This one’s pretty much a reminder that with a few simple ingredients, you can make awesome campside, vegan meals. The recipe isn’t that much different from a couple from a few years ago. (This one and this one.)

We pulled into camp mid-afternoon at Burn’s Lake out in the Everglades. It’s in Ochopee, best known for it’s smallest post office, near Everglades City (best known for the Swamp Ape). Burn’s Lake was about the only campground in Florida not booked up that weekend and I suppose part of the reason is the lack of running water. (No matter, we brought gallons and even filled up the SunShower so we could rinse all the bugspray and sunblock off. ) Pretty sure the lack of recreation also keeps it pretty mellow. Not really ideal for boating or hiking. Good for chilling, though.

As we’re getting ready to go biking around the are, we overhear the nearby campsite — which had stocked itself with a full-size patio grill complete with burners and a full-size propane tank — tell the ranger all they brought was bacon and hot dogs. They also apparently brought a six-pack each, but seriously, you don’t need a giant grill, just a little planning.

(Interestingly, despite bringing “four pounds of bacon” they didn’t stay for breakfast. They also managed to generate five large bags of garbage. We came home with a bag of recyclables and a literal handful of trash.)

Back to dinner. I brought along a box of the Minute Rice Medley with quinoa, some pre-cut onion and pepper slices, a package of Tofurky Italian Sausage. With the onion and pepper, I shook in some oregano, basil, and garlic powder.

I had a couple of aluminum cake pans, which I’ve used in the past to cook rice. If you use that method, you’d boil the water, pour in the rice, cover and let it sit to the side for a bit or turn the burner down (depending on ambient temps and if you have a stove that does ‘low’ (our butane stove does “sun hot” and “cold)).

If you have a cast iron pan, you can cook the rice medley directly in it since it’s pre-cooked rice. (This won’t work so well for non-“minute” rice.)

I cooked up the veggies in some coconut oil and added the sausage. When the sausage was a bit browned, I dumped in the rice medley and let it sit until all the juices were cooked up together.

For breakfast, I’d filled a pint Mason jar with pre-cooked tofu scramble that had black beans, tomatoes, and onion in it. For breakfast, I added enough coconut oil to the pan so it wouldn’t stick, dumped in the tofu scramble and heated it up with a couple of tortillas draped over the top. We ate that with salsa. So filling.