On The Road - Greek-Style Pasta Salad

Ingredients: (8 servings)
1 package of your favorite GF pasta (cooked and cooled beforehand)
1-2 small chicken breasts (marinated in Italian dressing and cooked separately)
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1 large cucumber (peeled and quartered)
½ cup red onion (chopped or slivered)
2-3 tomatoes (if desired – but these don’t stay fresh as long)
1 cup crumbled feta cheese (check to make sure it’s gluten-free)
½ tsp salt
1 tsp dried oregano
Parsley (fresh or dried)
Baby spinach leaves (if desired)
Boiled eggs

Preparation:
Cook the pasta in lightly salted water (until al dente) and drain.
In a large bowl, mix the olive oil, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, parsley, oregano, and salt. Add the pasta and toss to coat. Cover, and chill for a couple of hours in the refrigerator. In the meantime, marinate the chicken in Italian dressing and then bake it at 350 degrees. When cooled, slice it up and later add it to the salad. You could also grill the chicken.
Boil eggs in a separate sauce pan and allow them to cool. Then peel and quarter.
Add the onion, cucumber, feta cheese, tomatoes and fresh spinach to the pasta. Arrange the quartered eggs around the salad to serve or leave them whole if you want to take the salad with you.

Note - The pasta is bionaturae Organic Gluten Free fusilli made with rice, potato and soy. We bought it at Whole Foods recently and tried it for the first time - we like it.

Lunch - Car Camping - Grits and More

We didn’t expect to enjoy this dish as much as we did! I know, I know, the photos are at a dining room table with dishes that are not for camping ;-) But we wanted to share this dish with you and it would be pretty easy to make while camping.

First, we bought a package of grits at Trader Joe’s. We sliced it to the desired thickness and began to sauté it in a pan. We sliced up a couple of different cheeses and set them aside, then added some bacon to the same big pan. While camping this might best be done on a large griddle. If you like, move the grits through a little bit of bacon juice, just for the flavor and to keep them oiled. While that’s happening, you can heat up some soup, we use soup in the cartons from Trader Joe’s.

When the grits are hot and the bacon is almost done, put the pieces of cheese on top of the grits and heat for a couple more minutes until the cheese is hot and almost ready to melt (We used brie and a cheddar mix). Serve it up!
My wife had never had grits before and was resistant to trying them. She was pleasantly surprised, and even asked for a few more bites off my plate.

Variation? It might work with polenta instead of grits. Maybe serve it with a couple of fried eggs. Or some salsa. I bet there are a LOT of variations! Any other suggestions?

Lunch - Car Camping - GF Macaroni and Cheese

1 cup - old Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup - shredded Swiss cheese
1/4 cup - freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp - sorghum flour
1/2 tsp - dry mustard
1/2 tsp - salt
1/4 tsp - freshly ground white pepper
Pinch - cayenne pepper
2 cups - GF elbow pasta
1 can - 14oz 2% evaporated milk
1/4 tsp - GF Worchestershire sauce

1. In a small bowl, combine Cheddar, Swiss, Parmesan, sorghum flour, dry mustard, salt, white pepper and cayenne pepper. Set aside.

2. In a large saucepan, cook pasta in boiling water according to package instructions, until just tender. Rinse well under cold running water and drain well.

3. Return the pasta to the saucepan. Stir in milk, Worchestershire sauce and cheese mixture. Simmer, Stirring gently, over low heat until mixture boils and thickens.

This recipe is from - The Best Gluten-Free Family Cookbook – by Donna Washburn & Heather Butt

To adapt this recipe for camping -

At home - Combine the dry ingredients in a small sealable container - sorghum flour, dry mustard, salt, white pepper, cayenne pepper.
For cheese, we take a couple of sealed bags of shredded cheese with us.
If space is limited, or if it is inconvenient, you might leave the Worchestershire sauce at home.
Additional note, we used a 12 ounce can of evaporated milk, just because it was convenient, and we think it turned out fine.

We really enjoy this one! Just like any pasta dish, you could add some vegetable, especially tomatoes to the Mac & Cheese.

A variation - add bacon! Yum!

Lunch - Car Camping - Salmon Pasta

OK, so we cheated a little, but who wants to spend a lot of time cooking dinner every evening?! We bought a box of Chicken Alfredo Pasta (gluten-free and chicken not included). We opted for salmon instead of chicken, since we had a couple of packs of salmon so we added a pack to the mix along with some canned mushrooms. Follow the directions on the pack and make your substitution at the appropriate spots. You could do the same thing with macaroni & cheese.
Toast some bread if you have space on your stove. There is a photo of our toaster under "Pasta with Red Sauce" a couple of days ago. The beer in the photo is Redbridge - it's also GF!

Lunch - Car Camping - Pasta with red sauce

GF pasta with ham, onion, mushrooms and red sauce (a call to Classico in June of 2008 confirmed that all of their red and white pasta sauces are gluten-free); GF bread and butter.

To keep in form, we want our recipes to not be work intensive or complicated. This pasta recipe requires only the basics that you would expect for an easy lunch. Chop up whatever vegetables you like, add meat as well if you like, cook the pasta as you begin to saute the veggies in oil, when the pasta is almost ready add the sauce to the veggies. Don't forget to toast your bread! Even our friends that were camping with us (and who are not gluten free) enjoyed this meal.

Lunch - Car Camping - Tomato & Roasted Pepper Soup

Here is a really easy lunch to prepare at the campsite, although it may take a little preparation at home.
Trader Joe’s brand Tomato & Roasted Pepper Soup; we added some already cooked rice to the soup and ate it with GF bread and butter.
The Tomato & Roasted Pepper Soup? We usually buy it at Trader Joe's.
The rice? We prepare it in a rice cooker at home.
The bread? When we are in a hurry, we buy a bread mix and prepare it the day before our camping trip.
Other options? Buy a loaf of GF bread before leaving on your trip. Make instant rice at the campsite.

Variation? Add mushrooms and onions to the soup. Another option - saute the mushrooms and onions in a pan before adding them to the soup to bring out some flavor.