Paleo Corned Beef with kraut, pickles, and 1000 Island

I went on a spontaneous Superior Hiking Trail adventure last weekend, which turned out to be great and also had quite the large Plan-Reality-Gap. After leaving the car at the end point and biking down 61 to the start point, My Charming Companion and I set off hiking a bit late in the day. After a couple of hours, and thinking "we must have just missed that first camp site" - we came upon said first campsite and were somewhat astonished that it had only been 2 miles. We proceeded to camp there because going another 2 miles to the originally planned spot on Bear Lake would have meant arriving after dark. I found my lack of "hiking-mile" comprehension totally amusing, because even after reading in the guidebook to plan a mile an hour, I thought for sure we were going faster than that, and also that much more time had passed than actually had. ?!

After descending into a valley that was filled with really wet wood, dinner was cooked over a fire that was kept alive by ongoing deep breathing onto the fire and lots of birch bark - which sort of extended the hilarity of the evening. Thankfully there were copious amounts of dead birch trees all around us, so there was no shortage. As I was falling asleep that night, (after washing off with my bandana and a pan of water so that my body no longer stuck to itself and anything else it touched), My Charming Companion turned to me and said, congenially, "You're crazy if you think I am going to hike 10 miles tomorrow!" which is what would have had to happen in order to get to the car at the end point, and which I was still totally considering. Again, so funny because 10 miles doesn't sound far in a whole day, but based on those 2 miles in, omg! Really far.

Instead of 10 miles, we decided to leave our packs where we were and hike a 4 mile loop to go swim at the camp spot on Bear Lake. There were lots of wild berries along the way, and the swimming was lovely. We then picked our packs up again and hiked the same 2 miles out that we had come in on the evening before. All of this took most of the day (you might think that 4 miles without packs would be pretty easy, but still no! There were steep climbs and it was hot), and was followed by a bike ride back to the car, parked at what we could call the "endpoint" but what was now just a place where the car was parked so we could bike 8 miles there and back on each end of the hike. ha! I still find it all quite funny. My Charming Companion decided that his actual hiking distance was best calculated by dividing how far he thinks he can hike by 4, whereas my calculation was to divide by 2 (I had lower mileage expectations to begin with).

Wild Blueberries! so tiny.

In the end I feel excited to go on some more weekend hiking trips (I bought the book from the Trail's main office in Two Harbors) - this time utilizing some new found tenets:
1. Consider parking at one place and do a loop. Fun!
2. Calculate actual hiking mileage according to new formula so as to at least approximate something bordering a realistic distance.
3. Pack extra food in case you "choose" to stay another night (I use "choose" quite loosely here. It seems more likely that an extra night would choose you)

This is the lake we swam in, after hiking up out of it!

One other highlight of the weekend was stopping at Northern Water Smokehaus in Duluth for lunch. We shared a delicious smoked lake trout basket with scallion cream cheese and gluten free toast (made At Sarah's Table - though to go grain free you could get cucumbers in lieu of bread), and also bought some corned beef to take home for dinner. Omg -- this dinner! I am not sure where to buy corned beef in town, but I am planning to try making my own sometime later this fall and will post it when I do. However you procure some - this pile of meat with homemade fixings is to. die. for.

Assemble your ingredients: sliced corned beef, cucumber pickles and sauerkraut (ideally with caraway), and some homemade 1000 Island Dressing - see below. You want to heat up the corned beef, but very very gently since it is so tender and already cooked. I put a little bacon fat with part water/part pickled onion juice (you could use any pickle juice, or just water) to heat in a medium saucepan. When it boils, turn it to low to simmer, and gently put the corned beef mound on top. You are essentially steaming the corned beef so that the fat becomes translucent. Cover the pot to steam, and turn meat over after 3-4 minutes to get the other side. Again: be gentle to keep the slices intact! After both "sides" have cooked for 4 minutes or so, it should be nicely heated and ready to serve with the tasty sides. I had mine with sauteed green beans. YUM!

For 1000 Island Dressing: mix together about 1/4 c. homemade mayo, 2 T tomato paste, 2 tsp mustard, some cider vinegar, and a good amount of salt. You could put diced pickles in there too, but since I was eating mine on the side, I skipped it.  I have not had 1000 Island in years - this turned out so delicious that next time I will make extra for some future salad dressing!

Pile o' meat with pickles, kraut, dressing, garden tomatoes, and green beans.