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mamasue
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| Posted: Aug 18 2010 at 10:35am | IP Logged
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we usually go camping once or twice a year for 2 or 3 days. We have decided to go camping more frequently and for longer periods of time since some of the kids are older now! I'm so excited!! We have two more trips planned before school starts!!
I must admit that our menu during our camping trips I quite blah.
Breakfast- cereal or campfire eggs
lunch- sandwiches
dinner- hot dogs or foil packages set in the coals o the campfire.
Sad attempt, I know!
Please help me! I think next time we'll bring a griddle or toaster or something so I don't need to cook in the campfire. I don't have money to buy a camp stove at this moment.
Especially breakfast and dinner ideas would be appreciated.
Anyone have any ideas for washing dishes while camping too?
Thank you all!!
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Aug 18 2010 at 11:04am | IP Logged
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oh there's lots of things you can do over a campfire..
You should be able to heat water for one thing.. and that makes washing dishes easy.. just bring a couple of dishpans or buckets to wash in.
There's things besides hotdogs you could cook on a stick over the fire (consider boneless chicken) and lots of ways to put together foil pouches for cooking in the fire (bake a potato, apple slices with sugar and cinnamon)..
We've gone back to cooking over the fire and really enjoy it a great deal more than fussing with campstoves etc... though those certainly have their place too.
Dutch ovens greatly expand your repertoire with the ability to make soups and stews and breads and cakes and other baked goods..
But you should be able to set up a few rocks or such in your fire to put a large kettle or pot for heating water.. or even to balance a castiron skillet or griddle.
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Erin
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And you have got to make a damper 
But a Dutch Oven would be a great asset.
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mom2mpr
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Our menu's for camping included easy things like:
pasta and sauce
mac and cheese-throw in some canned tuna and pea's, perhaps
burgers/steak on the fire or grill
baked potatoes with fixin's
yogurt for breakfast with fruit or granola
oatmeal
Bagels and cream cheese/peanut butter--even without toasting
make a trail mix for snacking with cereals, m &m's, pretzels, nuts, etc. That is usually available all day.
Hint-eat the dairy and meats first days of the trip
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Erin
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| Posted: Aug 19 2010 at 5:29am | IP Logged
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Mamasue
I was in my library today and thought of you, I was browsing the cook books and found two great books on camp cooking. I didn't bother with the titles as they were Australian, one was Scout cooking. Check out what your library may have, it would never have occurred to me to look there if I hadn't seen these books.
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Erica Sanchez
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| Posted: Aug 19 2010 at 12:35pm | IP Logged
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We're supposed to be camping right now, but have very sick kids. :( We camp a lot and hope to go in a few weeks. We use a camp stove (griddle and a few pots/pans) to cook much of what was said above.
The biggest time saver is to cook the meat before we leave, freeze it, and put it in baggies. I'll do taco meat for tostadas and/or burritos, shredded BBQ chicken for sandwiches. I've brought frozen meatballs (from Trader Joe's) and used those on the first or second night.
We have two new and very large ice chests. With blocks of ice, some of the food even stays semi-frozen. So, because we have the space, I bring lots of produce and fruit as well. We almost eat like we do at home, not really, but almost.
Mamasue, my husband loves cooking in camp and makes a breakfast meat and either pancakes or eggs. He would use one pan for the meat or eggs and then the griddle for the pancakes. For camping, I would just buy a box of pancake mix (again, at Trader Joe's). You would need a bowl to mix it up. I bring one largish bowl for this, but use it for other things like salad or scrambling eggs, etc. We do cereal and oatmeal, too, and usually splurge on the instant kind in individual packets. So easy!
BBQ Chicken (cooked at home) is easy. Heat the meat and serve with rolls, canned corn, a salad, maybe some beans. You could use the fire to heat some or all of this.
I usually make tuna and/or chicken salad at home and put in baggies or tupperware. Anything I can cook, mix, wash, cut, whatever, at home, makes it so much easier at camp. PBJ, of course, and often for lunch we eat snacks (veggies and dip, fruit, cheese and crackers, etc.)
Cooking this way does produce dishes. I'd like to minimize this for our next trip, but I normally bring a plastic dish tub thingy. Just heat the water and wash dishes at the table. I put them on a towel, dump water when finished, put all dishes back in, and take to the water spout to rinse. It is a bit of a pain, but when we camp for longer periods of time, I'd rather eat a bit healthy and deal with dishes. Two tubs would be ideal.
I just re-read your post and see that what you're really asking for is ideas to use the fire for cooking. Oops! Sorry!
Happy camping!!
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Becky Parker
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I have lots of ideas but only a minute so I will share one thing we do EVERY time we camp. I make a big batch of chili (any soup would do) and freeze it. This we put in the cooler and it helps keep everything else cold. When it's time to cook it, I put it into the dutch oven that sits in the fire and we let it cook, stirring occasionally, until it's hot.
If you had a camp stove you could also use that, or even heating things like this up in a deep electric skillet (provided you aren't seriously roughing it) would work.
I serve it with shredded cheese, sour cream and tortilla chips on th side.
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juliana147
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Erica and Becky, our strategy is a lot like both of yours. We cook meats and freeze them before we leave, and usually a meal like chili that we can rewarm on the campstove. You could use the campfire for the same thing!
There is something to a full, camp breakfast that we all enjoy, so we usually save our efforts to cook all-out in camp for that. We are usually doing a lot of hiking, so we are usually exhausted by dinnertime. At that point, I just want to heat something up! For breakfast, you could do bacon and pancakes, maybe jazzing up the pancakes a bit by bringing your own homemade mixes. We do this- try adding fruits, chocolate, etc!
Camping is such a wonderful way to spend time together as a family.
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Cooking while camping??
