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!