We're here in the Presidio on the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

For this journey, we're doing a couch to campsite adventure, and we're starting here in the Presidio.

We're going to hike across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Find some rocks, find a bluff to cook and camp right along the Pacific Ocean.

We made it across the bridge.

It's time for lunch.

We get to eat it right here.

This is it.

It's dinner time.

And that means jambalaya.

Oh, my gosh.

Corso, that view!

Sue, breakfast is ready.

I think you're going to like this one.

You've got to be kidding me.

So good!

I did not prepare for the wind to kick up like that.

Those unexpected moments just enhance the trip.

I think we made it.

That last little push was a little tough, but totally worth it.

Totally worth it.

Couldn't have asked for a better day.

I'm Chef Corso.

Hiker, backpacker and classically trained chef on a mission to elevate outdoor meals.

Because food on the trail should be so much more than just calories.

Join me and my friends as we explore beautiful trails and cook up quick, easy and delicious meals to share together.

This is Outdoor Eats.

Outdoor Eats is made possible by the following America isn't just one land, it's many.

The great outdoors, local scenes, and of course the people.

So many destinations to explore.

More information available at GoCollette.com Guided travel since 1918.

Vivid-Pix memory station and software allows users to scan personal history items like photos and documents, record voice narrative, and share what has been conserved.

More online at Vivid-pix.com.

♪ upbeat music In4adventure.com Inspiring, educating and encouraging outdoor adventure Host- And by these additional sponsors ♪ upbeat music One of my favorite things to do when visiting any city is checking out the local food scene.

The ferry building here on the wharf of San Francisco is full of local artisans and shops, and I'm really excited to see what they have for ingredients that we can add to our meal plan for a backpacking trip.

We made it inside the ferry building and the first stop here is Acme Bread and I am looking for some San Francisco sourdough to add to our meal plan.

Hi, can I get a sour baguette?

One of these levain rolls and also the olive roll.

One of my favorite cheeses of all time is Humboldt Fog aged goat cheese.

Well we were able to find that cheese, plus a great cheese from Cowgirl Creamery and an aged cheddar with a little bit of spice in it and some great local charcuterie that wasn't just your standard hard salami.

I think that's a shopping wrap.

We've got all of our ingredients and we are ready to hit the trail.

Joining me on this trip is my friend, Sue.

I have known Sue for a long time.

I'm really, really excited to explore this adventure with her.

Do you know what we're doing?

No.

What is the day going to look like here?

Yeah, that's probably a good question.

He kind of left me in the dark a little bit, which I was a little nervous about because I'm a planner.

We're here in the Presidio.

We're starting here and we are going to hike across the Golden Gate Bridge and eventually camp in those beautiful green hills over there.

We've got about ten miles ahead of us today.

Okay.

All right.

Let's do this.

I've been to San Francisco multiple times, but I haven't really explored much of the Presidio.

They re-did it to be a really great urban oasis.

From some really great new plants, some flora and some fauna and some wildflowers.

Some great sitting areas, picnic areas, a kids jungle gym and the views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Alcatraz and the Bay are absolutely beautiful.

It's a really great spot to hang out for the afternoon with your buddy or your family.

Great outdoor adventures don't have to be five, seven, eight days long.

There are approachable adventures that really aren't that far away.

Maybe just a short drive, or sometimes you just have to get off your couch and start walking.

The first part of our journey was crossing the span of the Golden Gate Bridge.

And for us, the real adventure started once we finally got to the other side.

We made it across the bridge and we are both getting really, really hungry for lunch.

This is where our real adventure starts.

It's time to find a spot to set up for lunch.

In true Corso style.

I don't want to eat lunch at the picnic table.

I don't want to eat lunch in my car.

I want to find some rocks.

I want to find a bluff that we can set up for a little impromptu pop-up mealtime.

Where we found was absolutely stunning.

When I see a spot to cook or to set up lunch or dinner, I get really, really excited and get a little bit of burst of energy.

But, I think we found our spot.

It's time to set up for our lunch.

We are doing a classic meat, cheese, bread hiker meal, but we are elevating it.

We are using some local products, some local artisan products from meats and cheeses.

Sue, this is it.

It's time for lunch.

I think we've earned it.

I think we've earned it, too.

I have three meats and three cheeses and three different kinds of breads.

We've got some cured meat sticks and some blood sausage.

Here, try that.

Oh, there's smoked paprika in there, too.

And then we also have some kind of American style prosciutto.

Hit me.

And then for our cheeses, we've got a spicy cheddar.

We have a Mt Tam Brie Camembert.

It's nice and creamy.

And then one of my favorite cheeses of all time.

It's this Humboldt Fog aged goat cheese.

And then we have a little bit of orange.

That's kind of sort of palate cleanser of freshness.

A little bit of our dandelion chocolate that we found.

And then for our breads, we have a classic San Francisco sourdough baguette.

Crunchy.

Cheers!

Cheers.

And then, I got two really nice rolls.

So, an olive roll.

A little bit of a texture, but still pretty chewy.

Let's choose our own adventure as far as meats and cheeses.

I also have some nuts for a little bit of crunch, but we get to eat it right here, staring at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Pretty awesome.

Is this it for the day?

No, we've got a whole afternoon in store.

We're going to keep on hiking down this bay, see the ocean for a little bit, and then we're going to hike over these mountains and make it to a campsite tonight at Hawk Campground.

It's going to be great.

I've always had a soft spot for San Francisco.

I went to culinary school in Napa Valley, so I visited it multiple times.

They have a great food culture and some iconic, iconic structures from the Golden Gate Bridge to the fog rolling in.

I thought it would be a fun place to start an urban adventure.

And also, as I was planning and looking at the maps is the hike really wasn't that long.

As we went farther down the trail, the views really opened up.

It got a little bit more rugged and it got really, really windy.

There were some waves crashing in.

The rocks got a little bit bigger.

It just kept getting prettier and prettier.

I did not prepare for the wind to kick up like that.

That was pretty epic, though.

Again, just those unexpected moments where not sure what to expect from the trip, but these elements and conditions just enhanced and augmented it.

One thing that I love about exploring a new region is seeing the wildflowers, seeing the plants and seeing how the terrain changes, even just a quarter or a half a mile.

Guys, this is exciting.

I found some wild fennel just hanging out on the side of the trail.

It is everywhere here in California.

I think I can throw this in our breakfast tomorrow morning.

So we went from a really windy, craggy point to more pastoral meadows Going through some green rolling hills.

I think we made it!

That last little push was a little tough, but totally worth it.

Totally worth it.

Again, one of the elements of not knowing the length of the hike or the conditions, I wasn't really expecting that uphill scramble to the campsite, but, the views and just feeling like you feel so accomplished, like you did that.

It was great.

Oh man, I'm really happy to be at the campground.

Nice flat ground and we've got a great view of the bluffs over here, and I think we'll hike over there to get a little bit more light for dinner tonight.

Again, not planned.

It made me a little nervous because I'm a planner, but the payoff was amazing.

Yes, this.

This is our spot for dinner, Sue.

Oh, Steve, I can't wait.

For dinner, we are doing a classic Creole New Orleans dish of jambalaya.

It's also a classic backpacker meal that I know a lot of you guys out there enjoy.

So, for some of our ingredients, we've got some chicken andouille sausage.

We've got some celery, green pepper, shallot.

We've also got some Old Bay.

A little bit of oil, a little bit of vinegar and some instant rice, plus some tomato paste Steve, are those pre-cooked sausage?

Yeah, so these are pre cooked chicken sausages.

They last for a day or two on the trail.

And then the celery and the green pepper, they will last for four, five or six days on the trail with very, very little issue.

So, we've chopped up our sausage here and we're going to go ahead and just add it to the pot.

A little bit of oil in our pot.

So, I'm actually going to go ahead and get our burner going.

And if you're new to these camp stoves, they are meant to cook hot and they are meant to cook fast.

Having your mise en place, or having your ingredients ready is really, really important, or, you might burn your dish.

Sue, if you want to go ahead and add that to our pot here, I'm just going to hold on to this.

Perfect.

So, we've got three fresh veggies in here.

Our shallots, our celery and our green pepper, and we're just sauteing all of that together.

And then, I'm going to add our tomato paste.

Next, we're going to add our Old Bay seasoning.

Old Bay, all day.

And then, we are going to go ahead and add our water once we sauteed all of these ingredients together.

Nice.

So with your help, it only took a few minutes just to chop up all those ingredients and get those cooking.

And we are looking for this pot to come up to a nice simmer.

So, once we come up to a simmer, we're going to add our instant rice.

And give that a nice stir.

And then when I turn off the burner, we'll put our hat on it, and then let it sit for 10 minutes.

How do you create these recipes?

What inspires you to... I'm going to make jambalaya.

Yeah, that's a good question.

I mean, we have over 300 recipes on the website right now, and the inspiration for recipes come from a lot of different places.

Sometimes it's a package meal flavor that I want to match and make better.

But, I've also taken some inspiration from some fine dining restaurants.

So, I was in Nashville one time and I had this really cool salad with, like, cured country ham and some apples and a nice little vinaigrette, some walnuts.

And I'm like, wow.

Like, I think that can we can have that on the trail.

Let's see if we can do that.

They kind of come from everywhere.

It's been sitting for about 10 minutes.

I think it's time we check it out.

Nice, nice steam coming off of there.

So, last thing we're going to add is a teeny bit of vinegar.

So, I love adding a little bit of acid.

Whether that's a little bit of vinegar, a little bit of lemon or lime to a dish to really make it pop.

That looks great.

Spork?

Yes.

Yes.

All right, dig in.

Thanks, Steve.

Oh, my!

You've got to be kidding me.

So what are you tasting?

The spice.

The chicken.

I taste a whole lot of flavor.

Yeah.

Just that little dash of vinegar that you put in there.

A little goes a long way, but it's a really missing component for a lot of dishes that I think is really, really important.

What an amazing day today.

We started in the city.

We hiked across the Golden Gate Bridge.

We stared the Pacific Ocean in the wind, and now we're eating dinner in a beautiful meadow as the sun is setting.

Couldn't have asked for a better day.

It felt really weird to wake up on a mountaintop.

We had these views of still downtown San Francisco from our campsite, which was unreal.

And then the fog kind of coming in and out of the backdrop was just something that would never imagine during a sunrise.

It was just really cool to see.

We've had our morning coffee.

I noticed that on the map there is a beach down the way and I want to cook breakfast at the beach.

We're going to get moving.

I do this because I love food, I love sharing.

It's been a big component of my life for all of my career.

What are we eating?

Where are we eating and who are you with?

And those three things are it for me and why I keep doing this.

Oh, my gosh.

You can smell all of those wildflowers.

Wow, look at this beach.

Oh, my gosh.

Corso, that view.

What I'm seeing is some really great rocks that we could cook on.

I love finding rocks and stumps to cook on.

It gets me really, really excited.

Frankly, I don't know why it gets me extra happy.

It's just a rock, but it's so much more fun than just setting up a picnic table or just setting up right on the beach.

It adds another element to enjoying outdoor meals in a different and fun way.

For breakfast, we are doing a classic diner dish.

Biscuits and gravy.

Some ingredient call outs for our biscuits and gravy this morning.

So, we've got some biscuits.

I found these biscuits at a bakery in San Francisco.

They're premade.

You can make your own, if you like.

For our sausage, we have got some plant based crumbles here.

What we're going to do is make a really great sausage gravy to match with our biscuits here.

Let's get cookin'.

I'm gonna add our meat crumbles.

Add a little bit of oil, a little bit of salt, a little bit of sage.

You might be looking at this and you're saying, Corso, you aren't measuring anything.

I often don't measure things on the trail.

I don't travel with tablespoons or teaspoons or cups or half cups.

If you're ever concerned about a new ingredient or a new recipe, you can add a little bit, give it a taste, and then add some more.

It's really, really hard to take away.

I'm going a little off recipe here with this mushroom seasoning.

You can also use some dried shitake mushrooms, some dried wild mushrooms in there to elevate it a little bit.

Gonna add some nonfat milk powder, and a little bit of sugar.

Gonna and add some water, and let's get our burner going and get this all bubbling up.

Yes, give that a nice little stir.

All those flavors starting to come together.

And what I'm looking for here is this just to start to bubble up and we'll simmer it for just a minute or two.

Give it a little taste so far, see how it is.

Also, check our texture for our sausage.

Wow.

This softened up really, really quickly.

So think about any great sausage gravy is that it's thick.

I don't want this to be like soup, so I'm going to add a little bit of our cornstarch or arrowroot powder, give that a stir and let the heat thicken that up.

And the last ingredient I'm going to add is a little bit of vinegar.

Give this a nice stir.

I'm just going to go ahead and crumble our biscuits right in here to finish off our hearty trail breakfast.

Give that a final taste with the biscuits in here.

I'm going to have a little bit of butter flavor from the biscuits as well.

Give me a minute.

Well, this is really good.

Hey, Sue.

Breakfast is ready.

Come on over.

I think you're going to like this one.

Oh, I can't wait.

Nice.

Look at this.

We've got biscuits and gravy enough for both of us.

And we are going to try it out.

Here's a spork.

Thank you.

And then I got some garnishes that we're going to put on and see how that changes the flavor.

So good.

Add a little bit of our fresh fennel that we found yesterday.

Right off the trail.

Right off the trail.

And do you like spicy?

I love spicy.

Good, me too.

So, I pack some hot sauce packets in our backpack to give a little bit of drizzle, give a little bit of kick.

Now, let's taste the difference.

Let's see if we like this version more than the classic.

What are you tasing?

The spice, the fennel, the freshness.

What makes it so creamy?

Yeah, good question.

I packed some nonfat milk powder and added that as a base for our gravy.

You don't mind if I finish it, do you?

No, not at all.

If there's cold water on the trail, I am all in.

Sue has been my dipping buddy before and she was game again and we jumped right in the Pacific Ocean.

You always got to double dip.

Let's go!

And that definitely woke me up.

That was a shock to the system.

That was awesome.

Trailgating.

Yeah, I said trailgating, not tailgating.

I'm a sports fan too.

I trailgate for baseball, basketball, football games.

But, we should be trailgating on the trail.

What I do is I stash a cooler or stash the ingredients or even the camp stove in my rig, so at the end of my trip, we have a snack ready for us.

So we are here at the trailhead finishing up our trip and we are gonna cook two recipes recipes.

Recipe one, we are going to make a kale Caesar salad and we're going to make bursted tomato goat cheese dip.

We're gonna start with with our kale Caesar salad and I'm going to make our dressing first.

So, I'm gonna squeeze a couple of packets of mayo and I personally prefer Dijon mustard, but some yellow mustard or some deli mustard can work as well.

I'm going to sprinkle in a little garlic powder, a little bit of salt and black pepper, and a nice fresh squeeze of lemon.

You can also add a little bit of oil to kind of thin it out and bulk it up.

Just going to give that a nice stir and let those dry ingredients hydrate and those flavors come together while I chop up my kale and my tomatoes.

Just going to rough chop our kale here.

The thing I love about cooking outdoors is that it doesn't have to be perfect.

So, I've got my shredded kale, chopped kale in here.

Just gonna go ahead and slice up a couple baby tomatoes.

That is looking good for today.

We're going to come back to our kale caesar salad while we take a look at our cast iron skillet over here for our bursted tomato goat cheese dip.

First thing we're going to do is get a little bit of oil in our pan, and throw in our baby tomatoes.

And then I'm going to get my burner going.

And what we're looking for is these tomatoes to start to burst, to start to pop, and it should just take a few minutes.

This is one of the most popular Outdoor Eats recipes.

It's a fan favorite for everybody.

That's the thing about dips, too, is they're very communal.

They're very fun.

I dip, you dip, we dip.

And they make a whole lot of people happy.

We're almost there.

I'm going to start to add my seasoning.

So, I have a little bit of Italian seasoning a little oregano or basil.

Got a little bit of garlic powder.

A little bit of salt.

And I like it a little bit spicy.

So, I'm throwing a little bit of chili flakes.

Once these tomatoes have started to burst, we're going to add our goat cheese.

And if you don't like goat cheese, Brie is another great option.

We are looking like we are done.

That goat cheese is melted.

Find your favorite cracker or crusty bread.

Yes!

Our bursted tomato goat cheese dip is done, so we're going to head back over here and check on the kale Caesar.

Gonna dress my salad, and give it a little bit of a toss.

I'm gonna add a little bit of parmesan cheese on the top.

All done cooking up our trailgate lunch.

But, let's get Sue in here, because I know she's probably hungry after our adventure.

Oh, my God, Steve.

This looks amazing.

What do we have here?

We've got bursted tomato goat cheese dip, and we have a kale Caesar salad.

After the dip in the ocean, I'm ready to dip some more.

Oh, yeah.

Hit me.

Oh, my gosh.

Here, do you want to try the kale Caesar?

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

What do you taste in there?

Just the overall crunchiness.

It's great to ask you a question when you have a mouthful of food.

Yeah, that's totally my fault.

This trip really wasn't that long.

It lasted all of a day and a half to two days.

We were able to check out, see some beautiful new vistas, see some beautiful new views.

I love this trip so much.

It was so fun to explore a new area, and it's really great to share it with a friend.

I'm so lucky and grateful to be on this adventure.

I've known Steve for such a long time and it's so great to see the combination of his passion for cooking, for outdoor activity, but also sharing it with somebody.

That's the cherry on top.

Thanks for coming along for our couch to campsite adventure.

And you know, sometimes nature really isn't that far away.

You just have to get off the couch to go see it.

But get out there.

Cook something amazing somewhere awesome.

Boca Boca.

Outdoor Eats is made possible by the following America isn't just one land, it's many.

The great outdoors, local scenes, and of course the people.

So many destinations to explore.

More information available at GoCollette.com Guided travel since 1918.

Vivid-Pix memory station and software allows users to scan personal history items like photos and documents, record voice narrative, and share what has been conserved.

More online at Vivid-pix.com.

♪ upbeat music In4adventure.com Inspiring, educating and encouraging outdoor adventure Host- And by these additional sponsors ♪ upbeat music