By Fresh Off The Grid

Combining a campfire baked sweet potato with a simple vegetarian chili, this hearty recipe is a quick and easy meal to warm yourself up on chilly nights.

It might be nice to have a campfire during the summer, but as the nights grow longer and the air gets colder, having a fire becomes a necessity. Keeping warm in the evenings can be a struggle, especially when the sun sets around 4:30 pm, which is why building a campfire becomes imperative.

On colder days, it can be nearly impossible to pull us away from the fire. While we love cooking on our camp stove, it’s usually way over there on the picnic table – way too far away from the warmth. So, it’s better for us to cook something over the flames.

That’s where this chili stuffed baked sweet potato recipe comes into play. We were able to make it entirely from our seat next to the fire!

We started by wrapping sweet potatoes in aluminum foil and tossing them into the embers. Sweet potatoes can take a long time to bake in an oven, but when tossed right into the hot embers of a fire, they only take 30 minutes or so.

While the sweet potatoes were cooking, we chopped up an onion and sautéed it in a small pot. We then added some beans, tomato paste, beer, chili powder, and cumin and let that simmer away while the potatoes finished cooking. When the potatoes were soft to the touch, we retrieved them from the fire and assembled our meal.

On a cold day, it’s always heartening to enjoy a warm meal (especially spicy chili), but enjoying a warm meal next to a warm fire really takes things to another level. So if you’re going to be doing some late-season camping this year, don’t give up your seat next to the fire and make this right from where you are.