Bringing the Great Outdoors Indoors

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

Aside from bathing suits and swimming pools, nothing quite says summer vacation like sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows. Communing with nature, sleeping in the great outdoors, and cooking over an open flame are the sort of down-and-dirty rustic activities that make you feel rugged and alive during the summer… and make you appreciate the modern conveniences of your home when you return.

Camping is one of the great American pastimes. In 2007, over 3 million people camped at national parks alone. That doesn’t count the thousands more kids who are sent off to summer camps on private grounds. Nor does that include the several million people who like to “rough it” RV style for a little more luxurious camping experience.

With all of that camping comes a lot of charcoal, wood, and cooking over an open fire the way man has been doing for thousands of years. For as many thousands of years as humans have been using fire to make their dinner, we tend to eat things while camping that we will only make, and eat, under a wide-open sky.

Take the Hobo Pack for instance. Any good girl or boy scout knows that, to earn some badge or another, one requisite is the overnight camping trip featuring dinner out of a tin foil packet. Hobo packs are easy ways to steam cook a meal with any combination of meat and vegetables bundled up in foil, folded and sealed, and cooked over hot coals until piping hot and ready to go.

Just about anything that takes well to steaming can find its way into a foil packet: fish, pork loin, ground meat. The key is to make sure the vegetables going into the Hobo Pack need about the same cooking time as the meat. For instance, fish is going to cook quickly, so carrots or zucchini that go in with the fish should be diced small or sliced thinly to speed up their cooking time.

Another way of sorting out different cooking times is by layering the contents so longer cooking items are on the bottom, closer to the heat source, and quicker cooking items are on top, farther away. For instance, in a Hobo Pack containing corn in one-inch pieces, baby carrots, a chicken burger patty and zucchini spears, the carrots and corn would go at the bottom of the pack, the chicken patty on top of them, and the zucchini at the very top of the pile.

If you can’t make it out camping this year, or you can rough it in your own backyard. Hobo Packs are perfect for any barbecue, gas or charcoal, and can even find their way into your oven. If making them in the oven, set the temperature to about 400°F and allow about an extra 5 minutes of cooking time more than what you would need over a direct flame.

Another camping favorite and rite of summer is the ultimate camping dessert: the S’more. Two graham crackers with a filling of toasted marshmallow and barely melting chocolate are almost worth building a fire for all by itself. If cooking over an open flame is not going to happen this year, that doesn’t mean you have to forgo this ultimate summer treat. Yes, there is always the microwave for melting that puffy ball of sugary goodness, but then the graham cracker gets soft of sort and that ruins one of the best parts of the dessert.

So for some year-round, indoor S’more goodness, I take that same idea and do it fondue style. If you have a fondue pot, melt chocolate in the pot, dip the marshmallow in the chocolate, and then roll it in some crushed graham crackers. A similar idea is to thread a couple of marshmallows on wooden skewers, coat them in melted chocolate, roll them in crushed graham crackers, then stick them in the fridge to harden, for a S’more treat you can have anytime, with or without fire.

Pitching a tent, sleeping under the stars, and cooking over a bonfire are the things that summer is made of. If you can’t make it camping this year, or don’t own a barbecue, or live in an airless cramped apartment in a city, even a City Slicker like you can enjoy the camping foods of summer right at home. Dinner in a foil packet, S’more on stick, and gazing out at the stars through your window and you might start thinking that pitching a tent in your living room is almost as good as the real thing.

Serves/Makes: 8

• 24 marshmallows
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 6 graham crackers

***Optional***

• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• strawberries
• 8 wooden skewers

Serves/Makes: 8

• 1 1/2 pound ground chicken
• 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon minced oregano
• 1/2 tablespoon minced sage
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 ears corn
• 1 cup baby carrots
• 2 medium zucchini
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper