Trail Bars, Breakfast Bars, Snack Bars, Whatever Bars!

The following is my husband's recipe for delicious bars packed with fruit and nuts, naturally sweetened with Maple syrup and Vanilla. These are great to pack along for a day hike, camping trip, or to grab for a quick weekday breakfast. We brought an entire batch along to the Catskills with a group of six last year and they got devoured on the first hike! We'll be baking some this week to gear up.

Recipe for Trail Bars:

(Originally adapted from a Recipe for Breakfast Bars at wholeliving.com)

• 1 tablespoon walnut oil, plus more for pan
• 1 1/4 cups spelt or wheat flakes
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup white raisins
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans
• 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped pistachios
• 2 tablespoons sunflower seeds.
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup maple syrup (The real deal, preferably organic, no Aunt Jemima)
• 1/4 cup fresh ground peanut butter (We like Whole foods honey nut)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Brush an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with oil. Line bottom and two sides with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on each side. Brush paper with oil. In a bowl, combine flakes, cranberries, raisins, pecans, pistachios, sunflower seeds and salt; set aside.

2. In a small saucepan, combine maple syrup, peanut butter, oil, and vanilla. Cook over medium until melted. Add to dry ingredients and stir to combine. Transfer mixture to prepared pan; smooth top. Bake until golden and edges pull away from sides of pan, 30 minutes. Cool completely in pan. Using paper overhang, lift bars out of pan. On a cutting board, cut into 8 pieces using a serrated knife. Store in an airtight container, separating pieces with wax or parchment paper, for one week.

The Winter Blues, looking toward Spring

So this is the view out my window right now. Needless to say I think the groundhog was right this year and we probably won't be out of the snowy slushy woods until nearly April. I am getting my hopes up by believing the weather report next week (a sunny 45 degrees) which will at least mean a drive up the Hudson if not some attempted early March hiking...we shall see.

Even if the weather doesn't let up, my husband and I have some geographically well positioned business to attend to in central Virginia in late march, which means a full day and overnight in Shenandoah National Park at Big Meadows Campground. More to come!

I've also posted a Day Hike Gear List of what we'll be taking on our tentative early March hike here Day Hike Essentials.

Around the Country in 30 Days...The first time always hurts a little

Before we embarked on a month long road-trip around the country and back in 2007, I hadn't camped since girl scouts, which I was only a member of for about a month so you can infer what a fantastic experience that was.

In my perfect camping world there were beautiful and competitively priced, aesthetically pleasing little cabins dotting the country-side all the way to California and back. For the nights we were to spend in National Parks, I dreamed of pulling into perfect remote little campsites in a pick-up truck with a camper top similar to Rocinanthe in John Steinbeck's "Travel's with Charley." Unfortunately this would not be the case and we would have to rough it with our shoestring budget.

Starting from zero we had about $300.00 to spend on gear. If you've checked the REI site lately that doesn't go very far. Instead we turned our cash toward K-mart for the bare necessities: tent, lantern, and mess kit. We stuck to what we had for the rest. We grabbed blankets, lunky suitcases, an old lunch kit cooler, utensils out of the drawer and my dad's weber gas tabletop grill, packing all this and more into the back of a PT cruiser with the backseats pushed down, this was going to be interesting.

If you've camped before you know that blankets do not do the job that a sleeping bag does, and by the time we reached Wyoming we were freezing our asses off and waking up in the middle of the night to huddle closer together, it was quite romantic.

Our gas grill was a bust and had we not promised to return it safely to my father along with his beloved car, we would have left it by the side of the road for the next unknowing camper.

I got used to the tent pretty quickly, as well as the bugs, snakes, racoons, birds, squirrels rambling buffalo and grizzly bears, which were all much scarier in my mind than in reality, although I can’t say enough about heeding bear warnings wherever you go, I had written it off until a ranger at a Yellowstone campground handed us a photo of a bear who had torn the window out of a car and climbed in.

In the end, after the scrapes and scares and one night spent in our car while whistling pacific winds destroyed our tent, we had seen countless beautiful landscapes and met some amazing people, we had tried local foods and adopted a wonderful puppy. Now I can’t imagine a summer with out it.

And so as I sit here in my warm living room with a cup of tea and a serious case of cabin fever watching snow blanket the BQE out my window, I'm looking forward to campfires and creatures howling in the night again. Of course this year, there will be a real sleeping bag involved.

Introduction

After 12,000 cross country miles and just over a month and a half of fresh air nights clocked under the stars, my husband, our puppy Charlie and I have decided to save a little cash and start exploring the metro-new york outdoor scene with a K-mart tent and a pair of hiking boots
Like most everyone in their twenties living in the boroughs of this wonderful city we are feeling the economic pinch, but more than that these days we constantly find ourselves searching for a happy compromise between living our dreams and the constant instinctual urge to seek out a simpler life and settle down in a cute little house in the burbs. And so, unwilling to leave our beloved city just yet, we’ve decided to become a different kind of weekend warrior, taking in the simpler life and fresh air bit by bit with a new outdoor excursion every few weeks from spring to fall until we have to pack it in and hibernate for winter.