Food

Photos by David Niddrie

Polenta is the perfect camping food: it’s lightweight, packs small and cooks quickly. It also happens to be a scrumptious dish that will fill you up. Oddly, polenta remains a forgotten camping food even though it’s a great alternative to that other camping breakfast staple – tired old instant oatmeal.

For a quick start in the morning, make this recipe the night before.

At Home Premix:

Mix the following ingredients together in a re-sealable plastic bag:

1 cup cornmeal

1 generous handful toasted nuts, chopped or broken

1 generous handful dried fruit (cherries are my favorite)

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons sugar (or to taste)

2 teaspoons butter powder (see footnote 1)

2 teaspoons dried citrus zest, such as lemon or orange (see footnote 2)

2 teaspoons coconut cream powder, available in Asian grocery stores, or a handful of desiccated coconut

On The Road:

The night before, boil 3 1/2 cups of water. Add the contents of the plastic bag and stir vigorously until well mixed.

If you can reduce the heat on the stove, do so. Otherwise, hold the pot a bit off the heat. In both cases, continue to stir, making sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot, for about 1 minute.

Put the lid on and remove from heat.

Store overnight, in the pot, or in a container with a lid that seals. Make sure you store this properly, along with the rest of your food, to keep critters away.

In the morning, your polenta should be solid, a bit like an unleavened cake. Cut it into chunks and serve.

Footnotes

1. I use True Butter Supreme, available at many local bulk food and health stores. Time spent looking for butter powder is well spent – it lasts for years.

2. To dry citrus zest, first wash the outside of your lemon or orange before using it. Grate off just the colored part of the skin, using a fine grater. Keep these little shreds in a bowl on the counter until they are dry (a day or two) and then store in an airtight container in the fridge until you are ready to use them. Citrus zest loses a lot of flavor in the drying process, so you’ll always need more than you think.