The following recipes are three of my all-time favorite camping dishes. They are easy to prepare and are cooked with very few kitchen utensils. All three recipes are for two people, but you can scale them up when feeding larger groups.
The first recipe is for breakfast. I like to do a skillet breakfast. It’s very simple to make and to serve. If you wanted to, you could eat it right from the skillet. I’ve done that many times when I’m camping by myself. The recipe uses wild mushrooms, when available, although you can substitute store-bought ’shrooms. The second dish uses not just wild mushrooms, but elk filets, which are available online if you don’t know an elk hunter, but you could substitute beef filet mignon. This is an entree with a simple side dish of complementary ingredients, and everything is cooked on the grill. Just thinking about it is making my mouth water. The third dish is a little exotic, and not the kind of thing I usually write about, but it has become my favorite to make while I am at the cabin or camping.
Wild Mushroom Skillet
In the spring, I often search for wild morel mushrooms. I am not a mushroom expert, and like small mountain trout streams, wild mushrooms can’t stand a lot of people loving them, so I don’t boast about my bounties too often. When you run into a grove of morels, the temptation is to pick as many as you can without them going bad, but I usually just take what I need. You sometimes can find them, as well as chanterelles and other wild varieties, in grocery stores and specialty markets, in season. I like using them in recipes that usualy call for white button or brown cremini mushrooms, though of course you can substitute those or portobellos if you need to.
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
4 medium Yukon gold potatoes cut into approximately halfinch chunks
1 small white onion, minced
4 oz. Wild Pig Breakfast Sausage (Jimmy Dean’s Breakfast Sausage Sage is a close second)
2 cups wild morels and chanterelles (or portobellos), sliced
4 eggs, scrambled
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
Beverage: Whatever you prefer when having a camp breakfast.
Elk Filet With Wild Mushrooms and Asparagus Tips
Agood filet cooked on a grill speaks for itself, but accompanying it with a savory side dish makes the meal a dialogue of flavors — especially if you’re steaming wild mushrooms, asparagus tips, a shallot, and garlic together in butter in foil on the grill.
Pam Cooking Spray
2 cups morels and chanterelles (or portobellos), sliced
10 tips of asparagus stalks 1 shallot, minced
4 cloves garlic, sliced
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tsp. Norton’s Nature Seasoning
2 6-oz. elk filets (or beef filet mignon)
Beverage: Zinfandel
On a cutting board, lay out a sheet of aluminum foil approximately 18 by 12 inches. Spray it with Pam Cooking Spray and place the asparagus tips, wild mushrooms, minced shallot, sliced garlic, and unsalted butter in the middle of the foil. Fold up the foil so it is tight. Place it on hot grill or barbeque for approximately fifteen minutes. To prepare the steak, I lightly season the filets on both sides with the Norton’s Nature Seasoning. I then grill the filets so they are medium rare or to someone’s liking. Serve the filets with liquid from the accompanying mushrooms and asparagus as a sauce.
Tuna Poke Salad
My neighbor in Willows, Randy Ladd, is always giving me saltwater fish filets. He goes to San Diego three or four times a year and always comes home with hundreds of pounds of fish. His wife doesn’t eat fish, so my freezer becomes the overflow catch-all. In fact, I know where the key is for his back garage door to get into his freezer at any time for more fish. This dish comes together with poke sauce and the sesame-seed crusted ahi tuna. I serve it on a salad of mixed greens with crunchy chow mein noodles.
Tuna Poke Sauce
1/2 small sweet onion, finely minced (about 6 Tbsp.)
4 green onions, thinly sliced 6 Tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce 2 Tbsp. mirin
1 Tbsp. sesame seed oil
2 Tbsp. lime juice 1 Tbsp. honey
4 Tbsp. water Sea salt to taste
Seared Ahi
2 6-oz. sushi-grade ahi steaks
6 Tbsp. black and white sesame seeds
1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil (my choice is Calivirgin Cold Pressed)
Salad
Lettuce
1 bag spring mix
16 to 20 cherry tomatoes
1 avocado
Can of La Choy (or similar) chow mein noodles
Beverage: Oregon Pinot Noir
In a bowl, make the poke sauce. Combine the lime juice, honey, mirin, sesame seed oil, and sea salt and stir until smooth. Add water to reach the consistency you prefer. I like my sauce thick, so I usually add four tablespoons of water. Let it chill on ice.
For the ahi, I use what Randy brings me. If you buy it in the store, you need to get sushi grade ahi. Cover the ahi with sesame seeds. I like using a combination of black and white sesame. In a frying pan, add a tablespoon of olive oil and sear the ahi on all sides. Then let it chill, too.
In a large bowl, combine lettuce and the spring mix. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and mix well, but hold back a couple of tablespoons of sauce to drizzle over the ahi, cherry tomatoes, and avocado after plating.
I slice the ahi very thin, about an eighth of an inch, and serve one filet for each diner. I make a bed of poke-covered salad and on top I add crunchy chow mein noodles, then the sliced ahi. On the side of each plate, I place a sliced avocado half and eight or ten halved cherry tomatoes.
The Evergreen Market
In the Dixie Fire last year, many homes and businesses were destroyed, and many of the people who lived and worked in the area devastated by the fire will never return. I drive to my family cabin on the west shore of Lake Almanor and thank the man upstairs for sparing it.

There wasn’t much that was saved in the little town of Greenville. The intimate historical downtown was wiped off the map — only the streets themselves survived. After repairing heavy fire damage, though, the Evergreen Market has reopened and is the life blood for the residents who still remain in the area.
Even before the fire, the Evergreen Market was where folks from all around there got their groceries. This is a full service mountain grocery store, with everything from fresh veggies to a meat department that will process wild game such as deer. I have memories of this store back in the early eighties, rolling up in my dad’s old 1971 Suburban in the summer. Air-conditioning made the store an oasis. The deli serves a great sandwich, salads, and daily soups. Everything is handmade. They cook the bread fresh, slice the meat and cheese to order, and customize your sandwich or salad to your liking. Kirsten and I have never had their salads or soups, but I would bet they’re as good as their sandwiches, which are fantastic. Their sandwiches are nine bucks — two bucks more if you want to add extra meat or avocado. You have the choice of six different breads, seven different lunchmeats, six different cheeses, five different veggies, and four different condiments — or “slatherin’s,” as Evergreen Market calls them. You can even get horseradish on your sandwich. These sandwiches rival the sandwiches my wife makes for our guided trips. Folks who have been fishing with me will perk up at that.
Kirsten’s favorite is the roast beef with provolone on a sourdough hoagie roll. She adds the extra meat for two dollars, and she wants mayonnaise and horseradish with all the veggies except pepperoncini. I always order the turkey breast with Swiss cheese on a white hoagie roll. It is a feast. I mark the box on the order sheet for extra meat. For the slatherin’s, I get mayonnaise and spicey brown mustard with lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, and dill pickle. The sandwiches are 10 inches long by 4 inches wide by 4 inches tall, and they are a treat. Half a sandwich is often all I can eat. I save the other half for a snack during the day.
The Evergreen Market, 427 Crescent Street, Greenville. Phone: (530) 284-7313. Open daily 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.; breakfast, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; takeout, 8:00a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Carol’s Prattville Café
After my review of Lake Almanor area eateries, many folks sent me emails, texted, or even stopped me in the grocery store asking why I didn’t cover Carol’s Café in Prattville, California. I used to love going there for breakfast — sit out on the deck on a cool summer morning and have a loaded Bloody Mary and some hot food. My simple answer to them was, “It hasn’t been good for the last two years.” Well, between COVID-19 and the Dixie Fire up here, along with everything else that’s been going on, the last two years have been tough on everybody. I’m happy to report that I have been to Carol’s multiple times this summer, and Carol Franchetti has stepped up the café’s food big time. It is like it was in decades past. Carol and her staff are dishing out some great food.

Carol’s, as the locals call it, was established in 1971 and is an institution for folks on the west shore of Lake Almanor, much like Plumas Pines Resort just a mile or so up the shore from Carol’s. If you live on the east shore or the peninsula of Lake Almanor, you can drive your boat over to their dock, walk up to the café, and have a great breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
The food is a top-notch. I have ordered almost everything on the breakfast menu, and they still have the offerings that they have been serving for years. At Carol’s, I love two items for breakfast. The first is their homemade corn beef hash and eggs. I once asked how they make it, and when the server asked the cook, she said, “Come on into the kitchen and I’ll show you.” They start with a freshly cooked chunk of corn beef and add green and red peppers to it with some white onion. Then they fry it up on the flat top right next to hashbrowns and put everything on the plate with the eggs on top. It’s simple, hot, and crispy. The second is the eggs Benedict: an English muffin toasted to how I like it (not limp — I want some crunch) with classic Canadian bacon and poached eggs cooked perfectly. The fresh, homemade hollandaise sauce is sweet and tangy. I know hollandaise sauce is terrible for you, but they don’t drench the eggs Benedict in it. Kirsten’s favorite is the Mary’s omelet. Mary was a server who worked there years ago, and she came up with this omelet, which uses three eggs and holds bacon, cream cheese, and avocado slices. It is creamy, rich, hot, and satisfying. Every breakfast comes with hashbrowns or country potatoes. I usually order the hashbrowns, while Kirsten prefers their country potatoes.
Carol’s is back to being the place I always loved. At a time when we all look forward to things improving after so much sadness, that’s something to celebrate. Carol’s Prattville Café, 2932 Alman-or Drive West, Canyondam. Open Wednesday through Saturday, 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.; Sunday, 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; closed Monday and Tuesday. Phone: (530) 259-2464; website: https://www.carolsprattvillecafe.com.