Beyond hot dogs

Backpacking and car camping are two distinct ways of enjoying Colorado's mountains, and both offer their own challenges and rewards.

Too often, though, food is more of a challenge than a reward for both groups, with backpackers settling for dry energy bars and car campers making do with mangy hot dogs.

But you don't have to exercise your gag reflex along with your hiking muscles, say folks who have figured out how to eat well in the wild.

Steve Balsiger, once chair of the local chapter of the Colorado Mountain Club and a self-described "old school" backpacker and climber, said he's seen a trend among young backpackers to go as light as possible, as far as possible, with food an afterthought.

Susan Paul ruefully admits she's in that category.

"Typically, I just go out to bag peaks," Paul said recently, as she prepared for an eightday, almost 60-mile hike to climb Wyoming's highest mountain, Gannett Peak. "Weight is a big deal. For me, food is mostly nutrition - what's going to get me up the peak. I'm terrible."

Balsiger understands the dilemma of backpackers such as Paul, who will be lugging a 60-pound pack to reach Gannett Peak.

"Certainly, people aren't starving, but food is just fuel to go farther," he said. "For me, food is also an important part of the trip."

Before a trip, Balsiger will look through Bon first-night meal. He's cooked pepper steak at 11,000 feet and in 10th Mountain Division huts, even setting off an alarm in one as he added flaming brandy for the pièce de résistance.

For longtime car campers Jim Blayney of Colorado Springs and Jack Christensen of Castle Rock, a good meal is as satisfying as a challenging hike or a nice campfire.

Both men have won awards for their campfire recipes, Blayney for his jambalaya and Christensen for his elk tenderloin medallions. Christensen, in fact, recently returned from New York, where he was a finalist in a California winery's nationwide campfire cook-off.

Both men said the key to great car-camping meals is spending a little time and creativity in selecting a menu and then preparing most of the ingredients ahead of time and, while camping, using the most perishable food first.

Blayney and his wife, Fran, have been camping since their two daughters, now 12 and 20, were little.

He uses a two-burner Coleman stove and usually just one pot, out of which they manage to whip up food that is simple but tasty.

"Good food is an important part of camping," Blayney said.

"I'm not going to say we look at everything in a gourmet fashion. But it's nice to have a decent meal when you come back from the trail. It's warm and satisfying and affordable, not just something to fill your stomach."

The couple enjoy simple rice or pasta dishes, which they flavor with garlic, pine nuts and broccoli.

Christensen and his wife, Deidra, spend a lot of time in the mountains with their two young children, and he's learned to simplify..

"The key thing I've found is try to do as much prep work at home before you leave, all the slicing and dicing you don't want to do in camp.

"I just put the ingredients in zip-top bags, and if we're out for prolonged periods, we even freeze stews and chili.

"You can camp for three or four days and it's still preserved. The cooking really depends on our activity. Sometimes we like to lounge and then I'll spend more time cooking.

"But when we go hiking or fishing, when we come back we want something easy to make."

Bill Slaughter, who has been backpacking and climbing for 50 years, comes from a little different perspective.

He said traveling long distances by foot or spending a lot of time at high altitude almost requires a diet of freeze-dried or dehydrated food because unprepared food is too heavy and bulky.

Slaughter, the outdoor coordinator for the local REI store, 1376 E. Woodmen Road, also teaches free backcountry cooking classes the store offers on a regular basis. (See rei.com for upcoming classes.) He said he's uniquely qualified for that role: "If it requires anything more than boiling water, I don't eat it."

He said freeze-dried food has come a long way in the past 15 years, and there are actually a lot of fairly tasty selections nowadays, and they've become more affordable. "When I first started backpacking, I lived on ramen noodles and anything else I could scrounge from my mother's pantry, and probably was not eating very well," he said.

"Nowadays, you don't need to do that. The variety of freeze-dried food is infinite."

Slaughter said some of the best food is made by companies such as Natural High, Mountain House, Backpackers Pantry and AlpineAire.

He said the food is as bland or as spicy as you like. Some of his favorites: Polynesian chicken, chicken breasts and mashed potatoes, beef teriyaki, red beans and rice, and spinach omelets.

For lunches, he likes carrying in bagels and topping them with peanut butter or new offerings of tuna mixes in aluminum packets.

He said backpackers definitely need to check out the blueberry cheesecake. You won't think you're eating something out of a foil packet, Slaughter said.

"It's got to be easy and simple - when you're out there, you want to enjoy the outdoors and not spend all your time in the ‘kitchen.'"

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CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com

JIMBO'S JAMBALAYA
Yield: varies

1 pound smoked sausage, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon Tony Cachere's Original Cajun Seasoning
1 cup long-grain rice
2 cups water

Procedure:
1. Before your trip, freeze sausage and wrap in foil. Pre-chop veggies and place in baggies.

2. At the campsite, heat oil in pan, then add onion, bell pepper, garlic and sausage.

3. Sauté everything until onions and peppers are soft, then stir in seasoning.

4. Add rice and water; cover and simmer about 15-20 minutes, or until rice is tender.

SOURCE: Jim Blayney

ELK TENDERLOIN MEDALLIONS (FOR THE AMBITIOUS)
Yield: varies

MARINADE
1/4 cup each Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce
1/4 cup cabernet
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

STEAKS
6-8 (4-ounce) elk tenderloins
8 slices smoked, uncured bacon sliced in half lengthwise
8 toothpicks

GARNISH
1/2 pound button mushrooms
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons each balsamic vinegar and olive oil

Cook's note: A good cut of steak sirloin can be substituted, but will taste a bit different.

Procedure:
1. At home, pour Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, wine, olive oil, garlic cloves, salt and pepper into a 1-gallon resealable plastic bag. Cut off "silver skin" of elk medallions and place in baggie. Refrigerate 12-24 hours. Store bacon slices in separate bag.

2. To prepare garnish (at home or camp), wash mushrooms, chop onion and place in separate 1-gallon baggie with butter, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

3. At camp, place cast-iron grill over red-hot bed of campfire coals and preheat to 500 degrees.

4. At the same time, place castiron skillet on campfire. Remove tenderloins from marinade, wrap each with a slice of bacon, and secure with toothpick.

5. Place tenderloins on preheated grill. Cook 3-4 minutes per side. After turning elk, add mushrooms and onions to preheated cast-iron skillet. Sauté 2-4 minutes.

6. Remove elk from grill and mushroom-and-onion mixture from skillet at the same time. Top medallions with mushrooms and onions to serve.

SOURCE: Jack Christensen

PEPPER STEAK
Yield: varies

Filet mignon
Cracked pepper
Butter
Chutney
Brandy, to taste

Procedure:
1. Imbed cracked pepper on one side of steak. Sauté both sides of steak in butter.

2. Add chutney to peppered side of steak. Cook on unpeppered side until done to taste.

3. Heat brandy until almost boiling. Carefully pour over steak, then ignite it.

SOURCE: Steve Balsiger

GUINNESS STEW
Yield: varies

Stew meat
Flour
Carrots
Potatoes
Onions
1 bottle Guinness Stout beer
2 cups beef bullion

Cook's note: Use vegetable quantities according to taste. Vegetables can be prepared ahead of time and put into ziplock bags. Meat can be frozen if meal won't be cooked the first night of a camping trip.

Procedure:
1. Dredge stew meat in flour

2. Add vegetable oil to Dutch oven. Brown meat, in batches if necessary.

3. Add vegetables, beer and bullion. Cook 2 hours. It's ready when carrots are tender.

SOURCE: Jack Christensen