by on June 16, 2015   •   33 Comments Field Trips

The Best Camping Foods (a round-up)

So far, the seemingly endless rains of June have kept us from packing the car, heading to a lake and pitching a tent; but we haven’t given up hope.

Weather permitting, we’ll have our summer solstice camp out again, perhaps just in the back yard, with dinner over the open fire. Then later in the summer we’ll camp for real: fish for our dinner and sleep deep in the forest. It’s our favourite family activity in summer for nine years and counting.

The weather generally dictates how much food we consume during a 2-day camping trip. If it is gloriously sunny and we are busy hiking trails or swimming, food takes a backseat until about six in the evening, when we regroup around the campfire and devour a hearty dinner. On the other hand, if we are cold and damp, much time is spent stoking the fire and eating our way through provisions. Either way, it is safe to say that food is an important part of a camping trip.

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by on July 3, 2013   •   18 Comments Field Trips Sourcing Local

Connecting field to fork at our local strawberry u-pick

As frequent Simple Bites readers will know, we teach our kids about where their food comes from, and try to harvest nature’s bounty through u-picks as often as we can.  Aimee and I were married in an apple orchard, and so apple picking has been an annual tradition.

Strawberry season, however, is much, much shorter, and so this past Monday was the first time our family of five has gone strawberry picking since Clara has joined us.  Four of us absolutely love these seasonal, sweet berries, and the other one tolerated the outing by having races up and down the pathway (he’s not a berry believer).

Strawberry u-pick on www.simplebites.net

It was a deliciously cool and overcast summer morning and we hopped on the trailer for the requisite tractor ride out to the field.  Despite our boys’ need to run, run, run, we were told in no uncertain terms by several of the staff that the field was simply too far to ever imagine walking for adults, let alone children.  Oh well.  It was a nice tractor ride.

Although imported strawberries have been in stores for over a month, the unseasonally cool summer means the local berries are only just starting to ripen, and we were ready for them.

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