Recipes Archives - The Traveling Sitcom (2024)

We have been living at the KOA Oceanside in Bar Harbor Maine since mid April. We will be leaving here in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, I wanted to take advantage of some of the perks that we can get from this particular campground.

“What perks?”, you say. Well, yes we have beautiful ocean views, amazing sunsets, and fabulous weather. But there is something else here that we want to experience…

The wild Maine apple trees! One whole side of the campground is covered in beautiful apple trees. We noticed them first in the spring as they filled up with delicate white flowers…

Throughout the summer, we watched the apples form. Those that have been coming here for years told us that the apples are tart and make great pies. Nobody knows what type they are, but looking around on Mount Desert Island, it appears that they are everywhere!

And with the coming of September, they finally ripened! While walking the dogs near the trees, Icould here the occasional “thump” of a ripe apple hitting the ground. So, I sent Dave out on a mission. Come back with a good bunch of apples and I’ll make pie!

I didn’t have to ask him twice.

Just look at those yummy apples! I wanted to make pie to share with all my coworkers, so I tried my hand at mini apple pies. And they turned out great! Want the recipe?

Mini Apple Pies

6-8 tart apples
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tbsp, lemon juice
ready made pastry for double crust pie
1 egg white

Begin by peeling, coring and dicing the apples. Drop them into a bowl of cold water mixed with 1 tsp. lemon juice. (This keeps the apples from browning).

In large bowl, mix together sugar, brown sugar, spices and flour

Drain the apples and add them to the sugar and spice mix. Toss to coat.

Spread out one of the pie crust and use a cup or round cookie cutter to cut out individual circles. Push them into the individual cups in a non-stick cupcake pan.

Fill each dough lined cup with apple mixture. Use the other pie crust to cut lattice strips. Lay the strips across each cup one way. Brush with egg white, then lay strips across the other way as shown above.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbly.

Distribute to your coworkers and watch them smile.

That’s the best part, I think.

Believe it or not, my RV does actually come with a stove and oven, but I love any excuse to cook on the grill. It is that added smokey flavor makes things taste wonderful.

Oh and there is the fact that the husband insists on being the one to cook on the grill. Who is going to argue with that?

Anyway, let’s talk about the food!

Mexican Grilled Chicken and Avocados

2 Chicken breasts
2 Avocados
Olive Oil
Shredded lettuce
Tomatoes (chopped)
Mild Thick and Chunky Salsa
Refried Beans

Marinade

8 scallions (chopped)
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. chipotle powder
1 tsp. paprika
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

Mix together all marinade ingredients with a whisk.

Place the marinade and the chicken breasts in a large zip lock bag and refrigerate overnight.

Once the chicken has marinated, it is ready to grill!

While the chicken is cooking, cut up the lettuce and tomatoes. Half the avocados and remove the seed. Brush the cut edge of each avocado with olive oil.

When the chicken is ready to pull off the grill, add the avocados face down on the grill. Cook for 5 minutes.

Grilled avocados have an added smokey flavor and taste great on a bed of chopped lettuce and tomatoes, topped with taco sauce, shredded cheese and sour cream. Add a side of refried beans to your grilled avocado and Mexican Chicken, and you have a great festive meal!

What is your favorite meal to cook on the grill?

We took another trip in our RV this past week and visited the cool crafty town of Franklin, NC. While we were there, I tried out my latest campfire recipe, Teriyaki Orange Beef Shish Kebabs.

This is an easy recipe that you can make ahead of time so that when it comes to dinnertime while on vacation, you don’t have to put out a lot of effort. That is my kind of cooking!And they are pretty darn good too!

Want to know how to make them?

Teriyaki Orange Beef Shish Kebabs

1 lb. cubed beef
1 lb. sausage
peppers (green, yellow and red)
mushrooms
1/2 onion

Marinade:
1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
1/3 cup orange marmalade
1 tbsp. vinegar
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. dark brown sugar

Mix all marinade ingredients together in a medium bowl.

Use a gallon size ziplock bag and pour the marinade into it along with the sausage pieces and beef cubes. Create a separate marinade batch and marinate the mushrooms separately in their own ziplock bag. (I don’t like to mix raw meats and veggies). Put both bags in the refrigerator and marinate overnight.

Just before cooking, go ahead and cut up the peppers and onion and prepare them for the skewers.

String your meats and veggies on wooden skewers. Kind of a messy process, but totally worth it. Keep your Wet-Nap wipes close and you won’t have to worry about sticky hands.

Then place them on a hot grill.

You will need to cook them until the beef is done. In our case, about 15 minutes over hot coals, turning them a few times over the time period. For even cooking, it is sometimes necessary to move the kebabs around a bit to give them all a chance at the center of the coals.

These kebabs turned out fabulous! They have a sweet and spicy mix of flavor with the tang of teriyaki and the sweetness of marmalade. A simple meal to make, but so full of flavor and fun to eat too!

I lived in Atlanta for many years, but I’m not originally from the south. We moved to the Atlanta area from the north when I was 15. I’m not going to say how many years ago that was, but suffice it to say, I did learn a little southern cooking. So I want to share with you a great camping recipe, Southern Style Bacon Wrapped Slaw Dogs!

When we first moved to the south,the culture shock was pretty significant. Learning the dialect was daunting.

Here are just a few examples of the colorful local vocabulary:

All Y’all– You, you and you! Every one of you!
All bowed up– Ready for a fight
Mash the button: Nobody ever pushes anything around here, it is all mashed.
Buggy: That thing you probably refer to as a shopping cart
Might Could: More than likely it can be done!
Fixin-to: About to do something, or at least thinking hard about it
Eat up-Go out in the yard at night and you get eat up by mosquitos. Seriously.

So lets practice: “All y’all are fixin-to get eat up if’n you don’t mash that button and spray those suckers. Don’t get all bowed up. You just might could carry yourself down to the quickie mart and fetch a buggy and some bug spray. Reckon?”

Got it?

But vocabulary wasn’t the only thing we had to get used to. Southern food is a whole new adventure. Steak for breakfast, chicken and waffles, collardgreens, cornbread, sweet tea, pecan pie and cobbler. The veggies are all fried. Which is good in a way because boiled okra is just disgusting.

Oh, and then there are grits. Yep, not just one grit, but many. That is one southern standby that just has never grown on me.

Recently, I tried a southern version of hotdogs. You see, in the south, they put slaw on their hotdogs! And you know what? It’s actually pretty good! So, I decided to make my own version of Southern Style Slaw Dogs.

Created by a northerner who now pretty much blends. Want to know how?

Southern Style Bacon Wrapped Slaw Dogs

Coleslaw
1/2 cup Kraft mayonnaise
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup sugar
1-1/2 tablespoons vinegar
2-1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
8 cups shredded cabbage (I used pre-shredded cabbage, carrots and red cabbage)

Bacon Wrapped Hotdogs
1 (16 oz) package Oscar Mayer beef hotdogs
1 package Kraft Singles Sharp Cheddar
1 package bacon
toothpicks

Make the coleslaw ahead of time. It needs to sit in the fridge at least two hours. Overnight is good too. In a large bowl, mix together all the coleslaw ingredients except the cabbage.

Use a whisk to mix the ingredients well.

Add in the shredded cabbage and toss well, then refrigerate. Simple right? My favorite kind of recipes only take a few moments so that I can get back to my craft room. Just saying.

Now lets work on the hotdogs. Slice the hotdog horizontally, not going all the way through. Then place narrow slices of cheese in the crack. (Another option is to place your cheese in your bun. When you add the steaming hotdog, your cheese will get all melty and delicious).

Wrap each hotdog with two slices of bacon. Starting at one end, anchor it with a toothpick. Wrap around the hotdog, adding the second piece of bacon at the middle and continuing it to the end. Anchor that end also with a toothpick.

Did I mention that most anything tastes great with bacon?

Here are the wrapped hotdogs ready for the grill!

I guess you could cook these in the oven, but since we are traveling a lot, we love to find new recipes for the grill. This one fits the bill.

Because this is bacon over a hot flame, it is a good idea to lower the coals a bit to give the hotdogs some breathing space. And then be sure to supervise, turning the hotdogs frequently with a pair of tongs. We found that it takes about 15 minutes to cook the bacon all the way. The hotdog inside will be ready at the same time.

Now add your slaw to the top of the hotdogs. Some folks add mustard at this point, but I like it just the way it is. You will be surprised at how well the sweet slaw goes with the saltiness of the bacon wrapped hotdog.

This is one southern dish that I definitely stand behind!

Grits? Well not so much. But maybe one day it might-could grow on me. Reckon?

What is your favorite southern dish?