More than a decade ago, I titled an article “Traveling Light.” It reflected on easy-to-prepare meals that we used when I was a timber cruiser and during my earlier camping days. It dealt with simple camp kitchens, minimizing utensils, using a campfire to cook multiple items, and quick meals that didn’t require the logistics of an army’s baggage train. Today, I still like easy-to-prepare meals, but am more conscious of healthy foods and a balanced diet. How do we eat healthy meals when cooking outdoors, either in camp or in the backyard? Actually, eating healthy meals is pretty simple: pay attention to what you eat. That attention also is the key to cooking memorable meals.
As a growing youngster, a cheeseburger, fries, and strawberry shake may have been the standard dining-out meal, but these days, I’ve cut out a lot of things I used to eat, and of course, cutting out some foods is one way to consume a healthier diet. The shake is long gone, I often pass on the fries, and more recently, I’ve dropped the cheese.
Then there’s bread. In our household, we moved early from sliced white Wonder Bread to loaves of sourdough French bread, artisan bread such as Puglieses, and now to very little bread at all. We prepare faro grains and noodles in moderation when a starch is in order. Excess sugar consumption is also now a no-no, sugar being classified by some respected university researchers as “poison.” I still cringe when remembering driving past a 7-Eleven and seeing my young dental patients buying and eating glazed maple bars washed down with a liter of Coke for breakfast.
However, you don’t need to renounce all the things that make a meal delicious or easy to prepare in order to cook and eat well, whether by the stream or at home. Part of paying attention to what you eat is just being a smarter shopper. Many items coming off of grocery store shelves show high sodium levels as well as undesirable carbohydrate, protein, and fat content. You have to read labels with your glasses on and a skeptical eye. For example, prepared foods at Costco, such as marinated pork tenderloins, marinated brisket, carne asada, carnitas, ribs, pulled rotisserie chicken . . . all are tempting, but when you read the labels, you find they are top-heavy with sugar and sodium. For health reasons, I no longer use ground beef, but substitute ground elk, venison, or bison wherever possible, including as the meat in chili. Does an occasional bison burger at lakeside topped with artisan Wisconsin white cheddar hurt? No. But balance is important.
One of the best ways to cook and eat a healthy meal in camp or the backyard is to put the emphasis on vegetables. California is the nation’s vegetable garden, and the fresh produce available here year round is the envy of people in less privileged states.
Peppers can be an important part of any outdoor meal. They grill quickly, require little or no cooking oil, a minimum of spicing, provide essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber, and enhance the appearance of a meal on a plate. Their innate flavors are enhanced by heat and its byproduct, caramelization.
One of my current favorites is the Padrón pepper, named for the municipality of Padrón in northwestern Spain. I had never heard of or eaten one until my first visit to Spain. Los Caracoles is a famous, though a bit touristy restaurant in Barcelona that is always packed. It’s worth the crowding and wait. Cured Serrano, pricey Ibérico, and other mouthwatering aged hams hang above a mahogany brass-railed bar packed with a well-dressed, colorfully attired, and animated international mix of diners. White wines from the central Rioja region and reds made exclusively from the Grenache varietal in the nearby Priorat region wet our whistles while we waited to be called for our table. A maître de who has worked here for decades escorted our party past a huge elongated cast-iron, coal-burning stove that radiated intense heat as whiffs from saffron-laced rabbit paella mixed with the sea-like smell from langostinas. With a turn of the head I spotted a mound of small green peppers blistering on a section of planchalike stove top. Their smoky, intriguing aroma was highly enticing. As we took our seats, another glass of wine appeared, and our waiter asked, “I saw you looking at the Padróns. Would you like to start them? Two orders for the table should be enough.”
At home, I flame grill Padróns and their likewise smoky Japanese cousin, the longer, wrinkled green shishito pepper. An even better way is cook them directly on a plancha or skillet with a minuscule amount of peanut or safflower oil and sea salt. You want lots of green and patches of blackish blister. Toss often. These peppers are not listed with the “hot” species, but are treasured for their unique smoky taste, which goes with many foods, especially fish, pork, and beef. Although not generically hot, like jalapeños, every once in a while a scorcher will slip in, particularly late in the picking season or when they are left on the vine overly long. These peppers travel and store well, cook quickly, and just look like they’re going to be good.
A favorite dish that works well with smoky peppers is seared salmon fillets. Start heat contact with the skin side down. Cook on a high-quality nonstick skillet over a low to medium flame for five to seven minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillet. Dust with Jamaican jerk spice or a chipotle mix (dried, smoked jalapeño), then add slivers of unsalted butter that will marry beautifully with the fish oils and spice mix. Flip, then carefully cook the fish a hint longer than normal to crisp up the outer layer. Dress with lightly blistered Padróns or shishitos after sprinkling with finely chopped cilantro. This is a flavor winner for folks on low-sodium diets.
An even milder pepper that grills well directly over flames or in or on a skillet or plancha is the California sweet mini that is a bit larger than the Padrón and comes in yellow, red, and orange skin and flesh colors. They instantly add to the taste and vitamin and mineral value of the meal, as well as to its appearance.
All of these peppers were hard to find a decade ago, but after first appearing at farmers’ markets and Mexican markets, they are now sold throughout the year in better mainstream grocery produce departments.
Fresh asparagus is another vegetable that lends itself to healthy and delicious camp and backyard cooking. It’s coming in as we go to press. The best is grown in peat soil fields in the California Delta. I’ve eaten asparagus that has been directly flame grilled, tossed in a skillet over a heat source, or nestled in a small sheet of aluminum foil on a grill at the side of a campfire. A light touch of peanut oil (beware of potentially fatal allergies), safflower oil, or high-flashpoint olive oil and a touch of garlic salt helps.
Don’t worry — most of the salt stays in the pan.
If a food can be the mythical silver bullet of health and nutrition, onions are in the running. Italian cipollini onions are small and flat. I grill them in their skins directly over flame or heat in a skillet, like the peppers. Watch that they don’t burn, because their sugar content is high. Plop the little morsels directly in your mouth and bite. The sweet, slightly caramelized flesh is a treat. You may want to halve the larger ones with a knife before eating.
White and yellow onions grill well. If they’re available, I prefer Arizona Sweets, Mauis, or Vidalias from Georgia in season. They can be halved and grilled directly or peeled, sliced, and wrapped in foil for a 20-minute visit to the side or high rack of your grill. A favorite dressing before sealing the foil wrapping is olive oil, cilantro, a bit of butter, and a dash of white wine. In a pinch, bottled salad dressing works quite well and simplifies prep time.
And of course, tomatoes add something to almost any outdoor meal. The best tomatoes are available in the summer and early fall. When halved and put on a grill top for a few minutes, already intense flavors compound and burst forth. A little char adds to the flavor complexity. Smaller varieties, such as cherry tomatoes and yellow pears, can be skewered directly on bamboo that has been soaked in water so it won’t burn on the grill. In the off-season months, Campari and greenish Kumato tomatoes, a Spanish cultivar, have the best flavor and flesh texture and keep well. Never refrigerate a tomato, because the cold will diminish the flavor.
Corn enhances any entrée. Whole ears are available most of the year, but some of the best corn in the year comes from Clarksburg and Brentwood in the California Delta. I remember returning from a Tahoe Truckee Fly Fishers outing for largemouth bass at Bruno Island in the Delta. Our group was blown off the water early on our last day. In no hurry, I decided to forage along the Sacramento River levee road to make the drive interesting. I was thinking of crawfish for an étoufée when I stumbled on six cornfilled pickups in Clarksburg. Hispanic guys were selling, at five ears for a dollar, corn picked just a few hours earlier.
My wife cut kernels off the cob for a salad. I was going to shuck and wrap the ears in foil for cooking on the barbeque. I usually add a bit of butter or dressing — a friend’s favorite is butter, chipotle spice, and fresh lime juice. Karen had sampled the fresh kernels and said, “They don’t need any help.” That was for the freshest corn. Less is more is a good rule to remember when you are cooking with top-quality ingredients. Another related rule is that such finds should be eaten that very evening.
In addition to the corn, I found fresh crawfish in Thornton and frozen crawfish (from China) in a bait shop in Freeport. That evening’s meal evolved into clams and crawfish linguini with a corn, onion, and pepper salad. Yes, there were carbs, but also loads of vegetables and lean protein.
We catch crawfish at Tahoe, but meals requiring shucking of the tail meat prior to cooking are labor intensive. Karen solved the problem. She prepared her childhood neighbor’s clams and linguini dish while I boiled the crawdads in a simple wine-laced court bullion. The steaming crawfish went directly on top of her large bowl of clams and linguini. It was very visual. A single twist separated the tail meat. Those who preferred could suck the residual juice in the body directly, as done in the South, or let it dribble into the pasta dish for another layer of flavor
On my Delta trip, I also had stumbled on an inviting fruit stand. For dessert, I grilled half peaches and then filled them with vanilla ice cream and drizzled it all with Grand Marnier, again, a simple dish. Do we always eat that way? Of course not, but when you pay attention to what you eat, you almost always will eat well, and a meal based on fresh vegetables will make sure you eat healthy, too.