Your favorite camping meals

[john101477]

Someone mentioned the engine block chicken above and I wanted to add that we do this with cut up tri-tip as well. Also back when we did a lot of snowmobiling we would do this and by lunch the steaks were ready every time.

We do a lot of different things for meals but back when I was 18 or 19 a buddy and I went camping and the following is something that was created because we did not want to haul anything back home.
1 can of cream of chicken soup
12 eggs
4 potatoes, grated
1 lb Mild Country Sausage
1/2 lb bacon, cut small
1/2 lb Cheddar Cheese
Montreal Steak Seasoning 1/2 table spoon
Flour tortillas (optional)

LARGE frying pan, mine is 15in
cook ground sausage and bacon with seasonings until done but not crispy, set aside and keep fingers out of it, cook potatoes in grease from meat, drain oil as much as possible.
Add eggs to the potatoes and scramble into taters, cook till done. Add meat and soup cook till hot, add cheese. Heat tortillas and eat like a burrito or just eat it off a plate.

When your young and dumb you don't think about the coronary that this might cause when you get older but it is very good.

 

[unabashedpraise]

When I am backpacking I usually have a Ziploc freezer bag with couscous, sundried tomatoes, and spices. Pour in some just off boiling water, add pouched albacore, place in insulated pouch, shake, and set aside while you set up the tent.

When you are done with the tent, fluff the couscous with your fancy spork and enjoy. Freezer bag cooking is easy, clean, and tasty!

 

[FMKV]

Pumpkin pancakes w/wo dark chocolate chips. Kids love them for breakfast, and you can eat the leftover ones for snacks all day!

 

[Eric3187]

My go-to meal while camping/traveling is:
1 bag of boil in bag rice
1/2 pound ground beef
a mixture of peas/carrots/corn/lima beans
some times ill chop up a potato

rice gets cooked on its own, all the other ingredients get wrapped up in foil and cook in their own juices and grease, once done, everything gets mixed together and tossed around in some hot sauce, ad some salt and pepper and enjoy a very filling meal that only costs a dollar or two a serving.

 

[LIVEanimals]

 

[CSG]

I can't remember the last time I cooked a camping meal in the van. Maybe some eggs a few years ago. With the little 2-way fridge I've got, I tend to get stuff prepared already (like chicken salad). My typical meals are coffee for breakfast and maybe a food bar or two of some type. Lunch is often chicken salad on pita bread and dinner is things like salami and cheese with some wine (and a baguette if I can find one along the way). Cooking outside is too much of a hassle for a guy like me and I don't like cooking in the van. But I'm not setting up a camp like many of you seem to do or traveling with a group. I'm usually in a spot just for an overnight and off in the AM so quick and easy is my goal.

 

[Honu]

older thread but keeping it going


anything that is easy tasty and requires some FUN to put together the kids can get involved with

ANYTHING on a griddle I need some pics next time

anything out of our pie irons
using bread

or making breakfast
cook up the eggs inside the iron then take out put in thawed hash browns and whatever else you like

another layer of hash browns

and you end up with

add cinnamon rolls from dutch oven (again simple easy kids can do it)

ANYTHING in a dutch oven this is dinner but simple quick easy monkey bread etc... is also a fav

end up with Peanut butter cup smores at the end of the night

 

[JMacs]

As a good Nebraskan, we have to eat steak for at least one meal. Save the leftovers for breakfast. Cut them up, mix it with bunch of sautéed onions, hash browns, and scrambled eggs. It always tastes much better around the campfire compared to the kitchen table.

Hobo dinners are another favorite. Each family brings their own meat, chicken, steak, hamburger, what ever. We show up with a pile of various veggies and a bunch of different spices. Everyone gets to customize their own meal, even the kids. (Goes along with what others have said about getting them involved.) then be good enough friends to be willing to let others eat off your plate. They are all different but so good you want to try it all!

 

[vanvliet22]

Shakshuka (Middle Eastern Eggs in Red Sauce)

One of our favorite camping meals (for breakfast or dinner) is Shakshuka. It's middle eastern in origin, but pretty much everyone from Morocco to Israel claims it as their own. What's great about it is that it can be made entirely in one pot (or cast iron pan) and uses ingredients that don't need a ton of refrigeration. (aside from the cheese)





Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter (or olive oil)
2 poblano peppers, seeded and diced
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
2-4 eggs
¼ cup goat cheese, crumbled
½ loaf crusty French bread
salt & pepper

Directions
Heat butter in your pot over medium heat. Once melted, add the poblano peppers and onions, stir to coat, and cook for 5 minutes or until beginning to brown, stirring as needed. Add the garlic, cumin, and paprika and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add the tomatoes and their juices, along with ½ cup water. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes to allow the mixture to thicken.

Crack the eggs into the sauce, spacing them evenly apart. Cover and allow the eggs to cook until the whites have set and the yolk is to your preferred consistency, 5-7 minutes. You can spoon the sauce over the top as needed to encourage them to cook thoroughly.


Also, if you guys are interested, my girlfriend and I just recently started a camp cooking food blog where we're posting some of our outdoor culinary experiments. We're by no means experts, but we're having fun doing it. www.freshoffthegrid.com

 

[Doc_]

This is one of my favorite meals for backpacking:
The key ingredient is Mountain House freeze-dried chicken, they sell it in big cans that you can buy just about anywhere. I usually buy a couple when they're on sale and portion them up into two-portion vacuum-sealed pouches so that way they're ready to just toss into any pack meal whenever. Surprisingly, they actually rehydrate well and taste and feel like real chicken. The best deal I've found is to from Amazon, which now thinks I'm a prepper and is suggesting lovely curtains for the bunker they presume that I own. Different story, though.

The other big ingredient is frozen mixed veggies. I've found that frozen mixed veggies are perfect for dehydrating because the freezing process starts to break up the veggies' cell walls and membranes, allowing fluids to dry out of and soak into the veggies easily. It usually takes about three hours to dry out a couple pounds of them on low heat.

Anyway, I'll take a 1-cup portion of the chicken and add a teaspoon of off-the-shelf chicken gravy mix and a couple tablespoons of the dehydrated veggies to it.
In another small bag, I'll add a portion of instant mashed potatoes. I think the Idahoan Reds with the skins still on are pretty tasty.
In a third larger bag goes a portion of instant stuffing as well as the small envelope of chicken and veggies and the small envelope of potatoes, this all gets sealed into one small faux-MRE.

When you're at your campsite, boil three cups of water, open the chicken/veggie envelope and empty them into the pot and wait for 10-15 minutes. Then add the stuffing and finally stir in the potatoes. If you're really pushing hard on an outing and need the calories, you can add a half-ounce of olive oil to it, bumping up the calorie count to nearly 800.
The baggies can be stored in the bottom of your bear can or bag and washed when you get home and reused. The only dirty dishes are the pot and spoon used to eat, and you can get away with boiling water in the pot for tea or hot cocoa after dinner to clean it, just be sure to boil the spoon in it, too.

Lightweight, high calorie, low-mess, higher nutrition than off-the-shelf meals, and about $5 a serving.

 

[jerdog53]

One of the things we do every time is something called camp stove hash, coined by my mother.

2 raw Pork Brats skinned and shredded
1 Med Poblano peppers diced
1 small red onion diced
2 small potatoes boiled and diced
Cheddar cheese as you like it.
3 eggs

In a medium skillet over medium heat typically I cook the Brats properly and remove from the pan leaving the fat. Add the potatoes and brown then add the peppers and onion and cook to your liking. Wisk the eggs to break them up and add to the pan cooking gently until set. Add the Brats and then cheddar Cheese only long enough to soften and then plate.

Serves 2

 

[402xjeeper]

I cant believe no one has mentioned ho-bo dinners.

Take a burger patty, sliced carrots, sliced green pepers...pretty much any veggie or potato your heart desires...Ive even tossed in a tomato...toss all of that (with your favorite seasonings) into a piece of foil. Wrap all of that up so its good and sealed and toss it on some coals or any source of heat. Ive also put a few slices of bacon and cheese into the mix. These are great if your going to be out for the day. You can make them up ahead of time, put them into the cooler, and get them out when your ready to cook them.

Image from flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jstephenconn/3095558656/sizes/z/in/photostream/

You forgot the cabbage used to keep it from burning, place ingredients inside cabbage leaves,then wrap in foil and place on coals.

 

[BulletHead]

We are hiking a full day and staying 1 night at campsite. The camp site is ~3 miles up the trail on the way to summit, so can't take anything that needs to be refrigerated like milk, eggs, meat etc. What are our options? We will have a kelly kettle and a stove with us so we can cook, just cant think of what would work.

The time we will have between beginning at the trailhead and when we return would be roughly 8 hours, so in that time I'm thinking any meat or dairy would spoil.

 

[Happy Joe]

There is a good no refrigeration thread in the stickies; http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/59235-No-refrigeration-needed
Meat frozen with dry ice and wrapped in bags and corrugated paste board/several inches of Styrofoam can keep for up to a couple of days (with good home insulated packaging so can ice cream). some experimentation required surround the item with dry ice and keep the container sealed as well as possible; vacuum sealing meat helps.
Dried milk has always worked fine to cook with not that great to reconstitute and drink ...
Eggs are no biggie; for just a couple of days, just coat with Vaseline to keep the air out (if paranoid get dried eggs or non refrigerated carton packaged egg like substance) also ok to cook with but not that great to just cook and eat...
When hiking I have mostly given up doing the big/fancy prepared/gourmet meal thing and have dropped back to freeze dried (mountain house for example) meals/entrees (mostly a matter of adding water and heating).
I often eat pretty much what I eat at home... this can take experience/gear i.e. if making pizza, cakes, breads/casseroles in a Dutch oven
Since you are not going far or staying long canned goods will be fine.
Nuke some 'taters, (fork some holes first to keep them from 'sploding) wrap them in aluminum foil and reheat in campfire coals (bring butter/margarine in a squeeze bottle/tube).
Hot dogs and 'smores are always popular...
You might try doing some experimental bread on a stick or hoecakes just for laughs (if you can have a fire).
Popcorn (fire or stove) can also be entertaining (jiffy pop over a camp fire has never yet worked for one of my friends, I usually relent and we fall back to a large fry pan with oil & a lid) (shake, shake, shake, dump in a bag)...

Enjoy!

 

[Jason911]

Those geniuses down in the land of Oz really have the campfire cooking (out in the bush) figured out. I've seen some really good cooking infomercials from Austrilain 4WD action. I get hungry watching them sometimes. Another is:

http://youtu.be/7g4_iNorvBY