Camping season is upon us and as I was making reservations for our summer adventures, I looked back at where we’ve been while considering where we should go this year. We love being able to go camping in Kananaskis, and having the Rocky Mountains so close to where we live. I grew up in BC and I miss the mountains more often than not, so having them a short drive away is very comforting.
We love to have fun with our food when we go camping, and one of our many favourite camping meals on the fire is anything that will go into our pie irons. Pizza is one that tops the list, as the flavour of this pie iron pizza being cooked over an open fire far outweighs that of any oven. Add in some fresh air and everything just tastes better.
Important to note, if you have no interest in making your own pizza dough, buy some!
Bow Valley Campground & the gorgeous view from our campsite
Bow Valley Campground is a hidden gem nestled within the gateway to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. A short hop, skip and jump to Kananaskis and you are suddenly in the beauty of the mountains. We booked our site kind of last minute, and when you do this you never know what kind of campsite you will end up with. As it turns out we got the last one in the loop and it turned out to be a beauty as we had this pathway right next to our campsite and no one ventured near us. It was also not far from the washrooms and as you can see by the photo, gave the kids oodles of space to run around. We’ve definitely been lucky like this on several occasions.
You have to prepare for any kind of weather when you go camping, especially in Alberta. And it rained part of this camping trip. We’ve been fortunate we haven’t encountered several days of rain at a time while camping, just a little bit here & there. One morning we decided to go into Canmore for a couple hours to let the kids burn off some steam. It wasn’t raining in Canmore so we only had the mosquitoes to deal with as we wandered around town and along the boardwalk.
Visiting the boardwalk in Canmore while camping in Bow Valley Campground
It took us less than an hours drive from Calgary to get to the Bow Valley Provincial Park and Bow River Corridor Campgrounds. As a family we were kept busy with all kinds of things to do; from day trips into Canmore & Banff, hiking, biking, fishing, to causal walk-abouts, playgrounds & family fun adventures.
Definitely plan ahead if you want to come and camp here. It’s a very popular family destination and as I mentioned above we lucked out and got one of the last sites, but one of the best.
- 2 cups flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 4-5 tbsp butter
- 2 tsp sugar
- salt
- ⅓ cup water
- ziplock bag, large
- pepperoni sticks, sliced thin
- bag of shredded mozzarella
- pizza sauce
- smokies, roasted & cut up thin
- The night before you go camping, add into your ziplock bag, flour, baking powder, butter sugar and a good pinch of salt. Seal bag and massage it until it resembles crumbles. Write on outside add ⅓ cup water. Store in fridge.
- When you are ready to go camping, toss ziplock bag into fridge or cooler with ice. It's important to keep this mixture cold since it contains butter and you don't want the butter to go bad.
- When you are ready to eat, add your water a little at a time to the bag, seal and massage again until mixture becomes a dough adding more water as necessary.
- Open bag, pull out dough and form into 8 balls. Flatten each ball into a flat pizza shape big enough to fit into your pie iron. But before you place it in the pie iron, take some butter and rub on inside of both sides of pie iron.
- Place a piece of flattened dough on each side. Spoon on some pizza sauce, pepperoni and smokie slices, and sprinkle on some cheese.
- Close pie iron and cook over coals in fire for about 10-20 minutes turning regularly or until dough has browned a little on each side.
- Open, set on plate and let cool slightly due to hot melty cheesy goodness. And serve.
Bow Valley Campground Biking
Enjoying our Pie Iron Pizza Lunch.
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