Help me learn to camp cook? What do you cook while camping? How?

[I_Know_Nothing]

I'm going camping/hiking next week in the Porcupine Mountains and I'm an amateur. I'll probably be out there five full days/six nights and I'm trying to figure out my food situation. I could just survive on trail mix and power bars all week but I would like to do some cooking. I'm a pretty good home cook but have no experience cooking in the outdoors. I decided to pass on the propane stove because I'm trying to do this on the super cheap, plus I like the idea of cooking over an open flame.

I'm curious about camping grills like this. Looks like it would be good for using a pan and cooking eggs. I'm wondering if these are tall enough to use over a campfire? Do you have wait until your wood turns to coals to use it?

So tell me about your camping cooking experiences.

[cher3]

You definitely have to wait for the coals. And use the heaviest pans you can wrangle.

There is a whole Dutch oven camp cooking subculture out there, too. I've seen a three course meal cooked with Dutch ovens: soup, main dish, dessert.

[I_Know_Nothing]

Originally Posted by cher3

And use the heaviest pans you can wrangle.

Well that answers my question on whether to bring my stainless steel or cast iron frying pan, which I forgot to ask.

[Telemark]

Are you backpacking or car camping? When backpacking I go with a small stove (white gas or propane cartridge) a single pot, and foods that I can cook via boiling water. I'm not a huge fan of sitting around a fire (and here in the northeast it's pretty difficult to build a reasonable fire legally without carrying wood a long distance) so I'd rather crank the stove as soon as I make camp and get hot fluids and food in me quickly.

Plus, if you're carrying it all on your back for several days you're not going to want half your pack weight to be food. Quick cook rice, pasta, protein in the form of tuna or sausage, and a handful of freeze-dried meals in the mix. My breakfasts are oatmeal with a combination of add ins.

[purplehorseshoe]

Are you going to schlep all your supplies each day, or are you planning on a campsite that you return to each evening? Put another way: how crucial is weight and bulk going to be?

[Kevbo]

Cooking over a wood fire is an art, and a royal pain even when you learn the art. Soot is hard to get off cookware, and it is really easy to spill your chow into the fire when improvising pot supports, and packing a stable grill to cook over is heavy and gets soot on other stuff.

Google "pepsi can stove" for a simple alcohol fueled stove you can make from a couple of soda cans and a bit of fiberglass insulation. It may take you 5-6 attempts to get one that works well, but that will still run you under a buck probably. They weigh very little, the fuel is much lighter and less expensive than liquefied gas fuels, and safer than white gasoline. You can use an evian type water bottle to cary the denatured alcohol for fuel, and the lid is a good way to measure it out.

If you really want to cook over wood fire, google "Sierra stove", or this

First determine your water situation for the area you will be in. If you need to pack water, you can't go too far and dried foods save you no weight. Also you will not want to do much if any dishwashing. If Brackish or questionably safe water is available, I like the MiOx pen for killing bugs in drinking water, with iodine tabs as a backup if the battery in the MiOx dies. You can boil water, but that is slow and takes extra fuel.

Lightweight Food you can get way cheaper at grocery store than buying from Sporting good store (Repackage in ziplock freezer bags.):

Dried cereal of all kinds, both hot and cold. Can be bulky, but it is light.
Powdered milk.
Pancake mix or Bisquick.
Raman Noodles. Can be used in place of Spaghetti.
Nuts are pretty dense source of protein and carbs . Beware of too much salt.
Hash browns in those milk carton things.
You will need a big pot, but popcorn is fun. The jiffy-pop foil things are a waste IMO.
Dried coffee, tea, gatoraid. I take ground coffee and single cup Milita filter funnel.

Non-dried foods that are still good for packing:
Canned meat: Mix with raman for quick fill-me-up with little work.
Sardines, kippered herring, Develed ham, tuna, salmon, crab, chicken, spam...lots of choices.
Canned beef stew or chili. Yummy but only if I would have to pack water otherwise.
Flour Tortillas as bread. Try taking regular bread and enjoy your wheat-wads (tm) in camp.
Peanut butter, jelly, and butter, packed in the plastic toothpaste tube things they sell in the camping store.
Eggs in the paper box they come in, cut in half, inside a ziplock bag. Empty carton makes good fire starter.
Deli Bacon can be OK without refrigeration for a while, as can most lunch meat. Hard Salami is great.
produce that pack well and do OK with no refridgeration: cabbage, carrots, apples, oranges, jicama. If you are very careful, fresh Avacado is a real treat. Easy to bruise though. Bananas are right out!


Stuff that is too easy to forget:
-Can opener: P-38 or P-51 types weigh nothing. Take two.
-Cheap, thin plastic cutting board. ("counter saver"style) Makes good, clean place to set food stuff even if no cutting is needed.
-Some sort of cooking oil. Butter can work in a pinch, but canola oil is good. Repackage some from your home pantry in small bottle from camping store.
-Salt, pepper, other spices. Dried chopped onion is great, as is garlic powder. Good way to make basics far more palatable.
-Something to turn pancakes with.

Cookware:
One pot that will boil enough water to be useful, but is shallow enough work as fry pan.
Take quite a bit of foil. You can cook/bake stuff in it, or use it as a lid for pot, or as a wind shield for your pepsi-can stove.

Take some glad-ware containers. Pack your dry stuff in them, and you can eat out of them, or use them for cooking or leftovers. After breakfast, you can put boiling water and dry raman in one, wrap it up in a sweater, and have warm raman for lunch without getting your stove out.

If you take some heavy stuff, plan to eat it early in trip, so you don't carry it the full time. Dinty Moore beef stew is excellent for first night, because I like to get as far as possible the first day, and not stop to cook.

[I_Know_Nothing]

Originally Posted by Telemark

Are you backpacking or car camping?

Originally Posted by purplehorseshoe

Are you going to schlep all your supplies each day, or are you planning on a campsite that you return to each evening?

Oh yeah. I'm "car" camping. I have a tent and my car will be nearby. I'll use that as a base to drive to the different trails. I may backpack next trip, but this was a spur of the moment thing and I don't have any experience with it. I am also curious about how people feed themselves on multi-day backpacking trips because I'll get to it eventually.

[The Hamster King]

Yeah, the key is whether you're carrying your cooking gear in a backpack or not.

When I did a lot of hiking I had a small single-burner stove. Breakfast would be oatmeal, dried fruit, and tea. Lunch would be an energy bar or crackers and dry salami. Dinner would be dehydrated noodles.

Your chief concerns should be weight and clean-up time. When you're carrying it all on your back, every ounce matters. And you want to be able to clean your cook pot with cold water and a dab of detergent. Scrubbing pots after the sun goes down is no fun.

When I take the family car camping now, I have a two-burner Coleman stove and bring a cooler. You can be a little looser with this set-up. I typically make bacon and eggs for breakfast, and some sort of pasta for dinner. I still limit myself to stuff I would cook on top of the stove at home. But I'm not so paranoid about minimizing weight and effort.

You DO NOT want to be entirely dependent on wood for cooking. Coals take quite a while until they're ready to cook on, and then they don't last very long. Depending on where you're camping there may be rules about gathering firewood or setting fires. In any case, if its a well-traveled area, previous campers might have already collected all the nearby fuel. And if it rains, getting a wood fire going can be a real challenge.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun to cook over wood. We usually plan a night where we grill hot dogs and marshmallows. But it's not something you should plan on doing for every meal.

Don't cut down anything living for your fire. Green wood doesn't burn well, and it destroys the area for people who come after you. And remember to pack out all your garbage.

One other thing -- be aware of the dangers of having food around wildlife. Don't keep any food in your tent. Hang it from a tree a little ways off, or put it in the bear box if the campsite has one, or keep it locked in the car. You don't want raccoons (or something larger) trying to get into your tent because they can smell ham ... .

[Kevbo]

Ahh, you are car camping. Much easier. Knock yourself out with canned goods, hot dogs, bottled OJ, fresh milk, etc. Don't put anything in the cooler you don't want soaked in water. (make sure your cheese in sealed well in a ziplock bag, in other words.)

Still, washing dishes in camp is a pain. Eat off paper plates when possible. Also take some paper bowls for stew or cereal. Since you are car camping, take a couple of cheap plastic wash basins for doing dishes and for personal grooming as well. They are also handy for organizing you pantry when loading up the car. You might find some rubbermaid or similar containers that will have lids, and still be good for "sinks".

A bottle of Salsa is a easy way to add life to simple cooking.

On a budget: You can buy a little pot-lifter gadget at the camping store so you can use big empty tin cans for boiling water and such. you will still want a "real" fry pan though. The pepsi can or wood fueled stoves are cheap and no reason you can't use them for car camping.

Don't forget to take toilet paper!

[The Hamster King]

Here's the stove I use for car camping.

I have an older model of this for hiking.

You can find stoves that are lighter and higher tech, but I've found these to be real workhorses. They're easy to get started, not too finicky, and can stand up to a lot of abuse.

[Bozuit]

Anything you can cook in water. Pasta, rice, LENTILS! Cook some lentils with spices, yum. Do you get rice in packets there, with flavourings etc. and you just dump it in water and simmer? That's good.

[iamthewalrus(:3=]

Originally Posted by I_Know_Nothing

I am also curious about how people feed themselves on multi-day backpacking trips because I'll get to it eventually.

Mostly, you pack stuff that has as little water in it as possible, and rehydrate it when cooking. You can also try eating off the land. If you're hiking somewhere that you can fish, for example, a light rod and reel are going to weigh less than a few cans of tuna.

[N9IWP]

At a recent car camping trip I made:
Risotto (rice, broth, onions, celery)
One Pot Lasagna (noodles, spagehetti sauce, onions, celery) - cook then add ricotta cheese
Egg / Potato dish - fry up hash browns - when near done add eggs and stir
Oatmeal
Chedder Potato Soup (Bear Creek mix)

I was with a vegetarian or I would add sausage to eveything but the oatmeal.

I have a older model of this stove. Folderdup it fits in my cooking pot (not including fuel bottle)

The good news is, eveything eaten during camping tastes extra good.

I don't mind dishwashing - gives me something to do between eating and starting the campfire.

Brian

[MobiusStripes]

Another thought to add to the above suggestions: if you are planning on backpacking on another trip, it might be wise to use this trip as practice (with appropriate backup). Learning to do dutch oven cooking is entirely different "camp cooking" than cooking over a small white gas camp stove.

I've got a 20 year old MSR WhisperLite that work that I take on trips still, even if we're just car camping.

Like a lot of folks above, mostly it involves boiling water to hydrate stuff. It's really not hard.

[Mewl Dear]

Find or take water.

[Bozuit]

Originally Posted by N9IWP

The good news is, eveything eaten during camping tastes extra good.

So true. The luxury of hot food when you're out in the middle of nowhere is amazing. Sausages in a bit of bread with no sauce (and normally I have to have at least mustard) is pure deliciousness. Or one of my favourites is to wrap potatoes in foil and dump them in the coals to bake. If possible add bean chilli or something equally awesome.

[6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast]

Bushy's damper: mix flour, water and a teaspoon of salt into a dough. Take a handful, and wrap it around a stick (sorta sausage-like) to hand-cook it over the flame, or shove into the coals; or flatten the lot of it out a bit and bury the loaf in the coals. (If you're scared of ash, wrap it in foil first like a wuss.) When you tap it and it sounds hollow it's done. Butter it, and have it with honey if you like - either way, you'll know what heaven is.

[madrabbitwoman]

Originally Posted by 6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast

Bushy's damper: mix flour, water and a teaspoon of salt into a dough. Take a handful, and wrap it around a stick (sorta sausage-like) to hand-cook it over the flame, or shove into the coals; or flatten the lot of it out a bit and bury the loaf in the coals. (If you're scared of ash, wrap it in foil first like a wuss.) When you tap it and it sounds hollow it's done. Butter it, and have it with honey if you like - either way, you'll know what heaven is.

Golden syrup is better than honey. mmmmm

[6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast]

Originally Posted by madrabbitwoman

Golden syrup is better than honey. mmmmm

Cocky's Joy? Definitely!! But I'm not sure it's widely available in the US...

[silenus]

You can find Lyle's in just about any major supermarket.

Back to the OP: that grill is tall enough to use over coals, which is what you want anyway.

Take more water than you think you'll need. Kevbo has a nice list above for stuff.

We have, for the last 29 years, done a full Thanksgiving dinner in the field over campfires and Coleman stoves. The works: turkey, potatoes, veggies, rolls, pies, wines....we don't skimp. Once you get used to working with different heat sources it gets easy.

[Battle Pope]

Couscous is a great camping food. Takes almost no time to cook and is light, so good for backpacking. Throw in some chopped up salami/slim jims/twiggy sticks, dried herbs or vegetables, add tobasco sauce to taste. Even better if you can find the flavoured packets.

[6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast]

Originally Posted by silenus

You can find Lyle's in just about any major supermarket.

Thanks for the ignorance fought, silenus; cross out the honey idea! And what a brilliant Thanksgiving.

[silenus]

Do a search for "camping" and "food." There are copious threads on this board about same. I just spent a good half-hour re-reading a few. Good tips.

Our Thanksgivings have become the stuff of legend among our friends. What started out as backpacking has, as we've gotten older, mutated into....not backpacking.

Anything to avoid spending the holiday with family!

[Lynn Bodoni]

You might want to take a few MREs, which are lightweight and pack a lot of calories in each meal. If you're exhausted and starving, I think that most or all of them can be eaten without even being heated. Please note that Skippy advises against using the Chicken and Rice MRE as a personal lubricant, not that he's ever done it himself (#207).

Now personally, I like Frito Chili Pie on a campout, for nostalgic reasons. The ingredients are few, and you only need to keep the cheese cool. Basically, you heat up some canned chili (with or without beans), and serve it on top of Fritos. Then you add some shredded cheese. You can also add chopped onion and jalapeno slices, if you like. Many people just open single serving bags of Fritos, pour the chili on top, and then add the cheese and onion. One can of chili will feed 2 or 3 adults, and each adult will usually eat one bag of Fritos. You can use another brand of tortilla chips, but it won't be the same.

[Idle Thoughts]

Over to Cafe Society with you.

[Critical1]

chop up potatoes and put them in a container and fill with cold water, then while car camping you dont have to chop up your taters (keep in the cooler)

second the potatoes/veggies in foil, stupid simple takes a while though.

oh yeah and for back packing google "penny stove" its incredible.

[Ibanez]

If your an amateur at camping, I recomend a small butane stove and some dehydrated meals they've come a long way and I've tried a few brands but found Mountain House meals to be the best, so good infact if I took their chili variants out of the bag and placed it in a bowl you wouldn't know the difference.

I like the idea of cooking over and open fire as well, but it can be a pain in the ass at times. If your moving around a lot, and going to different campsites the last thing you may want to do after you've set you camp after a five hour canoe trip is set up a rain tarp in the rain, collect wet wood and try and get a fire going for your meals. Then you have to collect more wood for the evening fire.

If I was going on a trip that long, I may bring one meal or two that would be cooked over the fire but the majority of my meals would be of the dehydrated sort. However, the best t-bone steak and baked potatoe I ever had was on a camping trip. If the conditions are right it can turn out great, but generally it's a pain in the ass.

If your sitting in one spot for the whole time, it would be a little easier manage. You can basically bring anything you want. If you have the means to carry and store it.

[N9IWP]

The OP is car camping in the Porkies - there are plenty of water spigots (even in the more primative campground)

Even the backpacking sites are generally near water (though you would filter or boil it unless you want to get Giardia)

Brian

[Bozuit]

Originally Posted by 6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast

Thanks for the ignorance fought, silenus; cross out the honey idea! And what a brilliant Thanksgiving.

I've never tried it but honey sounds great to me. Don't cross anything out yet.

Originally Posted by Lynn Bodoni

You can use another brand of tortilla chips, but it won't be the same.

Fritos aren't tortilla chips - they're corn chips. I'm not sure what the difference is, and we don't even get Fritos here, but I learnt that recently!

[kayaker]

If you do any fishing, nothing beats a sautéed trout as an added treat.

[Telemark]

Originally Posted by Lynn Bodoni

You might want to take a few MREs, which are lightweight and pack a lot of calories in each meal.

There are much better quick eat options than MREs. I know some ex-military that carry them, but there are much tastier options out there that pack just as small and light for only a little more money.

[WhyNot]

Since you're car camping, one tip I have is to make an extra large batch of some one pot meal at home this week (chili, stew, soup, casserole, sherried chicken, whatever). Have half for dinner and pack the other half in a gallon sized ziplock bag and freeze it lying flat in your freezer. Toss it in your cooler - it will help keep other stuff cold, and it will be your "emergency" meal when you find you don't actually have the energy to cook a meal after setting up your camp, or it rains, or you get in late because traffic delayed you getting in and now it's dark, or whatever. Dump in a pot, heat (next to or over a fire, on a campstove, on top of a grill, whatever) and eat.

Since I go car camping for 2 weeks at a time, I do a few of these "emergency rations", just for nights when it's getting to be dinner time, but the drums are calling me...

Also, freeze a few bottles of water, and use them instead of ice in your cooler for your first day (or as long as they last). Saves room in your cooler and then you have cold water to drink when they melt! You can refill them from a more eco-friendly large jug or spigot, and reuse them until you lose them.

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by Bozuit

Fritos aren't tortilla chips - they're corn chips. I'm not sure what the difference is, and we don't even get Fritos here, but I learnt that recently!

Corn chips are made from corn meal. Tortilla chips, like corn tortillas and most kinds of tamales, are made from nixtamalized corn, also known as "hominy."

[I_Know_Nothing]

Good to know we have so many hikers on the dope. Thanks for the suggestions.

I just bought thisreally inexpensive tiny backpacking stove. I loved those ultra tiny Pepsi/Penny stoves but I have too much on my plate before I leave to figure it out, though they do look simple. I think I'll have plenty to work with between the stove and throwing foil wrapped stuff on the campfire coals at night(I'm bringing my own wood). I'll probably mix in some of the old fashioned "put something on a stick and hold it over the fire" method also. That quick bread is incredibly interesting. I'll definitely give it a try, I might have to be a wuss though. We'll see. As for water I'm just going to bring some giant jugs with me. I've never had to boil and filter water before, so maybe that's something for next time also.

I was going to start another thread about food storage, but I'll go ahead and put it here.

I going to have a large(48 qt) cooler full of ice and mostly frozen stuff. I'm wondering how long I can expect it to stay cool. I can drive outside the park every day to get more ice every day if I need to, but I'd like to be in the park the entire time, or just make one trip, if I can possibly manage. Does anyone use rock salt to extend the life of your ice chest, or does that just cause more headache than its worth?

[N9IWP]

Originally Posted by I_Know_Nothing

(I'm bringing my own wood).

Note with emerald ash borer concerns, many parks don't want you to bring firewood (though I didn't find anything on the park website)

Brian

[Chronos]

A few folks have mentioned foil-wrapped potatoes, but you can do a full meal that way, too. Wrap a hamburger patty, some veggies, and some chopped potato all together in foil, and tuck it in the coals. Eat it straight out of the foil, so you don't need to dirty a plate. For dessert, core out an apple, stuff the cavity with raisins, brown sugar, and cinnamon, and cook it the same way.

[Quartz]

I'll just mention stones. Instead of cooking over an open fire, what you can do is use the fire to heat up and sterilise stones. Not too hot or the stones can crack. Then cook whatever it is using the stones. Either buy placing the item on the stone (e.g. steak) or the stone in the item (e.g. soup) when you don't have a fireproof pot, or by placing stones around the item (e.g. cooking a joint of meat) - place hot stones and joint in a pit which is much less hassle than spit-roasting.

[nancyrowina]

We've always used a butane powered stove and found one with a grill too which is a bonus. We generally just cook what we can fry or boil in a pan and are usually on a campsite or at a festival. I have also used disposable barbecues when out camping they are easy to use and dispose of when finished with, they are good if you are only camping for one or two nights.
I'd like to get a dutch oven and try cooking with one of them on a fire, but they look very heavy to carry so would be no good if you were moving around a lot.

[Sarabellum1976]

When I was in Girl Scouting, we learned all about making fireside meals by cooking in aluminum foil. The night before we left on a camping trip, we'd pre-make packets that each included some potatoes, a breast or leg & thigh of chicken, maybe some other veggies, seasonings, and butter or olive oil. Pack them on ice, and bring them out of the cooler when you've got a good fire going, bury them in the coals until cooked, and man, oh man... very yummy. Eat it right off the foil and there's no plates to wash. Very good "work:deliciousness" ratio.

Worked great for baked potatoes, corn on the cob, meatloaf, any number of other things.

In the mornings we'd mix up a batch of cinnamon/sugar, and fry up some simple doughnuts, rolling them in the cinnamon sugar after they'd bubble up to the top of the pot. (I'm sure this is very bad for you, but boy, was it delicious!)

Dutch ovens were great for making fruit cobblers for dessert. Simple, easy recipe. And the leftovers (if any) made a great breakfast side dish the next day.

Make sure to find time for some simple fishing, if there's an available body of water. You might not catch anything, but you never know. Nothing better than stuffing your face with fresh, hot fish that was swimming around an hour earlier. Have a game plan for frying up any fish you might manage to catch. Watch a quick video on YouTube on how to gut and filet a fishie (you don't necessarily NEED one of those special, long, thin-bladed filet knives but they're very handy) and have a little olive oil or something to fry it up with and a lemon or so and some salt & pepper to season it with.

[silenus]

This is our latest outdoor toy. The 3 Coleman stoves we usually take are good and all, but I like the ability to bake fresh muffins for breakfast and cookies for dessert. Not to mention keeping the pies warm until after dinner.

[sinjin]

Meatball meatloaf: Pound of ground beef, mix with what ever stuff you normally put in meatloaf. Shape into a ball cover with foil and toss into a fire for 30-35 flip and wait 30-35 minutes, eat.

Boyscout chicken: Put into a small dutch oven: chicken breasts, taters, green peppers, onions. Put hot coals under and over the oven. Wait an hour. Dinner. Pork chops work too.

Apple pie: Make apple pie as normal and do the same thing with the coals over and under the dutch oven for about 45-60 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Best camping breakfast ever.

[Lynn Bodoni]

Originally Posted by Chronos

A few folks have mentioned foil-wrapped potatoes, but you can do a full meal that way, too. Wrap a hamburger patty, some veggies, and some chopped potato all together in foil, and tuck it in the coals. Eat it straight out of the foil, so you don't need to dirty a plate. For dessert, core out an apple, stuff the cavity with raisins, brown sugar, and cinnamon, and cook it the same way.

The hamburger should not be too lean, as the veggies need some fat. I've also done this with chicken or pork pieces. The veggies are traditionally potato, onion, and carrot, sometimes with some celery. And I've made these in the oven at home, too. Very simple, and the timing doesn't have to be exact. If you do this with chicken, it might need a drizzle of oil or a small pat of butter.

[Magiver]

Since you're car-camping then make pre-cooked meals in sealed pouches and bring them in dry-ice. that way you're not wasting fuel or time cooking but have the luxury of bringing in really good food and doing a heat-and-eat. I would make stuff like gumbo or beef stroganoff or grilled salmon in a honey glaze. Stuff that holds up well when re-heating.