Smoke gets in your eyes

If you're humming the old ‘Platters’ tune, then you’re just as old as I am. Or, you like the oldies station on your car radio. But that’s not what I was thinking of when I titled this post. We just got back from our week-long camping trip to the lake. And, it strikes me that ‘camping food’ is very different from ‘regular food’.

Not us...but, smarter than us (note the swim goggles)!

At home, if smoke gets in your eyes, you know you’re in trouble and something’s going to be tasting really bad. But, on the other hand, if you’re camping and smoke gets in your eyes, you know you’re in for a treat! It’s funny, too, how there are some things that we ONLY make when we’re out camping – wouldn’t dream of making it at home. It’s like we know that there are too many calories or too much fat or some other offending ingredient/property so we don’t make it at home on a regular basis. But, since we’re camping…well, obviously camping calories and camping fat and camping ‘whatever else’ don’t count as the real deal. As my buddy Akeem says, “What happens at the lake…stays at the lake.” Kind of like a guilty pleasure.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is something we call ‘Mexican Breakfast’. Now, I realize that there’s probably not a Mexican in the whole wide world that has had this for breakfast. But, that is the only name I know for it. Diana had this at a restaurant about 25 years ago. (No idea what the name was on the menu.) She dissected it and came up with the list of ingredients. Since then, we’ve morphed it into a very yummy breakfast item that we ONLY eat when we are camping. Partially, because when we’ve made it at home it didn’t taste right. It was missing the key camping ingredients: fresh air, pine needles, a waft of campfire smoke, and that relaxed camping aura.

I’ll give you the rough recipe for one. You can adjust it to feed as many as you want.

Mexican Breakfast

INGREDIENTS

Eggs, scrambled

Flour tortilla

Cream cheese

Butter

Cheddar cheese

Tomato, chopped

Green chilies, the kind from a can, diced

Salsa

Sour Cream

Scramble some eggs and set them aside. Heat a cast iron skillet on your camp stove. Take a flour tortilla and spread cream cheese over the whole thing (edge to edge). When it’s ready, drop a generous amount of butter into the skillet. Carefully drape the tortilla in the cast iron skillet (yes, it has to be cast iron or it doesn’t taste right!) so that half of it is in the bottom being bathed in the butter and the other half is propped up on the edge of the skillet and resting on the handle. Sprinkle with Cheddar cheese (or Pepper Jack, if you like it spicy). Add the scrambled eggs, diced green chilies, and chopped tomato. Drizzle with salsa and top with sour cream. Take the top half and fold it over the pile of ‘innards’. About that time, the bottom half of your tortilla should be golden brown and crispy. Flip the folded tortilla over and (this is the hard part) wait for the other side to brown and crisp. That’s it. Unless you’re my husband…he thinks you need to top the final product with more salsa and sour cream. I don’t agree…I think that softens up the tortilla and ruins the crispiness.

As you can see, you can only make one at a time – unless you have help and another skillet. When we make this (usually on our last day at the lake), we just keep going (slowly) until everyone has been fed. It drags out our last morning and postpones our departure time very nicely.

In case you’ve forgotten the words to the song, here they are:

Smoke gets in your eyes

They asked me how I knew,
My true love was true,
Oh, I of course replied,
Something here inside,
Cannot be denied.

They said someday you'll find,
All who love are blind,
Oh, when your heart's on fire,
You must realize,
Smoke gets in your eyes.

So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed,
To think they could doubt our love,
Yet today, my love has flown away,
I am without my love.

Now laughing friends deride,
Tears I cannot hide,
So I smile and say,
When a lovely flame dies,
Smoke gets in your eyes.