Last month I promised that this edition of Trail Bytes would feature my recipe for Smoky Mountain Beef Skillet. We had already taste-tested it with bulgur on our hike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but I wanted to expand the recipe and pair the beef mixture with macaroni and diced potatoes as well.

We also tried it without a starch, chili-style. All four variations were delicious, but our favorite was the version with diced potatoes. It’s truly a stick-to-your-ribs, “meat-and-potatoes” kind of meal with lots of colorful vegetables.

The starches are cooked and dehydrated separately from the beef mixture, so you can enjoy macaroni on the first night of a hike and diced potatoes on the third—using the same beef mixture for both meals.

Explore the New Recipe:

One beef recipe. Four delicious ways to enjoy it on the trail.

Smoky Mountain Beef Skillet

Helpful Techniques:

Dehydrating Bulgur

Dehydrating Potatoes

Dehydrating Pasta

From the Mail Bag:

Chef Douglas from New Brunswick, Canada, gave last month’s Zesty Apple Bulgur Cold-Soak Salad recipe a try, but he substituted quinoa for bulgur.

“I already had dried quinoa in my backpack pantry to use instead of bulgur, and I used slivered almonds instead of walnuts. Very tasty! I will make this again. The recipe makes a decent amount for storage.” –Doug

In case you missed it, here’s the recipe: Zesty Apple Bulgur Cold-Soak Salad

From the Trail:

Dominique and I headed to St. Augustine, Florida, last month with family from Switzerland. It’s a lovely place, not overly touristic, although it’s quite hot and humid in July. The best times for walking on the beach are in the morning or evening. Our daughter, Valérie, captured this photo at sunrise from Butler Beach.

We hiked the trails at Anastasia State Park under the shade of live oak trees draped in Spanish moss. The trail wound through ancient dunes thick with palm trees and saw palmettos. The wildlife highlight was watching thousands of fiddler crabs waving their oversized claws along the edge of the marsh.

We also hiked at Princess Place Preserve, a 1,500-acre preserve located at the confluence of Pellicer Creek and the Matanzas River.

The preserve features a lodge built in 1886. The widow of the man who built the lodge later married an exiled Russian prince, so she became a princess. That’s how Princess Place got its name. We were happy to spend a little time cooling off under the wide porch.

Dominique and I are planning another camping trip later this month, so I’ll be working on a new menu to share in next month’s Trail Bytes. See you then!

Freundliche Grüsse,

Chef Glenn & Dominique

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