camping and cooking: got any tips?
I’m so excited to have scored a fantastic camping spot on San Juan Island in September: San Juan is known for frequent whale sightings (though, granted, those get a little less frequent late in the season) and we have a full water view with steps directly to the beach. I can’t wait! But the ugly truth is, camp cooking is still pretty intimidating to me. I know I’ll be be perusing this roundup at Sunset, and I have a feeling S’moreos will be on the menu. But I’d love to hear your tried and true recipes for cooking on a campfire or camp stove. We’re car camping, so I’ll be able to bring along plenty of supplies. If it’s still warm enough, maybe I’ll bake cookies in the car… –Mary T.
Photo by James Carrier via Sunset
If you like having coffee, it’s good to bring along a french press and some beans ground for a french press. It’s about as simple and delicious a coffee you could want!
Bonus points from me if the recipes are vegetarian or vegan! :)
We just went camping a few weekends ago and we used our cast iron pots over an open fire and cooked beer brats (brats, peppers, onions, and some beer at the end to boil and finish cooking) and chicken fajitas. Considering the cast iron and the raw meat, these recipes are recommended for car camping only.
Love the French press idea — been meaning to get one of those. Megan — do you have those vegan recipes to supply? There are no bears on San Juan — that i know of! — so I think we can pretty much cook anything without worrying about uninvited guests.
My vegan friend and I started camping together last year, and I think all we did then was bread (baked in foil in the coals), sauteed veggies, and grilled tofu-cheese sandwiches. And before I started camping with her I’d just take a hot dog and a stick, so I was uninspired long ago. :D However, I will say that the BEST breakfast I ever had was camping on my honeymoon. When everyone else at the campground was eating granola bars, we cooked bacon and then flipped pancakes in the bacon grease and ate them with marionberry sauce. It’s a really nice way to spend a morning. :)
My parents always did everything in Mom’s cast iron dutch oven. Line a pit with charcoal and put some on the lid and you can cook anything while you chill in the water or hike. Stews, chili, chicken breasts with barbq sauce, chicken and dumplings. Assuming, of course, that your heat wave breaks : )
Egg drop soup is tasty and easy. Water, can of corn, peas optional, a little starch. When it boils, crack a few eggs, mix them separately and pour them into the boiling water. Just add soy sauce to your bowl and enjoy!
We use this coffee press for nalgene bottles which makes perfect coffee. The mac and cheese that comes with the cheese, the saffron rice, anything instant is good and handy. Also I’ve made pancakes and bacon will relative ease.
hey!
I read this blog, and awhile ago they went camping and threw up some pictures/ideas of good camping food..
http://thirtyaweek.wordpress.com/
the posts were in may 2009..
Those packages of gross instant fettucini alfredo somehow taste so amazing when you’re camping. And bring a bag of frozen peas in your cooler, and then they’ll be thawed and ready to dump into the pasta. You just boil water on your propane stove and dump the package in. You just have to bring extra water to wash the pot out if you’re going to use it again since the water usually isn’t potable at campgrounds.
I’ve recently become an Aeropress convert, and it’s ideal for camping. Cook’s Illustrated said it beat a $400 espresso maker in their tests. I think most Metropolitan Markets in Seattle sell them.
http://www.aerobie.com/Products/aeropress_story.htm
We have a few tried-and-true camping recipes. My favorite is marinated beef skewers (we use the recipe in The New Joy of Cooking). This year we are going to try freezing the beef cubes in their marinade before we leave home, so we can have them on the 2nd or 3rd night instead of the first. Grilled potatoes and veggies alongside complete the meal. Sounds like an amazing camp site. Have a great trip!
If you are car camping you can do anything. Easy car camp meals for us are a can of black beans, a homemade bag of spices for the beans, a boil in the bag multi grain pilaf (Trader Joe’s carries a good one with turmeric)- we ate this for breakfast last weekend. Another easy meal we will do is a legume Tasty Bite, a hearty multi grain bread, and a huge salad. If we have a good deal of time around a camp and not many mosquitoes to contend with we’ll do avocado rolls with almond butter and boil in the bag brown rice.
I tend not to do campfires in the summer if it is warm enough but will use a dutch oven if the fire danger is low and it is cold. You can do a great/easy veggie curry in a dutch oven and bake biscuits on top. Or just bake a bread in the dutchy (I once did a two layer cake in the middle of nowhere for a friend with mine). It is just a matter of dancing with the coals.
Oooh, another great product I like playing with outside if we are feeding a lot of folks… soyrizo. It packs some flavor and protein since it is only TVP and spices. I like it for backpacking, and I like it in the front country. A lot of recipe ideas on the inside jacket of the packaging.
I agree with kia, soyrizo is delicious! And having an aeropress has changed my life (and my coffee) forever. My only wish is that it would magically make myself like my drip-pot used to do. I miss waking up to the smell of coffee, but I can never trade the taste of my aeropressed coffee. I’ve come out of the platonian coffe-cave!
Anyway, when i was younger we used to camping a lot, and what my dad would do for breakfasts would be to brown the sausage beforehand, crack the eggs, dice the peppers and mushrooms and onions and throw them all in a zip loc. That way we wouldn’t have to tote cutting knives and whole anything- just pop it all in the pan, put in tortilla and top with cheese: et voila- the best breakfast burritos on the planet! I think the trick is to do as much in advance/combine everything you can to cut down on carrying too much around and taking up too much time for meals.
Thanks for the shoutout Lana! Our camping post is here: http://thirtyaweek.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/camp-food/
and we also did a guest post at The Kitchn all about frugal camp cooking here: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/tips-techniques/campfire-cooking-best-easy-frugal-foods-for-camping-guest-post-from-tina-and-phil-of-30-bucks-a-week-087985
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The cornbread photo you posted along with your post is very mouthwatering. I wish I could cook that when we are camping. Great post by the way.