"Roughin' It": Orzo Salad

Last weekend, R and I went canoe-camping with some friends. We try to get out camping at least once in the summer and maybe once or twice in the winter (you can read about winter camping here).

The weather held up for most of the weekend, but with the amount of rain we've had this summer, the mosquitoes and black flies were in full force. I have 27 bites on my right arm and hand alone. What can I say, bugs like me.

Food on a canoe-camping trip can be a bit tricky. Since we weren't doing any portaging, I decided it wouldn't be necessary to rough it too much. I have a small insulated bag from Ikea that I pack perishable food in.

One issue when you're canoe camping is water. We brought 2L and our iodine water treatment tablets to purify lake water. But, after seeing our friend the water snake, I wasn't particularly interested in drinking lake water (I know, kind of prissy). I was going to post a picture of the snake, but Giz would murder me. I may even be in trouble for using the word "snake" in a food post. Sorry mom.

I decided to make an orzo salad to take camping. It's not something I would want to make for the 2nd or 3rd night of a camping trip (unless you freeze it ahead of time). Orzo salad was something I could cook ahead of time, keep cool for the day and easily warm up again for dinner.

Ingredients
1 cup of orzo pasta
4 cups of chicken (or vegetable) soup broth
2 italian sausages (optional)
2 zucchini (1 yellow and 1 green)
cherry tomatoes - 1 pint (each tomato cut in half)
1 pepper (1/2 yellow and 1/2 green)

Bring chicken stock to a boil. During that time, brown your meat. When stock is boiling, add orzo pasta. Once meat has browned, remove meat and add desired vegetables. I grilled thinly sliced zucchini and peppers in the pan where the meat was cooked. When that was close to being ready, I added the cherry tomatoes. Once the orzo is cooked (approx 8-1o minutes), I combined everything together.

All I had to do was reheat the salad on my camp stove at dinner time.

I'm submitting this recipe for Waiter, there's something in my.....


The theme this time is picnic food:

This time, we're looking for picnic recipes, anything that transports well, can be prepared in advance and doesn't need (much) preparation on the spot.

Also check out White on Rice's camp stove cooking option. They have a video about hiking in Yosemite National Park and they make a vegetable couscous beside a running stream of water.

In the spirit of camping, here are some of my favourite photos from canoe- or car-camping trips over the past few years.