Pudgie pies, those yummy sandwiches that come out of a pie iron, are a camping staple for my family.

On a camping trip a few years ago, I decided to not bring pudgie pie ingredients and nearly had a mutiny on my hands! My husband said the food we did have was great but that it just was not the same without pudgie pies.

Now pudgie pies are always on the menu with reuben pudgie pies and dessert ones with pie filling being the two kinds we always have the ingredients for.

But, I’m always looking for new ideas of what to stuff between bread and even for different bread suggestions.

Melanie M Sidwell of the Longmont Times-Call wrote a great article about pudgie pies (also called campfire pies, mountain pies, hobo pies, jaffles, toasties, and pie shams).

In it she gives some great suggestions for fillings to put inside the bread and also for different types breads to hold the filling in such as tortillas, english muffins, pie dough, and cornbread.

Some of her suggestions, such as using a portabella mushroom instead of bread, sound tasty to me although I have to admit some of the other suggestions, such as a trail mix one where chocolate squares, peanut butter, flaked coconut and small nuts or raisins are tucked between two slices of bread, doesn’t sound appetizing to me. But I guess I shouldn’t knock it until I’ve tried it, right?

Here are some of her other suggestions:

- Peanut butter and jelly
- S’mores (marshmallow, chocolate chips and graham cracker crumbles or use graham crackers instead of bread)
- Peanut butter cup (chocolate squares and peanut butter)
- Apple and caramel: (sliced apple with a caramel square, unwrapped)
- Black Forest (fresh cherries and chocolate)
- Banana cream (sliced banana and marshamallow)
- Traditional breakfast (egg, cheese and choice of sausage, bacon, Chorizo or ham)
- Chili (beans, meat and spices with a cornbread crust)
- Samosas (leftover mashed potatoes and peas with cumin, coriander and tumeric)
- Philly cheesesteak (green peppers, onions, cheese and thinly sliced steak meat)

If you’ve never made a pudgie pie, click here for a blog post I wrote on what they are and how to make them.

Happy camping and happy eating!

While camping over Memorial Day weekend we tried a new kind of Smore. At least it was new for us.

I found some good strawberries while shopping for groceries for the trip and had them out on the picnic table to snack on. They happened to be sitting out when we started making smores over the campfire so I decided to try fresh strawberries on one.

It was so good! By the end of the weekend everyone was eating them and had decided to call them Marshberries.

They are easy to make. Here’s how to do it.

MARSHBERRY S’MORE RECIPE
Ingredients for each Smore:
1 whole graham cracker broken in half
3 sections of a Hershey milk chocolate bar
2 marshmallows
1 or 2 strawberries (depending on size) sliced lengthwise

Directions:
Put a single layer of strawberries on one cracker half. Top with the Hershey chocolate.

Roast 2 marshmallows over the fire until golden brown and gooey. Place on top of the chocolate.

Cover with the second cracker half.

Eat immediately.

Roasted marshmallows or Smores are the perfect sweet treat around a campfire, but I like this dip when I want something warm and comforting. Plus I convince myself it has some redeeming nutritional value in it because it contains broccoli.

BROCCOLI CHEESE DIP
Ingredients:
8 ounces Velveeta, cubed
1 stick butter
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1 box frozen chopped broccoli, thawed and drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup

Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add the broccoli and cook for a minute or two, just until the broccoli is tender.

Add the remaining ingredients. Stir constantly until the cheese is melted, about two minutes.

Move the skillet far enough away from the heat to prevent it from burning but keep it close enough to keep the dip warm. A tripod works great.

Serve with corn chips.