Hobo Dinners Go Californian

As you can tell, on my vacation, I did a lot of eating. Dinners at restaurants, picnics on the beach, tacos from food trucks... lots and lots of eating. But one of my favorite meals out of the whole trip had to be when we went camping at Point Mugu up by Malibu. We midwesterners usually just throw some hot dogs or burgers over the fire and call it dinner, but not in California. Either the food was amazing, or I was just ravenous after our long and beautiful hike, but either way these campfire hobo dinners are my new go-to meal when camping.

Californian Hobo Dinners (feeds 6 campers):
Ingredients:
2 packs of bratwursts (I prefer spicy)
1 Yellow pepper
1 Green pepper
1 Red pepper
6 ears of corn
1 pack of whole mushrooms of your choice
1 zucchini
1 onion
4 large redskin potatoes
Siracha hot sauce
Basil pesto (from the Santa Monica farmer's market, so good)
olive oil
Salt & pepper
tin foil
Beer of your choice

For the veggies: Simply dice up the peppers, mushrooms, onion, zucchini and potatoes. Cut square pieces of tin foil, put a sixth of the veggies into it, add some olive oil, salt, pepper, a little pesto and as much siracha as you dare. Fold another piece of foil over top and place over, or even in, the camp fire. Let cook for about 45 minutes.

For the Brats: Fold a square of tin foil to make a boat for the brats. Put brats and some cut up onion into the tin foil boat. Add some beer, salt and pepper and allow to simmer over the fire until cooked to your liking.

For the corn: With the husks on, douse the corn in some olive oil and wrap them in tin foil. Place over the fire for about 30 minutes

Don't forget rosemary & herb bread warmed over the fire and smeared with the amazing pesto.

Then, voila, dinner is served.

My sister and her boyfriend pioneered this recipe on their camping trips and we perfected it at Point Mugu. This is so easy to just throw the ingredients in a cooler, especially if you pre-cut the vegetables, and throw them over the fire. Best served with cold beers, lots of extra siracha and finished off with our gourmet, triple chocolate s'mores (more on those later!). And as everyone around the campfire at camp spot #31 agreed, soy contento.

Point Mugu: