Help us not starve while camping! Eeek!

[WarriorMama]

We're going camping for three days next weekend, and I have no idea what to feed my poor family! :willy_nilly: :tongue_smilie:

 

I haven't been camping since I was little, and while my husband has, the menu when he's gone camping with buddies has leaned heavily on junk and canned items. And beer. ;) So he's not much help here!

 

My trouble is two-fold: due to various food allergies (wheat and corn being the big ones) we can't really do convenience or processed food of any sort...but on the flip side, I have two little kids and a baby to chase around so easy is essential!

 

(Why am I doing this again?!?!?! :lol: )

 

So far I'm thinking muffins for breakfasts. Fruit and maybe homemade cookies for snacks. Maybe I'll hit the bakery and buy the expensive rice bagels the kids like and they can have those with cheese at lunch? I'm planning to premake and freeze a beef stew that I can just heat up for one dinner...

 

And that's as far as I've gotten! We're going up Friday afternoon and coming back Monday, so I need three sets of meals...

 

Any ideas? Pleeeeaaaaaase? :D

Super bonus points for things I can cook or heat on the fire instead of needing any fancy equipment!

 

(And I would love to hear any brilliant advice you may have about camping with little ones...I'm a little intimidated! :lol: )

[Dirtroad]

Boiled eggs travel well & are good protein

 

Dried fruit is lighter & easier to pack than fresh

 

Oatmeal is easy to make with just water & dried fruit/nuts

 

Noodles are easy to make

 

If you grill or bake some chicken before you go... you can heat it up like a stir fry (toss in the skillet) and add to noodles

 

I don't camp. But these are some things my son does for scouting camp outs. I wish I could remember more.

[Lori D.]

Be sure to bring a roll of foil; a box of ziplock bags; and a few clean, empty plastic storage containers -- that way you can store left-overs in the cooler, and eat them for lunch, or re-heat for another dinner!

 

And key for me: it's lot of pre-planning and a MAJOR pain of HOURS of work the day or two before you leave, but the more you cut up, prepare, and pre-package BEFORE you go, the easier it is to cook while camping -- just take your ziplock bag or plastic container of prepared items and throw in a pan and cook; or take you bag of prepared lunch items out of the cooler and serve!

 

Dinner ideas:

- Cook up pasta in one pot; heat a jar of favorite sauce in another pan; drain pasta, add sauce, eat! You can even add meatballs from a bag of frozen or refrigerated meatballs; heat them with the sauce.

- Pre-bake some potatoes, wrap in foil, reheat on the grill over the campfire; if you want to get really fancy, bring toppings for "spud-tacos"; cheese sauce and broccoli; chili; or other "make a meal out of a baked potato" toppings.

- Cook up a box of Uncle Ben's wild rice mix in a pot at camp.

- Get de-boned chicken breasts, slice into 1/4" thickness (grills faster), put into a plastic bag with BBQ sauce, teriyaki sauce, or other favorite chicken grill sauce, store in the cooler, and cook on the grill.

- Get a fairly thin London Broil or top-round; pound slightly with a mallet to tenderize; place in a ziplock bag; pour some vinegarette dressing over it for marinade; seal up; grill and eat.

- Hot dogs, buns and condiments; we like the turkey franks. You can grill them, or heat a pan of water on the grill and heat the dogs in the hot water.

- Cook up a box of mac and cheese in a pot on the grill.

- Heat up a can of baked beans, chili, soup, or other canned item.

- Buy pre-made/pre-cooked refrigerated calzones, burritos, or other entree; store in your cooler, wrap tightly in foil and warm up on the grill.

- Look in the grocery store for meals that come in a box, don't need refrigeration, and just require adding boiling water or minimal heating/mixing. There are lots of those Asian noodle varieties, for example.

- Cook up 2 packs of ramen noodles and flavor packets in a big pot on the grill; add in frozen veggies from your cooler; crack in 1-2 eggs and whisk in till cooked -- about 1-2 minutes. Serve; at the table, serve with a few drops of Chinese "rooster" hot sauce, or sesame oil, soy sauce or other seasoning (if desired).

- Bag of salad mix and bottled dressing; store in cooler.

- Reheat bag of frozen veggies in a pot of boiling water on grill. (ex: Green Giant's Broccoli in cheese sauce)

 

 

ETA: I just noticed your family has allergies and food restrictions -- how about making double-sized recipes of your dinners for the next week, freeze portions of the recipes, store in your camping cooler, and then wrap in foil and reheat on a grill?

 

 

Snacks or lunches:

- Cheese and rice crackers.

- PBJ sandwiches; peanut butter on crackers or celery.

- Buy an already cut-up veggie tray and a fruit tray; store in individual sandwich bag-sized ziplocks.

- Sandwich bag-sized ziplocks of nuts, dried fruit or raisins, or trail mix.

- Bring lunchmeat, cheese, onion, lettuce and condiments, packaged in individual ziplocks and kept all together in a larger gallon-sized ziplock; bring out a loaf of bread and a couple of disposable plastic knives and let everyone make their own sandwich.

- Pre-packaged pudding cups or jello cups.

 

 

Breakfast Ideas:

- We like bacon and eggs for breakfast; if you drink up one of the juice boxes and trim off the top, you can pour the bacon grease into the empty juice box.

- Partially freeze your jug of milk (make sure it is NOT all the way full first!!), which helps keep your cooler of food cold; use the milk on cereal for breakfast, heat up for hot chocolate, or use in coffee, or drink cold milk at lunch or dinner. Our kids loved those mixed variety packs of little boxes of cereal as a treat, since I never bought sugared cereals for home.

 

 

And, of course! don't forget the graham crackers, chocolate bars and big marshmallows and long fork-skewers for toasting marshmallows and making s'mores at the campfire for after-dinner-dessert! :)

 

 

Check out some ideas at this site:

About.com: Popular Camping Recipes: http://camping.about.com/od/campingrecipes/tp/campingrecipes.htm

Edited July 25, 2011 by Lori D.

[Unicorn.]

Tin foil casserole: Lay cabbage leaves on foil (keeps veggies from burning). Dice potato, carrots, then a hamburger pattie, top w/ onions, salt, pepper. Fold up foil to form a pouch, cook on hot coals for 45 minutes. Individual pouches. You can pre chop the carrots/onions.

 

Mountain man breakfast: cook bacon or sausage in dutch oven, drain grease, add a pckg of frozen hash browns, add dozen scrambled eggs, then shredded cheese (8oz pckg) salt/pepper to taste. Cook using 8-10 hot bricquets evenly spaced under the oven and 10-14 on top. Rotate the oven every 10 minutes and the lid too. (Can cut recipe down for fewer people)

 

Apples and peanut butter for dipping for lunch.

Lots of fresh fruit, nuts for snacking..

 

hth

Have fun!

[2_girls_mommy]

Don't forget hamburgers on the grill. *** You can cook these on the fire if you wrap them in foil. We like to wrap a burger in foil along w/a cut up potato, onion, and carrots. It makes a nice little gravy in the foil packets. For convenience use frozen patties or veggie burgers. You can add any kind of seasoning too.

 

Sides:

 

Pre cut lots of veggies and fruits for all meals. Make dips w/sour cream and keep in the cooler.

 

Pre make potato salad and deviled eggs. They sell plastic egg holders for camping that go in the cooler and will protect even the raw eggs.'

 

Use canned baked beans.

[nd293]

Sausage and baked potato? I bake sweet potato and have it with ginger butter sometimes (grated ginger mixed into softened butter). Or plain old potaotes. Wrap in foil, and place on the fire (not in direct contact with flames, though).

[lynn]

We're going camping for three days next weekend, and I have no idea what to feed my poor family! :willy_nilly: :tongue_smilie:

 

I haven't been camping since I was little, and while my husband has, the menu when he's gone camping with buddies has leaned heavily on junk and canned items. And beer. ;) So he's not much help here!

 

My trouble is two-fold: due to various food allergies (wheat and corn being the big ones) we can't really do convenience or processed food of any sort...but on the flip side, I have two little kids and a baby to chase around so easy is essential!

 

(Why am I doing this again?!?!?! :lol: )

 

So far I'm thinking muffins for breakfasts. Fruit and maybe homemade cookies for snacks. Maybe I'll hit the bakery and buy the expensive rice bagels the kids like and they can have those with cheese at lunch? I'm planning to premake and freeze a beef stew that I can just heat up for one dinner...

 

And that's as far as I've gotten! We're going up Friday afternoon and coming back Monday, so I need three sets of meals...

 

Any ideas? Pleeeeaaaaaase? :D

Super bonus points for things I can cook or heat on the fire instead of needing any fancy equipment!

 

(And I would love to hear any brilliant advice you may have about camping with little ones...I'm a little intimidated! :lol: )

 

Bring empty jars with holes in the lid to catch bugs. A flashlight for each child. Bring some toys (balls, bikes etc) Tuck away some coloring books and crayons in case it rains. Do you have a portable dvd player. My kids loved watching a movie outside in the evening.

[WarriorMama]

Wow, thanks so much for all the replies so far! Some really great ideas, this is sounding more possible already!! Anybody else have any wise suggestions?:bigear:

[Harriet Vane]

Some of my favorites:

 

Grilled meat the first night.

Bring prebaked potatoes--either warm in the coals or slice and fry up with onion and butter.

Boiled eggs.

Crepes that I made at home, with cream cheese and fruit.

Sausage and cheese for lunch

Oatmeal

Instant rice will go with anything.

 

You can also shop local and continue buying raw meat that you just grill up day to day.

[KungFuPanda]

Sandwich stuff is EASY and will get people fed. Wraps are even easier to pack if you can eat any of those. Tacos and spaghetti are also easy to do if you precook and prep everything ahead of time. At camps, we've done "walking tacos" where you put the chips (or whatever cruncy base your family can eat) in a baggie and piled the toppings on top. Then, you just eat the contents right out of the bag and throw your "plate" away. It's not green, but can limit your dishwashing to pots. Spaghetti is just heat and eat . . . don't forget the cheese. Parm cheese travels well and makes everything taste better.

 

For cooking on a fire, food on a stick (hot dogs) is pretty easy and fun for the kids. Packet meals are also nice . . . just put your meat and veggies in a packet of aluminum foil and let it cook on the coals. Pack your favorite seasonings to make everything taste better. You can serve this alone, or over rice.

 

I KNOW you said you'd prefer cooking over the fire to using fancy equipment, BUT a camp stove can be a lifesaver. Cooking over a fire takes a bit of skill and you will be VERY stressed if your lovely stew burns to the bottom of the pot. A camp stove is small, portable, and comes with a little tiny tank of propane. It will give you two gas burners to cook on. You can cook almost ANYTHING with two controlled burners. By the time the men quit playing with making the perfect fire, you can have meals finished . . . eggs and bacon, stir fry . . .

 

Here is a picture of the stove I use. It's also great for emergency cooking of your power goes out ;)

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.youcancamp.com/sites/jbechman/_files/Image/Coleman%25202%2520burner%2520camp%2520stove.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.youcancamp.com/propanecampstove.php&h=280&w=280&sz=11&tbnid=Q49bRWrd6N2byM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=90&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dimages%2Bcamp%2Bstove%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=images+camp+stove&docid=CxQDRvevBoH4fM&sa=X&ei=m3ItTpSaDejd0QGp57HkDg&ved=0CB0Q9QEwAQ&dur=3430

HTH

 

KFP

[Annie G]

Strider's suggestion of bringing prebaked potatoes is great. They are so yummy and you can do so many things with them. And they're not going to spoil in the cooler.

 

I never have luck cooking things from scratch when camping- either it takes forever (or at least seems to when you're surrounded by hungry kids) or the fire is too hot and everything either scorches or cooks on the outside but isn't quite done inside.

 

If you can heat pasta sauce, you can bring precooked pasta in a ziploc and let it reheat in the sauce. One pot meal. That has worked beautifully for us- but I've never tried it with gluten free pasta.

[Debbi in Texas]

One of our favorite meals camping(which I admit is in the state park cabin- but maybe you can still adapt this) is taco salad. You can bring ground beef already cooked and frozen. Lettuce, tomatoes, onion, corn chips, corn, black beans, velveeta, and rotel. We prefer to mix as we go so it all doesn't get soggy. Maybe you can adapt for allergies as well.

 

My dh and ds love to snack on black olives.

 

What about french toast, sausage gravy and biscuits, rueben or roast beef sandwiches sandwiches. With the addition of a griddle you can cook many more things and it slips in easily. Don't forget cooking spray-makes life much easier.

 

hth

[livingnlearning]

We go every weekend, usually up in the mountains with the pack horses.

 

Last weekend we had to pack very light and I didn't feel like doing dishes so we brought tortillas instead of dishes. :D First night we had italian sausage/onions/mushrooms/tomatoes/zuchinni all chopped up and cooked in foil over the fire and served in a wrap.

 

Breakfast was nutella on apples and cheese/crackers. We usually have bagels with cream cheese and bacon-sometimes I make a cream cheese mix ahead with bacon/onions/garlic/olives in it and we use that as a spread on the bagels. Bagels hold up well to camping.

 

Next dinner was pork ribs baked in a sweet marinade in foil over the fire then served with coleslaw in another wrap.

 

 

We always bring dried fruit, trail mix, cliff bars, granola, apples, cheese sticks, crackers, bagels, cream

[Lori D.]

I KNOW you said you'd prefer cooking over the fire to using fancy equipment, BUT a camp stove can be a lifesaver. Cooking over a fire takes a bit of skill and you will be VERY stressed if your lovely stew burns to the bottom of the pot. A camp stove is small, portable, and comes with a little tiny tank of propane. It will give you two gas burners to cook on. You can cook almost ANYTHING with two controlled burners. By the time the men quit playing with making the perfect fire, you can have meals finished . . . eggs and bacon, stir fry . . .

 

 

oh YES! SOOO AGREE!! My 3 "must haves" for camping:

1. tent with rain fly and bug netting windows/door

2. comfortable inflatable mattress to sleep on

3. a 2-burner propane camp stove!!

 

The other items I always make sure to bring:

- LOTS of bottled water

- toilet paper

- flashlights

- a washcloth

 

At night, heat water and do up the pots and pans, then use the remaining clean hot water, soak and wring out the washcloth (several times) and give yourself a "washcloth bath" before going to bed -- makes a WORLD of difference in your "sticky" level -- makes you feel like a person again and very comfy for going to sleep!

 

Also be SURE to remove ALL food, toothpaste, bug lotions, etc. -- ANYTHING with scent -- out of the tent and out of the campsite and locked in your vehicle to prevent attracting bears (or other critters)!! That washcloth bath (I always scrub down the kids, too), helps remove the sunscreen and any other food scent from our bodies...

Edited July 25, 2011 by Lori D.

[NorthwestMom]

I agree with all the others who said to pre-cook your main meals so they only need to be re-heated. Prepping anything you can ahead of time will keep your stress lower. :) My kids really like pulled pork BBQ sandwiches - I make the BBQ pork in the crockpot 2 days before we leave, and bring it in the cooler in a ziplock. It only takes a few minutes (and one pot) to warm it up.

 

On the entertainment side, one very successful activity for my girls has been bringing some paint and brushes and painting some rocks they have found. They make pets, game pieces, decorations.... the list is endless.

[Photo Ninja]

I precook a lot to make it faster when camping.

 

Pulled pork or pulled beef. Cook in the crock pot, shred, mix with BBQ sauce, then freeze in Ziploc freezer bags. Pack it frozen. Heat it when you want to eat.

 

Cook cornbread at home and pack in a container so it doesn't crumble. For dinner, heat up a pot of chili-canned is fine- and pour over the cornbread for a warm, filling meal.

 

I make pasta salad and have it available for lunches and side dishes. You can make it into a meal by adding some chicken.

 

Bake potatoes. You can use them many different ways. Slice and fry them for breakfast or as a side dish for dinner. Heat them up in a pan and top with chili and cheese.

 

Bake muffins before you go to eat for breakfast or snacks.

 

Cut carrots and other favorite veggies to eat with Ranch dressing for snacks and meals. You can use the same prepared veggies with a bag of salad greens for salads.

 

Cook hamburger and freeze it. When camping, heat it and use it for tacos or also heat a can of refried beans and make burritos.

 

Bring cans of Chunky soup (or whatever your favorite is). It heats quickly and you can eat it with rolls or whatever type of bread your family can eat, and salad.

 

Slice beef or chicken into thin slices and skewer them. Marinate them in your favorite sauce (we usually use teriyaki sauce). They cook very quickly on a grill.