Grilled Campfire Vegetables Tweetcipe

Recently I had the pleasure of talking with a river guide as we hiked through a slot canyon in the Big Bend Ranch State Park. As is my habit, I asked Erica about the food that is served on the overnight rafting trips, particularly the trips that are packaged with a gourmet chef and wine tastings. She described a wonderful array of food that is prepared raw, on the grill and in the cast iron dutch oven. She also mentioned that sometimes the vegetables get short shrift, almost as if they were an afterthought, giving way to the wine, cheese, bread, meat and dessert. Just for fun I put the following grill-friendly vegetable recipes together for her, in case they’d like to jazz up the vegetables, too.

Carrots and Asparagus

Carrots (cut on the bias) and asparagus spears are great travel-friendly vegetables and lend themselves to quick and easy campfire recipes. Here are a few ideas (all ingredient amounts should be to your personal taste):

Wrap cleaned asparagus and/or carrots in foil with butter, salt, pepper, and the zest of an organic lemon. Set the foil packet over the fire to roast – about 15 minutes for asparagus and 25 minutes for carrots. Alternative: Substitute a little brown sugar for the lemon zest.

Asparagus only: Using either of the above recipes, set the packet over the fire just until the butter has melted – about 2 minutes. Turn the packet upside down with tongs to spread the butter over the asparagus. Now open the packet carefully (reserve the butter mixture in the packet) and grill the spears about 90 seconds. Turn the asparagus and grill for another 90 seconds. Place the asparagus spears back in the packet, seal it, set aside and the asparagus will finish cooking. If the spears are thick, then set the packet over indirect heat for 6-8 minutes.

Asparagus appetizer or side dish:

Wrap a single spear (for appetizer) or several spears (for a side dish) in a thin slice of prosciutto. Sprinkle with pepper and a favorite herb (fresh thyme, herbs de provence, smoked paprika) and seal them in a foil packet. Set the foil packet over the fire to roast for about 15 minutes.

Optional garlic dipping sauce that can be made in advance and kept cool:

2 cups mayonnaise
1 1/3 cup plain yogurt
6 cloves garlic, pressed
4 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 T fresh dill, minced

Grilled Radicchio & Scallions

Cut a head of radicchio into quarters, keeping core intact. Drizzle olive oil on radicchio and whole scallions. Grill radicchio for 2 minutes on each cut side. Grill whole scallions until marked. Slice radicchio into thick shreds, cut scallions into large pieces and mix. Sprinkle salad with balsamic vinegar, more good quality olive oil, salt and pepper.

Stick To Short List of Ingredients for Good Health

Wouldn’t it be great if all our food came straight from the community garden, local rancher, and our own kitchen?

I love carrots, tomatoes and cantaloupe right out of the garden and I rarely have the patience to let a loaf of fresh, homemade wheat bread cool before I cut off a chunk (especially if there are sunflower seeds inside!). From treating myelf to fresh feta cheese from the local dairy farm to buying local honey (many believe honey helps alleviate allergies), I love to haunt local CSAs and farmer’s markets.

But let’s get real.

Home cooking with local organic ingredients might be the healthiest way to eat, but few of us have the time or inclination to prepare three meals a day from scratch. Homemade bread is wonderful, but even with a bread maker machine, it is time consuming. Even grocery shopping can be labor intensive if you have to go to more than one store or market to find all of the in-season ingredients for more than a few dishes. Inevitably, given the fast paced, I-want-it-now society we live in, we need the convenience of grocery stores and prepared foods to feed our families. After all, one of the benefits of modernization is that we can follow our dreams and not always have to focus every moment on hunting and gathering. I’m grateful for some shortcuts after a long day, and I search them out at the market.

In most markets, the selection of prepared foods is overwhelming, and both the quality and nutritional value of similar foods vary widely. A rule of thumb is that if a food item is in any container other than its own nature-made rind or skin, I read the label. So if there is shrink-wrap, Styrofoam, a can, or a box, then there are probably additional ingredients and processing I want to know about. For example, pre-made flour tortillas could have between four and forty ingredients on the label, depending on where they are made. Some manufacturers use hydrogenated soybean oil, sodium metabisulfite, distilled monoglycerides… What is that anyway? (They are mostly preservatives and stabilizers, but those ingredients sure don’t sound like something I want to eat.)

So let’s eat real food.

Reading labels can be frustrating and takes a bit of extra time, so sometimes it is easier to look at the length of the ingredient list. If the list has more than a handful of ingredients, I just put it back on the shelf and keep moving. Remember to look in the refrigerated sections of the store since the products with fewer ingredients don’t contain as many preservatives and must often be chilled to remain fresh. Flour tortillas made simply from flour, salt, oil, and water (and sometimes a wonderful little squirt of lime) are often available with the cheese and deli items.

Using prepared foods that were made from simple, quality, pronounceable, and recognizable ingredients will make dinner preparation quick and healthy.

Until next time, eat well!