20 Mile Bay Rec Site
Harrison Lake, BC
July 29 to August 3, 2021
3 Cocktails for Summer At The Pool, Campground & Beach
for BCLiving
July 2021
The heat is definitely on, and you deserve a cocktail while you try to keep cool. Here are three drinks designed specifically for summer fun.
A punch you can have while you dip your toes into the pool, kiddie or otherwise, a woods-inspired gin frizz to enough after you set up camp, and a sangria to sip while you read a book at the beach.
Pool-Blue Punch
This is a fun one because you get to match the blue of the cocktail to the blue of the pool! It’s pretty boozy, so maybe make some blue Kool-Aid for the kids if you need to. Fun tip if you don’t have a reservoir for ice in your bowl, freeze some grapes and toss them in if it starts to warm up, this way the punch won’t get watered down.
Makes: ~3L of Punch
Ingredients:
- 750ml Vodka
- 2L of lemonade
- several splashes of Blue Curacao
- 2-3 lemons
- sugar or simple syrup (optional)
- lemon flavored sparkling water (optional)
Instructions:
Mix vodka and lemonade together in whatever you’ll be serving the punch in. Add small amounts of blue curacao and stir until you get the color you want.
Give the punch a try and decide if you want it more on the tart-side or sugary-side. If you want more sugar, you can either stir in some white or raw sugar, or add it via a simple syrup.
Slice a lemon into rounds and add to the punch just before it’s ready to be served (or else they’ll start to become quite blue).
For serving, add a lemon wedge, and if you’d like some bubbles, or to cut it down a bit, you can top off with some sparkling water or soda.
Into The Woods Rosemary Gin Fizz
When you’re surrounded by nature and the fresh woodland air, it just makes sense to have a drink with botanicals in it. Prep the simple syrup before you head to the campground, and bring some fresh rosemary along for garnish. You can use the extra for camping potatoes at breakfast the next day.
And you can make the drink even prettier by using some purple gin from Victoria Distillers.
Makes: 1 Cocktail
Ingredients:
- 1.5oz gin
- 1oz rosemary simple syrup
- 0.5oz lemon juice (approx. half a lemon)
- fresh rosemary sprigs (additional for garnish)
- club soda
- ice
Instructions:
To make the simple syrup, bring ½ cup of water to a boil, turn off the heat, then add ½ cup of sugar and stir until it is dissolved. Add a large sprig of rosemary and let steep for an hour then remove the rosemary and cool the syrup in the fridge.
This can be doubled and should keep for about a week in the fridge.
To make the cocktail, fill your camping glass with ice, then add the gin, simple syrup and lemon juice. Top with soda (you don’t need tonic as you’re using the simple syrup), and garnish with rosemary and admire your camp set up.
Sand & Sunshine Sangria
One of the best things about sangria is that it’s hard to mess it up and it’s incredibly versatile. You can pick the fruit that you enjoy, the wine you prefer, and the sweetness level.
I went with a dry white wine for this one, so be sure to give the mix a taste and then determine if you’d like more sweetness (add in some simple syrup).
I also wanted some bubbles, so I added in sparkling wine too right into the glasses at the beach.
If you want to skip the alcohol, use a dry non-alcoholic wine, and add half a cup of orange juice instead of the triple sec, and ginger ale to top it off.
Ingredients:
- 750mL bottle of white wine (I used a Pinot Grigio)
- ½ cup triple sec
- 1 cup strawberries, sliced
- 1 granny smith apple, thinly sliced
- 1.5 cup of grapes
- 1 lemon, sliced into rounds
- fresh mint, for garnish (optional)
- sparkling wine, to top (optional)
Instructions:
Slice up your fruit and add to the base of your pitcher. Fill with the white wine, add the triple sec and stir.
Give it a taste and decide if you’d like to add some simple syrup/sugar, and tweak until you have it the way you’d like it.
Chill for at least a few hours.
Pour into glasses (ice optional), top with sparkling wine, and garnish with fresh mint.
Should be consumed within 24 hours.
CHEERS!
Sunset
at Kearsley Creek Rec Site
June 24, 2021
Gold Creek Campground
Golden Ears Provincial Park
November 10, 2020
Cat Lake Recreation Site, Squamish, British Columbia
August 29, 2020
A quiet moment on the campsite at a busy Cat Lake Recreation Site, in Squamish, British Columbia.
This is a pic of the tree-lined campsite up above Cat Lake on a long weekend in BC - the grounds were pretty busy and loud (well into the evening), which is surprising for a walk-in, non-reservable campground, but it was quite beautiful. The far end of the lake was great for a little more space and quiet, and a good float on your floatie of choice.
I wrote a few recipes for BC Living from when I went camping on the August long weekend (at Twenty Mile Bay) - Gourmet Camping Recipes for Your Next Camping Trip.
Some of them are long, so I figured I’d break each of them down into their own posts (means extra photos too!) - the first being Jackfruit Tacos (click for recipe), followed by breakfast with a Chickpea & Potato Breakfast Hash (recipe for that here), and finally we have Green Curry.
You can 100% make this at home (any of them really), but a lot of the tips are for how to prep before you leave, and minimize effort at the campsite.
“Skip the roasted weenies and indulge in these easy-to-make camping recipes! These dishes might look fancy, but much of the prep work can be done at home (and then frozen), and all of them can be done on a camp stove if there's a fire ban. Oh, and they can also all be made vegan!
So make your grocery list, get shopping and start prepping these delicious and nutritious camping meals...”
Green Curry with Ginger Rice (paired with The Hatch 2019 B. Yanco)
While this may sound way too fancy for a camping meal, it’s essentially a one-pot production that you barely have to monitor. The second pot comes into play if you want to make your rice fresh at the site, but you could make it ahead of time at home and just mix it right into the curry.
Another good thing about this dish is that if there is leftover veg from breakfast (think onion, peppers, potatoes, etc.), you can toss them right in here. No waste and you can chop everything in the morning, meaning more time on the beach.
Once again, this can be made vegan by eliminating the chicken (which I diced and froze ahead of time so by night two it was ready to go and I didn’t have to handle raw chicken on site), or substituting in some tofu, as the rest of it is just veggies!
INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can coconut milk
⅔ cup water (approx.)
1 vegetable bouillon cube
2 chicken breasts, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp (possibly more to taste) green curry paste
About 200 g of mushrooms (your choice, but I went with shimeji and shiitake)
½ red pepper, cut into strips
1 or 2 baby bok choy, roughly chopped (spinach works too)
About 20 snap peas, ends trimmed
Thumb of ginger (optional), sliced
1 cup jasmine rice
Basil, optional
INSTRUCTIONS
Cook the rice in a pot to the specifications on the package (adding in some optional ginger for flavour, removing after rice is finished) and set aside.
In a pan, heat the olive oil on medium and then add the onion, sautéing for a few minutes, before adding the garlic and the green curry paste.
Add in the chicken if you are using it and cook until just no longer pink.
Add the coconut milk into the pan and stir until the paste has been dissolved. Then add in the mushrooms and red pepper. You may need to thin the sauce out more here, depending how you like your curry. If so, dissolve the bouillon cube in the two-thirds cup of water, and then add it to the pan. (You can transfer to a large pot if your pan doesn’t fit this.)
Bring to a boil and then turn to low and let it simmer. You can taste and see if you need more curry paste (if so it may be easiest to dissolve it in a small bowl with a bit of the curry broth, and then add it in).
After the liquid has reduced a bit, and you have the spices where you like, add in the bok choy and the snap peas and cook for a few minutes until just tender (you want a bit of crunch to them still).
Turn off the heat, plate the rice (with the ginger discarded) and then scoop the curry mix on to it. Tear the basil and add on top (optional) and enjoy the view.
Drinks: There’s not much you can’t pair with a spicy curry, but a cold, dry, white wine is a sure bet. I tried The Hatch Winery’s B. Yanco a few months back from the Stable House Bistro takeout window, and fell in love. I’ve paired it with so many meals since, and on the beach as the sun went down sipped on between bites of this dish was another success.