’re like me you prefer a Spork for almost everything.