Beets. Bees. Authentic Barbacoa. What do these three have in common? (Please don’t say Dwight from The Office) Here we are, summertime, 2025 and just maybe I am having a love affair with beets. I literally have beet salad for lunch basically every day. I just came back from an amazing hiking/ camping getaway with my adventure pup to the southern edge of the grand Eastern Sierra Mountains and yes, I packed a lot of beets for lunches. Do you also love beets? Then you simply must try my Baja Style Beet Salad.
Aside from a cooler full of beets and Authentic Barbacoa, I also packed a tent with a broken zipper. Oppsy wopsy. I had not tent camped in almost four years. I can’t believe or remember how that damned zipper became broken but there I was at camp for three rainy nights with a dysfunctional zipper on my tent. And did I mention it rained most of the time? Yup.
And then there are the bees.
Bees. Yes, that’s right, bees. As in my tent with the broken zipper, which is now full of bees. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried. So when I left for a day of hiking and adventuring, I left my camping tent loo outside my tent, just like I did the previous day. I came back from an eleven-mile hike and my camp toilet is literally full of bees. Like fifty bees. I’ve heard of meat bees. But piss bees? WTF?
I’ve been a dirty, sweaty hiker for four days now without a shower. I just wanted to come back to camp, have a beer, some Authentic Barbacoa and a bee-free evening, and possibly a wet wipe sponge bath. But then the bees happened.
I’m starting a fire in my firepit right now, even though it’s a balmy sixty-nine degrees outside, just to convince the bees they need to evacuate my campsite. I have Authentic Barbacoa to create asap! The hiker and her vacation dog are hungry!
I then decided to try to stealthily have a wet wipe, clean up in my campsite, since I simply can’t go into my tent right now because there is a beehive in it. I was literally just attempting to stealthily clean my nether regions when my new camping neighbors began backing in their Mercedes camper van. I turned that wipe into a friendly wave! People who camp in a Mercedes Sprinter van do not know what being a real sweaty camper means. Or understand, no, I cant go into my tent to properly clean myself, because my tent is full of piss bees! And that’s when it started to rain. Again.
But silver linings! I had just warmed up the leftover, amazing Authentic Barbacoa 
on my campstove. I grabbed some sour cream, a few tortillas and prayed my tent was now bee free (It was) as I dove in out of the rain with my hot and spicy Authentic Barbacoa dinner (And smelly camper wet dog)
An Authentic Barbacoa
2 teaspoons Bacon fat
1/2 of a white onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small can of enchilada sauce
1/8 cup chipotle peppers in tomato sauce
2 teaspoons salt
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
1 large chunk of brisket
The best part of this easy camper’s dinner is that you can prepare this in your crock pot a week before your smely camper vacation! Just freeze the Authentic Barbacoa and pack in your ice chest for your outdoor vacation.
To create this easy Authentic Barbacoa, start with cooking your onions in the bacon fat until well-cooked. Mix in the garlic and cook for just one minute. Let the onion mixture cool. Add to your NutriBullet, along with the chipotle chiles in tomato sauce. Blitz until smooth. Add the onion mixture, cumin, oregano, salt, enchilada sauce and your brisket to the crock pot. Put the brisket on high for at least six hours. Remove the Authentic Barbacoa from the sauce. Let the brisket cool at least thirty minutes before you shred it. Return this Authentic Barbacoa to the sauce for another twenty minutes.
