Spin: Camping food?

[Can'tTurnLeft]

What foods do you take with you camping? What do you prep before hand? How do you cook etc...

I would like to have a small propane grill and stove to cook on.

I can't think of a thing to eat besides hot dogs!

[Autumn]

:cup

[Aisling]

So far, these are our wins:

-PB muffins with chocolate chips on top (a la paleo nut butter variations)
-sweet potatoes and corn on the cob pre-wrapped in aluminum foil (toss 'em in the coals and let them roast)
-jerky
-apples and PB
-canned soup


I need more ideas...my family is starting to revolt, and I find hot dogs revolting. :shifty

[Elora]

Grill veggies. Foil packs.

Pre-make salads and keep in a cooler. pasta/macaroni, egg, antipasta, caprese, chicken, fruit, tuna, potato

Hard boiled eggs keep well in a cooler.

We put cast iron skillets on the grill and cook anything. Egg/egg sandwiches for breakfast (I need bread :shifty not that I have a toaster, but grilled bread with fried egg in the middle works for me)

We keep packs of meat (chicken and burgers mostly...the guys eat brats but gag me) in a cooler with eggs and ice.

man I miss camping

[HindsFeet]

Lots of stuff! Breakfast is often pancakes or eggs and sausage/bacon. We've done breakfast burritos before as well. Lunch/dinner is almost anything that suits your fancy - spaghetti is easy, as are things like chili or frito pie. Hamburgers, hot dogs, sloppy joes and the like are always popular, and sandwiches are easy. Tacos, burritos etc. are easy too. Last time around dh and the kids make pepperoni pizza bites by taking crescent roll dough pieces and wrapping them around a slice of pepperoni and some cheese, and then cooking them over the fire on their hot dog sticks. They had pizza sauce to dip in afterwards.

If you've got electric hookup, you can also do a lot of crockpot cooking. If you take the disposable liners, cleanup is super easy.

And dutch oven cooking opens up a lot of other options as well.

What does your family normally like to eat? If you give ideas, I can help you figure out what could be adapted to campout cooking easily.

Oh, and I do as much prep beforehand as possible. Eg. pancakes: I mix up the dry ingredients in a ziplock bag, put the wet ingredients in a mason or plastic jar, and then just pour the dry into the wet and shake to mix when it's time to cook.

[crunchymum]

Oh my, I love making food while camping. I usually have to toss out any illusions of healthy food, though, more or less. :giggle

We do a lot of packets. Hobo dinners, chicken Parmesan packets, banana rein sugar french toast packets. We do kabobs a lot, too. And campfire cinnamon rolls where you wrap refrigerator crescents on a stick, cook them, and roll them in butter and cinnamon sugar. :yum


Chili is good... Baked apples... Man, IMO everything tastes better 'cause you're "roughing it". :giggle

[Autumn]

There were a few ideas over here - http://gentlechristianmothers.com/community/showthread.php?t=444295

[Apple-Saucy]

Breakfasts: Eggs. Precook your bacon and store in zip lock bags. Precook pancakes or waffles and store in zip lock bags. Re-heat them on a cast iron pan or griddle morning of. Oatmeal cooked over the fire.

Lunches and Dinners: Pasta salads dressed with oil and vinegar with lots of veggies, Shrimps over the campfire (use a grill cage), Grilled chicken (you can parboil that at home and just finish it up at the camp)

Sides and snacks: Potatoes, corn on the cob, chopped up veggies wrapped in foil and thrown on the coals to cook. Nacho packets...make a pouch out of foil toss in a serving of chips and some shredded cheese put it in the coals for 5-10 minutes depending on how hot the coals are fish it out eat contents.

Desserts: Fire pie....you'll need a dutch oven or other shallowish covered dish that is heat/fire proof. Make a pie put it in the dutch oven put the oven in the fire cover it with hot coals. S'mores.

[twoplustwo]

In addition to already mentioned items - two of our popular camping foods are:

Zucchini bread for breakfast.

I always bring a thing of chicken burrito mix - so we just heat it up & do burritos.

[StoryOfGrace]

STEAK AND EGGS!!!!!! :yum



:shifty

Sorry, that's my favorite part about camping...the food. Steak and eggs for breakfast. Chips. Things we don't usually get around here.


Subbing, be back when DS is sleeping.

[Barefoot Bookworm]

Nothing but sweet, sweet hobo pies. And s'mores.

[easygoinmomma]

:popcorn

[Dovenoir]

Ramen/canned soup
Hot dogs/brats/burgers/kielbasa
Grilled chicken/steak/pork chops (marinate in gallon bags)

Lunchmeat sandwiches
Eggs in cast iron skillet or hard boiled

Anything you can make in a crock pot/dutch oven- prechop veggies and put in gallon bags with lemon juice or salt.

Foil packs of meat/veggies/potatoes

Are you using a grill or do you have a campfire grill stand?

[lalaithnil]

We do lots of fresh fruits and veggies that can be stored in a cooler or cabinet so as to save on fridge space (we have a little dorm fridge in our camper.) We do a veggie stew cooked over the fire, eggs over the fire, burgers. We LOVE those little square sandwich makers for over the fire; you can do premade fridge rolls or bread to make pizzas, fruit pies :yum, etc. We take lots of trail mix and snack on that a ton. Yogurt tubes, :think.
If I think of more, I'll be back. We're big campers here. :)

ETA: oh yeah, baked potatoes, foil wrapped in the fire. Or fish and veggies, foil wrapped over the fire.

Watermelon and corn on the cob are traditions here. :yum

[blessedwithboys]

http://applevalleygirl.blogspot.com/2010/07/menu-plan-monday-camping-food-part-1.html This make ahead sandwich is YUM!

[Amber]

My favorite camping breakfast is bacon, and then cooking scrambled eggs in the bacon grease. :yum

We also like cooking hotdog and hamburgers directly over our campfire. We have a little gril rack that we can set up over the fire. We have done steak that way too.

[Mommainrwanda]

Elephant ears are a camping tradition when camping with my fake-mom. :shifty

[ncsweetpea]

What are elephant ears?

We do silver turtles, grilled chicken sausages, veggies in foil, pasta salads.

We just bought a second egg cooker for the RV. It makes for quick breakfasts. Coleman has a nice little app with recipes on it sorted by cooking method. There are some yummy looking things there.

We also love Brooks BBQ chicken. It gets soaked in the marinade in a ziplock before we go and grilled over charcoal or wood at the fire. Yummy!

We allow one junky snack--usually a bag of cheese curls. And one campfire sweet treat--usually marshmallows or s'mores, per camping trip. Otherwise it is normal healthy food.

[Can'tTurnLeft]

Elephant Ears are the big giant part of the elephants body that they use to hear. They grill up nicely.....


KIDDING.

They are fried dough that you cover with cinnamon and sugar


I didn't get a lot of sleep last night :yawn

[lalaithnil]

Elephant Ears are the big giant part of the elephants body that they use to hear. They grill up nicely.....

:roll

[melliethepooh]

My best camping recipe:
Bottle of italian dressing, sliced tomatoes and onions, can of mandarin oranges; marinade chicken in this in a ziploc bag. Freeze before packing it in your cooler. Then you either foil pack it in the coals, or cook on a cast iron skillet. Wins every time.
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[Johns_Gal]

Sweet potatoes, red or white, baked in the coals. I do them overnight for a hot breakfast, ready to eat when we wake up.
Eggs, bacon, and panckaes for a breakfast one day.
Oatmeal
Various forms of pigs in a blanket, cheat and make them with biscuit dough.

Lunches are usually packed. Almonds, an orange or apple, pb sandwiches.

Dinner; usually, premade food or canned chili. We get back to camp late, and everyone is dirty and tired. I don't have a stove (yet, will for next time) so making a fire at dusk and policing DS around it = :glare Unfun.


We usually go for a week or ten days, as there isn't anywhere within a reasonable drive for a weekend that isn't horrible or BTDT.

[gardenfreshmama]

The most important part of camping is waking up and having a french press to make coffee in. :yawn (or for dh to make coffee in and bring to you in your sleeping bag!)

[Laurlor]

:popcorn Great suggestions!

Our favorite is tacos. We make the meat at home and freeze it, then pack it in the cooler and use when defrosted.

We also like to bring pulled pork (already cooked from Costco) and make pulled pork sandwiches.

[Elora]

Sweet potatoes, red or white, baked in the coals. I do them overnight for a hot breakfast, ready to eat when we wake up.
OOOO this is a new one for me :heart love it!

[jenny_islander]

It's cold in the morning even in summer here, so we need hot food. Sometimes we splurge on steak--paying full price for something we normally only get on clearance. Other foods:

*Pot of rice.
*Make hamburger patties, freeze, pack frozen, and cook in pan.
*Onions. Bring knife and cutting board, slice, saute in pan juices from burgers or steak, mix with rice.
*Bring some pies and heat them near the fire or on the propane grill.
*Round out with fresh fruit, pickles, carrot sticks, etc.
*For burgers, bring sliced cheese if wanted. Also some Season-All or other desired seasoning.
*Hotdogs with the works are always a good choice.
*Chili! Make ahead and reheat, serve with scoop-shaped corn chips.

[Amber]

We also like to make campfire donuts. Take refrigerator biscuits, roll them up into a ball and roast them over the fire like marshmallows. When it is cooked through, roll it in melted butter and then cinnamon sugar.

[ncsweetpea]

Elephant Ears are the big giant part of the elephants body that they use to hear. They grill up nicely.....




Seems like they might be kinda chewy... ;)

[mamaKristin]

While camping, we eat a lot like we do at home. We've got a propane stove, and a bbq grill thing that comes with us. I pre-portion all our spices into tiny reusable containers, or ziplock bags (like pancake mix). I freeze water in gallon sized milk jugs, and keep one of our coolers for super cold food (like frozen meats) and one for cooler/nonfrozen foods/beverages.

Generally we have butter chicken, chill, steak and potatoes, pasta for suppers. Lunches are often when I'll make sandwiches in our bush pie maker in the campfire. Pizza sandwiches, grilled cheese...I'll also use the pie maker for dessert at night. Yum.

Breakfasts are oatmeal, pancakes, bacon and eggs. I'll often have bacon and eggs the morning after we've had potatoes, so I'll have extras to turn into hash browns. I really plan out our food when we camp, so I'm using leftovers for subsequent meals so less cooking required. :phew

Oh, and we start the day with coffee and hot chocolate every morning. The kids love getting hot chocolate for breakfast, and it warms us all up on chilly mornings - even hot mornings feel chilly when we're eating outside.

[crunchymum]

The most important part of camping is waking up and having a french press to make coffee in. :yawn (or for dh to make coffee in and bring to you in your sleeping bag!)

Mmmmm... Even better is bringing a carafe or cold brew concentrate. Nothing better than a GOOD cup of coffee in the middle of camping! :yum

Is a bush pie maker like a pudgie pie maker? I never thought to do grilled cheese, YUM!!!!

[sprout]

subbing...b/c now I so wanna go camping!!!

[Macky]

While camping, we eat a lot like we do at home.
:yes When we first bought our house, our stove didn't arrive for three months, so we cooked every cooked meal out on our fire pit. We got pretty good at most everything (we didn't try baking, though). We can do pasta and rice and steamed veggies and anything you can do on a stove in the kitchen really. Managing the coals is the trick.

When we pack for camping, I only pack cooking supplies, spices and dry/tinned goods. We mostly camp in Kananaskis now, so we're about 90 minutes or less from grocery stores in Canmore or Calgary where we can stock up for a few days at a time. (We're usually visiting family while we camp, so it's not like we're driving all that way just for fresh fruit or something.) We have a cooler that plugs in in the vehicle.

When we used to camp more remotely up north, we'd only go for the weekend and could manage bringing meats, dairy and frozen things. We were a reasonable distance from Prince Albert if we needed something. The park we camped in had no services whatsoever and the "campground" was nothing more than some cleared areas of dirt and a couple of outhouses. No power or paved roads or anything.

The wilderness trip I was on was dry goods only after the first three days or so. The outfitter's wife made delicious meals and dehydrated them (veggies, sauces, jerky, etc.) so all we had to do was add water. She also made homemade, scratch dry mixes for pancakes and bannock where all we had to add was water. :rockon

[mamaKristin]

Bush pie maker is probably the same thing as a pudgy pie maker. Ours are metal pieces that fit together, and lock, and we place them in/on the campfire. We make savoury sandwiches, sweet pies, pizza, everything with them. I wanted to get the cast iron ones, but they were much heavier and pricer. I didn't mind paying more, but we tow a pop up trailer with a mini-van, and I try to keep our packing light as possible.

---------- Post added at 09:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:36 AM ----------

Oh, and I confess to packing instant Starbucks packets while camping on occasion. :blush I'm a huge coffee snob, but when we're without easy water access, it takes much less water to boil up for instant packets, as opposed to cleaning up our camp coffee pot.

[crunchymum]

:yes sounds like the same thing!

[milkmaidmama]

:cup