A National Park Thanksgiving

After our short soiree in Vegas we took off on a 4 hour drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The drive was beautiful, a desolate landscape with sun rays touching every surface and giant rocks puncturing the landscape.

We ran into some snow near and at the Rim which we hadn't expected. The North Rim is taller than the more popular and well known canyon views of the south rim. Sadly the sun was not in an ideal location and we quickly understood why the South Rim is the iconic view but it was still fun to see it and look deep into it's cavernous walls.

Then we jumped back into the car and headed for Zion. We drove into Zion as the sun was setting over the large sandstone formations and forcing them into a violent red contrasting the cloudless blue sky, it was quite the view. We also drove through a mile long tunnel under one of the rocks which was quite impressive. Finally landing in our campsite hubs set to work setting up the tent and such and I got to work on our Thanksgiving feast. It truly was a feast! We cooked the turkey over the fire and roasted a head of garlic to put in the potatoes while they softened in a ball of foil deep in the fire. This year though I also had concocted a plan to make stuffing over the fire, I love stuffing! And lo and behold and to our tummies great satisfaction it was delicious! We had a lovely Thanksgiving feast, we had leftover turkey for sandwiches the next day and we didn't even get to the fire-made pies until the next night. The intense and vast stars that hung over our campsite that night were the real showstoppers though.

Wood Fired Stuffing:
for two

5-6 pieces of bread; set out to get stale
1 red onion; diced
4-5 stalks celery; diced
2 eggs
1/2-2 cups chicken broth
1 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
butter
& a cast iron pie maker

1   make a fire with some great coals
2   in foil place a tbs or two of butter and the onion and celery, seal it
3   place in fire until veggies are tender
4   stick pie maker in fire to heat up for a minute or two
5   melt butter into both sides of the pie maker to avoid sticking
6   mix bread, sautéed veggies, spices, eggs, 1/2 cup chicken broth in a bowl
7   add more chicken broth as necessary to get the bread coated
8   fill one side of the pie maker full of stuffing mixture
9   close it and place over coals of fire for a few minutes
10  rotate pie maker
11  pull it out of the fire and dish it out
mmmmmm!

We're thinking of making cooking Thanksgiving dinner over the fire an tradition. We've had a lot of fun with it the last two years.

And NOW some Zion Hiking