Camp Stories: A Prescription for Peace of Mind

Feeling overwhelmed at work? The insanity of current politics stressing you out? Can't handle the barrage of social media a minute longer?

The Rx I'm recommending won't be found in a pill or a bottle, or by turning off the lights and pulling the covers over your head. I'm not even advising you to shut down your computer and turn off your devices.

Simply go where none of those screens will work, where your coworkers can't find you, where there's no news but the sun transiting your campsite, the trees shifting in the breeze and the sound of a creek chattering in the background.

For years we've been avoiding the war zone that erupts in the city over the Fourth of July by heading to a small national forest campground where fireworks and nighttime noise are strictly verboten, where our dogs don't need to be drugged and we can sleep in the dead quiet of a night so dark you can't see your hand waving in front of your face. But the real benefit, one we appreciated even more in this seemingly daily onslaught of "can you top this" craziness on the national political scene, is the peace, the quiet, the lack of demand for our attention other than cooking meals, washing dishes and the occasional call to sit by the creek and read a book.

Imagine that!

This year we managed to reserve a prime creek-side campsite at one of our favorite campgrounds, the aptly named Paradise Creek in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest just north of Carson, Washington. Small at just 42 sites and basic—vault toilets, dirt sites and a handled pump for water—it discourages large RVs and provides a modicum of simple activities like biking around the campground, playing in the creek and a few hikes nearby.

I'd made and frozen a batch of my Coney Island sauce and picked up some smoked dogs from Old Salt Marketplace, and then froze a pot of pork shoulder braised in tomatillo salsa—freezing as much as possible helps keep things cold as well as saves room in the ice chest—that we could warm up for dinners. A couple of steaks, Dave's scone mix to stir up and bake, breakfast and lunch fixin's and cocktail makings and we were set for our four-night stay.

Our neighbors Chad and Ann joined us for the second day, bringing their dogs and what turned out to be a spectacular camp dinner of shrimp, andouille sausage, corn and potatoes cooked in foil packets on the campfire coals (left and top photo). This is one I'll be making again here at home, since it's perfect for cooking on charcoal in the Weber. With a salad on the side and an ice-cold glass of rosé to sip, it's the definition of summer.

Good food, good drink, good friends, the basic necessities of life and a beautiful setting; it's a prescription for a good, stress-free life. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Shrimp, Andouille Sausage and Corn Campfire Packets
Adapted from Creme de la Crumb

1 lb. potatoes, cut into 1" cubes
2 ears sweet corn
1/2 lb. andouille sausage, sliced into 1/4" rounds
1 1/2 lbs. shrimp
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
3 Tbsp. olive oil
3 Tbsp. Old Bay seasoning (or make your own)
1 Tbsp. salt
Lemon wedges

Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil. Add potatoes and parboil 5 minutes. Drain.

Shuck the ears of corn and slice each one crosswise into four rounds. Stand each round on end and slice in half lengthwise. In large mixing bowl combine potatoes, corn, sausage and shrimp with garlic, olive oil, paprika, Old Bay seasoning and salt.

Cut four 12" squares (or so) of aluminum foil. Divide the shrimp mixture into quarters, putting each on a piece of foil (you can redistribute the number of ingredients in each packet to even them out). Seal the packets and place on coals. Cook for 10 minutes, turn them over and cook another 5-6 minutes. Take one packet out and test for doneness. Serve one packet per person with lemon wedges for squeezing over the top.

Find more great campground and recipe suggestions in the Camp Stories series.

Collards in Salsa Verde? Why Not?

Contributor Jim Dixon of Real Good Food is one of those natural cooks, not restricted to must-dos and must-haves of recipes and unafraid to stray from traditional preparations. No parsley when he wanted to make salsa verde? No problem! He just headed out into his garden.

The cold weather last month trashed my herb garden, so when I wanted to make a last-minute salsa verde for some halibut the only plants showing any green were the sage and rosemary. But my collard greens had survived the freeze, and I thought they might work as a substitute for parsley. I clipped off a few leaves and came up with this.

Collard Green Salsa Verde

Get some water boiling, add a large pinch of salt, and drop in 3 or 4 collard leaves (if you’ve got some winter collards in your garden, you may need more of the smallish leaves). Cook for a about 5 minutes, then lift out and let cool. Squeeze out as much water as you can, then chop into very small pieces (you could use a food processor, but I prefer the texture of hand-cut salsa verde). You should have a cup or more; put the finely chopped greens in a bowl.

Rinse and soak a tablespoon of Pantellerian salt-packed capers*; coarsely chop and add to the greens. Do the same, although maybe dice smaller, to a couple of garlic cloves. I had a lemon, so I added some zest and juice along with plenty of extra virgin olive oil (roughly twice as much oil as lemon juice; use good vinegar if you don’t have a lemon). Add a nice pinch of Pantellerian oregano*, mix well and taste for salt. Serve with fish, pork, eggs, vegetables or almost anything.

* Store-bought capers and dried oregano will substitute for the amazing Pantellerian varieties that Jim carries at Real Good Food, though the flavor will be slightly different.

Grill It. Grill It Good.

If it has to do with the grill and the garden, you can bet that contributor Jim Dixon of RealGoodFood will be all over it. And I love his mention of the edible herbs that may be growing in a neighbor's yard, though of course I'd always encourage you to ask first before gathering…or "liberating" as it was called in more, shall we say, revolutionary times.

Salsa Verde

Just about any fresh herb or mix of herbs chopped with some olive oil and some combination of garlic, shallot, onion, anchovy, capers, hard-boiled egg, vinegar or lemon (juice and zest) can be called salsa verde and be delicious. And the long-awaited sun called for firing up the Weber for some grilled protein.

After arranging some skirt steak and tuna over the coals, I chopped together French sorrel and mint from my garden, a few Egyptian onions from last year—dried out a bit but intensely flavorful—salt-packed capers, anchovy and a hard-boiled egg, then stirred in a few glugs of extra virgin olive oil and splash of Katz late harvest sauvignon blanc vinegar.

We spooned the salsa verde over the beef and fish, but it’d be good over just about anything. If you don’t have herbs growing in your yard (or a neighbor’s), buy some flat leaf parsley and a couple of other herbs from the farmers' market or New Seasons and make a batch now.

Necessity is the Mother

When we were on vacation recently we got an emergency call from our son, who was housesitting and taking care of our dogs. And just like when the phone rings in the middle of the night, worst case scenarios flashed across my mind.

Fire? Death? Destruction?

"I'm running out of room for all the tomatoes. I'm on my fourth trip out to the garden and haven't even started on the cherries yet."

After heaving a sigh of relief, I asked if he'd want to make sauce from them. I assured him all he had to do was roughly chop them, throw them in a really big pot, turn on the heat, then stir them every couple of hours as they simmer. Then cool and bag. Which he did. Twice!

When we got home a few days later, of course, there were more tomatoes still, so I came up with a recipe for a salsa verde made with green zebra tomatoes. Whether for simmering chicken thighs, sauce for steak tacos or making enchiladas, I think it's a winner.

Roasted Green Zebra Salsa Verde

1 lb. green zebra tomatoes (6-8)
1/2 yellow onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 ancho chiles
1/4 c. cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.

Roast tomatoes by halving and placing cut face up in roasting pan. Place in oven and roast for 45 minutes or until the tomatoes start to shrivel and brown on the edges.

While tomatoes roast, take chiles and place over flame on burner of gas stovetop. Allow skins to blacken, turning to blister evenly. When mostly blackened, place in paper bag and close it, allowing them to steam for ten minutes. Remove from bag and wipe off blackened skin by hand or with towel. Remove stem and seeds.

Place roasted tomatoes, chiles and remaining ingredients (except salt) in bowl of food processor. Process until smooth. Salt to taste.

A Monster a Mother Could Love

It must have been the feeling that Dr. Frankenstein had when he first imagined making life. Unfortunately his creation was made from the stitched-together parts of dead bodies and he, like Prometheus mentioned in the subtitle to Mary Shelley's novel, was punished for his affront to the deity.

My creation, much less gruesome, much more tasty, was stitched together from two different recipes and would, with luck, only please any deity that checked in from on high.

I was pining for posole and its rich, corny flavor again, but this time I wanted to make it using a verde sauce rather than the posole rojo I'd done before. Then I remembered an easy tomatillo sauce that had absolutely killed in some enchiladas verde I made last year. Plus I had some leftover roasted tomatillos in the freezer that I could tell were reaching their "use by" date.

The result? Rave reviews from angels, archangels and prophets (i.e. our friends and neighbors). This would be fantastic topped with crema or sour cream, sprinkled with cilantro and served with tortillas and rice, or spooned into tacos with the same, and it would freeze well, too. So make plenty. You never know when a hungry deity or two might be passing by.

Posole Verde

For the posole:
12 oz. dried posole or hominy
Salt to taste
3-4 lbs. pork shoulder cut in 1 1/2" cubes
Juice of 1 lime

For the roasted tomatillo chile salsa:
1 lb. tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 yellow onion, peeled, sliced and quartered
4 garlic cloves
2 ancho chiles, roasted, skins removed, stemmed and seeded
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt (plus more to taste)
1/2 c. chopped cilantro leaves
1 lime, juiced
Additional cilantro and lime wedges for serving at the table

Put dried posole into non-reactive bowl or Dutch oven and cover with water. Soak overnight. Drain posole and put back in Dutch oven in enough salted water to cover. Bring to boil and simmer for at least 2 hours until softened.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. On a baking tray, roast tomatillos, quartered onion and garlic for 15 minutes. Transfer the roasted vegetables and any juices on the bottom of the tray to a food processor. Add the roasted chiles, cumin, salt, cilantro, and lime juice and pulse mixture until well combined but still a little chunky. Add more salt to taste.

Add meat and tomatillo sauce to cooked hominy in Dutch oven and stir to combine, adding more water if needed. Bring to a boil on the stove, then lower heat and simmer for 1 1/2-2 hours or until meat can be mashed with a wooden spoon. Stir in lime juice and serve with rice and tortillas.

Truly Verde Enchiladas

Apologies to Al Gore, but reducing your carbon footprint is so last year. Anyone who's been even vaguely listening in the last few months is hearing the growing chorus of voices from the likes of Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver and, most recently, New York Times columnist Mark Bittman about bringing green to the table. And they're not just talking parsley.

The chicken mixture with extra roasted tomatillos (at top in photo) for a future batch!

Even Monsanto is trying to (falsely) jump on the bandwagon with a new tagline that trumpets the giant agrichemical, GMO-promoting corporation as "committed to sustainable agriculture." Though I almost threw an (organically grown) tomato at the radio when I heard that on NPR's business show, Marketplace, yesterday. (Don't they vet those sponsor taglines for accuracy?)

But I digress. The point of this post is to share a recipe for chicken verde enchiladas that I stitched together, Frankenstein-like, from a recipe from my brother's friend Shauneen (about 75%), a recent batch of tomatillo salsa from Mark Bittman (15%) and my own messing around (10%, if that).

Assembled and ready to go in the oven.

And yes, nearly all of the ingredients are organically grown (though not necessary certified). The brilliant thing about Shauneen's recipe was that it called for a roasted deli chicken instead of a) roasting it just for this recipe, way too much trouble for me, and b) using leftovers, still a good idea but we often don't have enough remaining.

To make it Dave-safe, I used extra-sharp cheddar (a serious transgression, I know, but fake cheese is worse) and tofu sour cream (from Tofutti, my fave fake product) for garnish. Otherwise, like I said, totally green!

Chicken Verde Enchiladas
From a variety of sources (see above)

For the roasted tomatillo chile salsa:
1 lb. tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 yellow onion, peeled, sliced and quartered
4 garlic cloves
2 ancho chiles, roasted, skins removed, stemmed and seeded
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt (plus more to taste)
1/2 c. chopped cilantro leaves
1 lime, juiced

For the enchiladas:
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 med. onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
2 c. chicken stock
1 roasted chicken (from the deli, about 3 pounds), boned, meat shredded
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
10 lg. (approx. 8" diam.) flour tortillas
1/2 lb. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
2 c. sour cream
Chopped tomatoes and cilantro leaves, for garnish
Guacamole, optional

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. On a baking tray, roast tomatillos, quartered onion and garlic for 15 minutes. Transfer the roasted vegetables and any juices on the bottom of the tray to a food processor. Add the roasted chiles, cumin, salt, cilantro, and lime juice and pulse mixture until well combined but still a little chunky. Add more salt to taste.

Meanwhile heat the vegetable oil in a large, deep frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and caramelized, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cumin then cook for a further minute. Sprinkle on the flour and stir to ensure the flour doesn't burn, then very gradually add the chicken stock to make a veloute. Continue stirring over a low simmer until the flour cooks and the liquid thickens. Turn off the heat, add half of the roasted tomatillo chile salsa and fold in the shredded chicken meat. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Lower the temperature of the oven to 350° and begin assembling the dish. Take a 9" by 12" baking dish and smear the bottom with some of the reserved tomatillo salsa. Take the flour tortillas and coat each tortilla lightly with the reserved salsa mix. Put a scoop of the shredded chicken-enchilada mix on top of the tortilla followed by a sprinkle of the shredded cheese. Fold the tortilla over the filling and roll like a cigar to enclose it. Line up the tortillas in the baking dish and continue to do the same with all the tortillas. Finally pour over the remaining salsa, spread evenly and top with the remaining shredded cheese. Bake uncovered for about 30-45 minutes until bubbly and cracked on top. Garnish with cilantro and tomato.

Serve hot with sour cream and fresh guacamole, if desired. (Chipotle sauce also adds a nice smokiness.)