Breakfast Sammie Series, Part 1: “The Hunger,” & The Pemi
Behold… The Pemi.
My husband and I have this term called “the hunger” — it’s when you have a day where you’re constantly hungry, no matter how much or often you eat. It’s one of those days where you’re opening the fridge all day long for no real reason, and just snack, or your meals are really big because you’ve got… “the hunger”. I would venture to guess we’ve all experienced this.
Lately, I’ve had “the hunger” in the mornings, which is rare for me, so I’ve been digging in my recipe archives for my favorite breakfast sandwiches (“sammies”) and making them for myself in the morning. (If I’m honest, it’s closer to lunch time before I finally get around to doing it, but whatevs — these sammies are good any time of day.)
When I first met my husband, he introduced me to camping. To this day we are avid campers, and our adventures over the years had me discover a love for camp breakfasts. I’ll probably do a whole series on camp food because I LOVE cooking while I’m camping, but to start I thought I’d share some of the admittedly unique breakfast sammies I’ve come up with over the years. Some of them resulted from a hangover, admittedly, but I swear they are just as delish, if not more so, when fully sober. Below are three of my favorites: The Pemi, The Hipster, and The Smokey Italian.
A couple of quick tips for camp cooking.
1) Typical there are two ways to cook while camping - directly on a camp fire, which is notoriously unreliable and not a consistent temp, or using a camp stove like this one that we have. If you choose to use the fire, you’re going to need to watch your food carefully, and always use either a seasoned cast iron skillet, a seasoned pie iron, or wrap your food in foil and nestle it in the campfire.
2) Don’t put your food on a huge campfire flame. You want the embers to burn down so the fire is hot but not “flamey”.
After years of camping with adults who will wait for fodd, I soon found out kids do NOT like to wait for food and they don’t care if it was over a fire or not. So I caved and bought the stove. Best. Idea. Ever. Now campfires are for card games and s’mores. I’m cool with that.
I also firmly believe no breakfast sandwich is complete without hot sauce. I have a sordid and long love affair with hot sauces. But for now, I highly recommend Aardvark Hot Sauce as my #1 for breakfast foods, with Sriracha being second in a pinch. I find the slightly sour/vinegar taste goes well with breakfast. Ok, let’s roll!
The Pemi
The first place I ever camped with hubs was on the Pemigewasset (pem-ee-GUA-set) River in New Hampshire, or The Pemi, for short. It’s a popular river for camping, kayaking, tubing, etc. It’s also home to some lovely swimming holes and waterfalls.
Photo by Vince O’Sullivan
At this point, camping food consisted of little more than hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner, and bacon and eggs for breakfast. (Guy campings, amirite?) But in an attempt to try to bring something nutritious to the table, I had brought along peanut butter and some fruit. In my groggy and hungry state early in the morning, I realized I had a terrible conundrum. Salty or sweet breakfast? Did I put peanut butter on my english muffin, or bacon, eggs, and cheese?? My hangry brain couldn’t think straight. So I did what any hungover 20-something would do: I made a sammie with both. Thus, The Pemi was born.
Ingredients (for one Pemi):
1 English Muffin
3 slices of bacon
2 TBSP peanut butter, divided
1/2 granny smith apple, sliced thin
1 egg
S&P to taste
Instructions:
1) In your cooking vehicle of choice, toast your english. On the camp stove, I typically put it it straight onto the stove flame for a minute or two, or you can grill it in a pan. Set aside.
2) cook your bacon in the same pan. Set aside. You can drain the fat from the pan, but leave enough to cook the rest of your ingredients.
3) Take your sliced grannie smith and cook them for a few minutes in the bacon fat. Do not fuck around with this step, friends. You are camping, not attending a Weight Watchers meeting. Go big or go home. Set aside.
4) add your egg into the pan and cook in your desired style. I personally love a runny egg because I love the yolk coming out of the sides of the sammie when I squish it down, but you do you. Scramble, fried, medium over-easy. This is a happy, no judgment meal.
5) While your eggs is cooking, assemble your sammie. Spread 1 TBSP of PB on each side of english. Add bacon on top, then apples. Top with egg and your choice of hot sauce, throw the lid (the other english) on that bad boy and CHOW DOWN.
