Birthday Weekend

I decided that I want to go camping for my birthday this month! I was having a hard time choosing between wine tasting or camping. Ultimately, I decided to keep it simple and just enjoy the weekend in the great outdoors.

Zion National Park

Last week I went to Zion National Park in Utah with JR and his brother for a week! Our campsite was very small but we had free wi-fi which was cool!

We did part of one hike, The Narrows, which was unlike any other hike I've ever done because it was up a river! We stopped along the hike to have our lunch and it was just awesome to look at the time and realize that my friends at work were probably eating their lunch in a boring and crowded hospital cafeteria while I was dining on a rock, with my feet in the water, looking at a waterfall, and surrounded by the canyon walls. 

We stopped in Vegas for one night on so that we wouldn't have to drive home all in one day. We splurged on a suite that had a washer and a dryer and full kitchen. It was such a shock to go from cooking over one tiny flame and having to use shower tokens to all the luxuries of a Las Vegas hotel suite! I would definitely do this again though because it made our drive home much more pleasant!

Desserts from Wicked Spoon:

Vegetarian Camp Food

Hello! I just got back from spending four glorious days relaxing at Lake Casitas! It was so nice just doing nothing at all!

This is now my second camping trip as a vegetarian. I tried a couple new things including spaghetti, grilled cheese, green beans, and grilled peppers and onion fajitas (not pictured).

Spaghetti
I cooked the whole wheat spaghetti noodles at home and stored them with olive oil un a Plastic container. All I had to do is cook the veggies in some butter and then add the spaghetti to the pan to warm it all up. I sprinkled parmesan cheese on top after it was cooked.

Grilled cheese
For lunch, we made grilled cheese with sliced fuji apples and red onions. I used cheddar cheese and French bread (although the bread really tasted like sourdough). This lunch was super easy, but seemed gourmet. I loved the crunch the apple slices added. I'll be making this more often at home!

Green beans
I cleaned and cut the green beans at home so all I had to do was dump them in a pan with butter, garlic, and parmesan cheese. Again, super easy. Luckily, I'm growing this kind of bean in my garden so soon I'll be able to make these at home with home grown green beans!

S'mores
One day I had a s'more for lunch! Why not? It's vegetarian! Hahah. We like to make fancy s'mores by using Reece's peanut butter cups or Ghirardelli chocolate squares.

Vegetarian Camp Food

This past weekend, JR and I went camping at Lake Casitas to celebrate his 25th birthday! This was my first time going camping as vegetarian. Normally, I bring cheeseburgers for one night and chicken breast for the second night. This time I had to get a little bit creative. I wanted something easy (I only bring foil, a pan, and a spatula), budget friendly, savory, and filling (because JR is a meat eater). So, I bought a 10 lb bag of potatoes.

The first night we had baked potatoes. I poked little holes in the potatoes, wrapped them in foil and threw them on the grill! Talk about cheap, easy, and filling! We topped our potatoes with cheese, salsa, sour cream, green onions and butter. Yumm.

We saved one potato for breakfast. We chopped it up, and mixed it with soy chorizo and eggs. We turned this into breakfast burritos using the salsa, cheese, and sour cream. I highly recommend soy chorizo from Trader Joes.

My sister met up with us for the day. For lunch, we had sandwiches. Since JR and Kelsey are meat-eaters, I really wanted to prove that giving up meat doesn't mean you're stuck eating flat and boring grilled cheese sandwiches all the time. Eating like a vegetarian is delicious! I wanted our sandwiches to be special. I wanted the ingredients to be piled high. I bought some cheese rolls and croissants for the bread. Inside, we put spicy hummus, tomatoes, onions, spinach, lettuce, mushrooms, cheese and tons of avocado. Avocado is important because it really turns the sandwich into something special.

The second night we feasted on sauteed veggies. They came out delicious and definitely filling. We had zucchini, squash, red onions, white onions, green onions, green beans, mushrooms, carrots, garlic, and one slice of jalapeno. I had sliced and seasoned (salt and pepper) everything before we went camping so all we had to do was dump the veggies into the pan with butter and mix it around.

For dessert, we had s'mores made with Reese's.

Overall, I found that planning a vegetarian menu while camping makes my life a thousand times easier. For one, I don't have to worry about food contamination (did the chicken juices leak onto other foods while in the ice chest?). Also, I didn't have to worry about keeping the ice chest super super cold. One bag of ice lasted the entire weekend because I didn't have to worry about keeping meats cold. And finally, vegetables are cheap. I bought all my food for under $45.

Do you have any other ideas on simple vegetarian meals that I could make while camping?

My Dream Road Trip

This is my dream road trip. I've been wanting to go to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington for such a long time! I thought I'd just add Vancouver in there since it is so close.

What are some popular/fun/budget friendly things I could do in these cities? Any ideas where we should camp along the way?