Camp Diary 4: Cooking in the Backcountry on Blueberry Island - Canoe Camping at Point Grondine Park

We're at Point Grandin Park and we're about to set off. We've made it to the first portage. It is a very pleasant paddle. It's a beautiful day. We've reached a beaver dam. There's a pretty big difference in the water levels. I'm gonna have to lift over. These beavers have it out for us. Another beaver dam. Gonna have to lift. Approaching portage number two. It's such a beautiful river. It's been a really nice paddle. We just arrived to camp. There's blueberries and raspberries. We finished all of our tasks and now we're gonna make a nice dinner. We're gonna do potatoes and I'm gonna make the potatoes first because they take the longest. All right let me show you some potato action here. We've got the sliced potatoes with ghee and some paprika and cumin and salt and herbs and garlic. We're gonna wrap them up and put them in the fire. We got eggplant. We got zucchini. Tragedy strikes. Rich's chair broke. It's okay. You can do the old canoe leaning trick. We got the lamb on the grill. Zucchini, eggplant, potatoes. We've added halloumi to the party. All right the veg and the meat and the halloumi is done. The potatoes are not done so we're gonna eat the potatoes for dessert. The halloumi is so good. It's squeaky. There's way too much of it though for two people. It is refreshing now. Night toad. Look at him. Good morning. So it rained a little in the night but it's a beautiful day now. We're gonna make just some avocado toast. Mash up some lemon and avocado and have some fruits. Breakfast, breakfast. We're all packed up. Time to move on down the river. We're pulling up to sight. Oh it looks gorgeous. All right this is the glamping of sights. It's so cool. We've got a whole tent platform. Beautifully level. Beautiful river view. We've got picnic table. We've got this little like kitchen station over here. You can put hot pots on right by the fire. Tons of great big trees for tarping. Look at all these wild blueberries. Just look at them all. Wow. All right there's so many berries. This is just a tiny tiny portion of the amount of berries that are over there. A little sun warmed snack. Look at this beautiful picnic bench we got. All right so for lunch we're gonna make a chickpea kind of tabbouleh inspired salad. Voila. Lunch is served. It's Rich's recipe. I guess it's kind of like a camping whiskey sour. We've got water, whiskey, lemonade, maple syrup. Gotta use the water that's been filtered recently so it's still kind of cold in the lake. Cheers bud. I found a stick to carve. I'm gonna try to make a little scoop. I need a little scoop for my tea. Interesting color inside. I wanted to find a hardwood like maple or oak but I couldn't find any on this island. I don't know what this is but it had pine needles so it's definitely soft. For dinner we're gonna make some garlic ginger chili oil noodles in this smashed cucumber salad. You want to really smash them before cutting them so it creates all these like uneven surfaces and all the dressing can like soak into those little cracked areas. That's key. So we're gonna cook the noodles. I think it's gonna cook pretty fast. I'm not exactly sure. I think like two to four minutes. In they go. Adding some canola oil. I dried the pot in the fire. I'm gonna heat up a bunch of oil. That's probably good. Garlic. Ginger. Sichuan peppercorn. Beat up sugar. Tian can vinegar. Dark soy sauce. Scallions. And the noodles. Oh nice huh. We're gonna put some chili oil on here too. Mixing up the cucumber salad from earlier. You actually want to mix the dressing in like immediately before you're going to eat it because the soy sauce like the salt in it will make the cucumbers release all their water and it will water down the dressing. So I just left it at the bottom and then now I'm mixing it all together. Which nice. It's very spicy. Is it too spicy? Maximum heat on this hot day. Just did the bear tie. I think it's pretty high up. I think we're good. It cooled down overnight. Got the winds picked up as well. It's kind of nice that it was getting too hot. It's a little refreshing. All right got my morning tea. So for breakfast today we're gonna do some home fries. We're gonna boil these potatoes and then fry them up in some ghee and olive oil. Maybe add some little herbs in there. I've got a bunch of herbs left that I gotta use. So I'll use those. I've got a can of baked beans and some fruit. When I went to the grocery store they put my glass bottles in these like spongy things and they're perfect. It's like a peach on day three. Still good. And an apple. I'm gonna keep these for later. Teeny tiny bit of chili. Ready for breakfast Ricardo? I'm gonna make some smoked chicken sandwiches for lunch. Got buns. They're not too stale on day three. Not too bad. Got this smoked chicken from the farmer's market from Farmer John. Got some pecorino. I'm gonna put some ghee. I'm gonna make kind of like a vinegar coleslaw with the cabbage and carrots and parsley. We'll have some. Got a bunch of cucumbers to eat so we'll eat that too. We're going on a little post-lunch exploration. This is just blueberry island. Look at all these blueberries. We're on the other side of the island now. Surprise. More blueberries. We're getting ready to make dinner. I'm gonna make some fried rice. Got some shiitake mushrooms rehydrating. I've got a bit of leftover chicken from lunch. I'm gonna make a sauce. Cut up some veg. Fry up some rice. Vegan oyster sauce. Shaoxing wine. A little bit of sesame oil. Voila. Dinner. Thank you bartender. Good morning. I'm going blueberry picking to pick blueberries for our pancakes. Unbelievable amount of blueberries. This is, there's, this is blueberry island. There's just thousands and thousands of blueberries up there. That's just a tiny little amount of the blueberries up there. So we're gonna make pancakes. I've got a buckwheat pancake mix. I'd actually brought blueberry jam but I guess we will just add real blueberries to that. Giving the berries a quick rinse. They got the batter all mixed up. We're gonna, these are titanium plates so we're gonna try to fry them on the plates. I put a lot of oil because I was worried about them sticking. The batter's a bit thin but I think that they'll cook faster this way. It looks like it's working. I can see, I can see some, some cooking happening on that edge there. Not very good at cooking pancakes. I think I flipped them too early. They've, they've fallen apart. We had one promising corner and then it all, it all went to ----. It's okay. I think it's gonna taste like ripped up blueberry muffins. Alright y'all. Second attempts actually look like pancakes. We left them on a bit longer. I think the first ones we flipped too early. That one we might have left a bit too long but this one looks like a pancake. That's a pancake. Alright. We got a pancake. We will never speak of this again. Only this. All packed up. Getting ready to move to the final site for the last night. I'm gonna say goodbye to Blueberry Island. Oh this is an incredible campsite. Really beautiful. Ready to go. The wind is to our back so we've just been flying by. It's been a very short paddle. I think we've only been paddling like 20 minutes but I think our site is over there. We've just arrived. It's a really cool site. There's a big rock face. We actually have two campfires. There's one over here and then there's one kind of more tucked in the forest if it's like windy or rainy. It's pretty windy right now. We're having a bit of a late lunch. I'm gonna try to make some fresh rolls. See how that goes. These stayed surprisingly intact despite being thrown around in the barrel all weekend. I'm gonna make a little dipping sauce, cut up some veg, boil some water on the stove. Might have to move that into a less windy area. See how it goes. Beautiful view. The stove is performing actually very well under the windy conditions I'm putting it through. The water doesn't... oh the water's already boiling. It's been like 30 seconds. All right I've been pickling some jalapenos over here in a little bit of vinegar. I've prepped the veg. Jalapenos pickling. Got some fried shallots. Veggies for the rolls. Made a little dipping sauce. The water's still warm in there. Warm enough to soften up the rolls. Cute little fresh rolls. It's dinner time. The sun's come out which is nice. I'm gonna make ramen. I've got some noodles. I'm gonna grill a corn. Cut that up. Got some pepperettes left. I feel like the end of camping is always just like pepperettes. Ginger, garlic, scallions, some miso paste. Got the pickled jalapenos from earlier. Mirin, soy sauce. I'm gonna make a stock with the bonito flakes, kombu, seaweed, and soy sauce. I've got some shiitake dehydrated shiitake mushrooms heating up. I'm gonna fry those. Put those in. Garlic, mirin, soy, miso paste. Good morning. It's the last day so we just did a really easy breakfast. No fire. Just heated some water on the little camp stove. Got some green tea going and a little rice pudding and I added some granola. Super quick breakfast before we push off. So long campground. It's a nice tent. I love water lilies. We made it to the first portage. Just a short one. I can't believe people would leave. There's all this goo garbage everywhere. I'm gonna clean it up. I can't believe people would come and see this beautiful place and just leave trash. Anyway, it was a beautiful paddle. More goo. I love this river. It's so beautiful. There's so many flowers. We made it. It was an amazing trip. I'm gonna pack up and get some fish and chips. Oh boy, the biggest reward of all.