Camping eats. Recipes and must haves.

I’m doing some camping next week with about 1.5 miles of backpacking into the site. So far on the menu is steak. And that’s it. Maybe flapjacks too. There’ll be no electricity, but we’ll be bringing the propane cook stove and also cooking over the fire too.

So I need some ideas and the more the better.

Thanks!

S’mores, of course! Baked potatoes are also a classic, but take forever.

I also liked cutting up lots of peppers, onions, mushrooms, or other vegetables and putting them in a tinfoil pouch to cook in the coals.

Remember that altitude changes some cooking times and how much liquid to add.

I’ve always been a fan of foil dinners.

Chop up potatoes, carrots, onions, bell peppers- heck, anything you want, really. Put that into some foil with some hamburger meat, add a lot of seasoning, and seal it really well. Build a good fire, burn it to coals, and bury the foil packet in the coals for 45 minutes or so. Dig it up, and eat directly out of the foil. No muss, no fuss, and it’s actually quite tasty.

Damn, maybe I’ll make some tonight.

This might be a tad impractical if you’re backpacking in, but have you ever seen a pie iron? It’s got a compartment at the end, attached to two long metal rods with wooden handles at the ends. It’s hinged, and opens in a V shape. You take two slices of bread, put them in each of the compartments, and fill one side with whatever you like - pie filling; peanut butter and jam; meat and potatoes and vegetables; pizza sauce, cheese and pepperoni, what-have-you, close it up and lock it, trim the excess bread off the outside, and stick the end in the fire. In a short time, you get what is a lot like a toasted pizza pocket, filled with your favorite yummy goodies.

This utensil is not heavy, but it’s about three feet long and might be hard to carry into the bush. But it’s indispensible for camping. I urge you to try it sometime.

Corn on the cob is a good one. Don’t shuck it, just put the whole thing in water for a few minutes, then wrap with foil and stick in the coils. Takes about 5 minutes or so.

Also, another good one, is canned spaghetti. I know this sounds odd, but all you have to do is open one end, then stick the thing in the coils, stirring witha plastic spoon every once in a while Tastes fantastic.

Thanks for all the great suggestions so far. I’m really liking the corn on the cob and pie iron ideas. Mmmm.

You must have banana boats. Like s’mores, camping simply isn’t camping without them.

We did this with Dinty Moore Beef Stew. One guy brought a can of Chili but was barred from heating or eating it.

Do you have a Dutch Oven? If not, get one.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that you need to make yourself a bag of GORP to snack on while you are waiting for dinner to cook.

Get a gallon-sized ziploc. Pour in a bag of peanuts, a bag of cashews, a bag of M&Ms, and a bag of raisins.

On second thought, just skip dinner.

I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned GORP! :eek:

OK, get one part peanuts, one part raisins, and add a bunch of other small stuff you like. ie: cashews, M&Ms, etc… Carry it in a bag and snack on it while you walk.

Somethign else I liked to eat on campouts is Sh*t on a Shingle (chipped beef on toast, according to one recipe I looked at). Not sure how practical it is for backpacking, but it’s excellent for pickup truck camping.

Also, while not advisable for backpacking, Dutch Ovens are a must for campouts where you don’t have to carry the stuff on your back. Works a lot like a foil dinner, but it’s a big honkin’ cast iron pot with a caved in lid that you pour hot coals on top of. You use a special metal fork kind of thing to lift the lid. Mostly the campouts I’ve been on, it was used to make Dutch Oven Cobbler, but it should be equally effective for stews, chilis, and even some kinds of breads, depending on the dimensions of the dutch oven.

Oh, and great just for kicks-and-giggles (and also not terribly impractical for backpacking, depending on how much other stuff you’re carrying) is a Buddy Oven. Take a small empty soup can, put in a rolled up piece of cardboard, fill with candlewax. Take an empty coffee can, punch holes around the sides near each end. Light the cardboard/candle thing in the soup can, set it on the ground (or on a rock, whatever) and place the coffee can upside down over it. Then you set your mess kit pot or opened can of beans or whatever on top of it and cook. When you’re done, carefully lift up the coffee pot (with potholders, I’d assume) and flip it over, using the closed end to snuff out the soup can.

Bah, beaten on half the points in my post :smack:

I need to learn to preview.

Well, while I’m posting again, fire-roasted hot dogs are allways good. Cook them in a fashion similar to a marshmellow, just don’t be expecting them to melt or catch fire.

Ok sounds like you want down home recipes for outdoor camp’in in the woods. If you are already having steaks, then I’d suggest some regular hot dogs, hambergers and don’t forget the time honored jiffy pop popcorn in the tin. :slight_smile:

Packing as lightly as you can, make sure to prepare, or have planned your meals before you start the hike. So as the only thing you need to worry about is starting a fire, and a little prep.

Remember things cooked best over open fire are hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks, potatoes, shish cabobs etc…etc… I’d recommend making the shish cabobs before hand. I’m very anal about a clean campsite, so make sure you bury your trash or hoist it up in a tree before sleep. Oh yeah, only bury biodegradable food stuffs. No plastics.

In addition to GORP*, when camping we usually take the following for quick snacks or lunch on the go:

A block of cheddar cheese, sliced and in a ziploc
A pound of summer sausage, sliced and in a ziploc
A can of black olives, opened and stored in ziploc
Baby carrots, in a ziploc
Whole wheat bagels
A ziploc full of grapes (already off the stems) and orange sections (peeled)

For breakfast, I sometimes make Scotch Eggs at home, then heat them up over the fire in a pan.

It’s a bit of prep work, but it sure cuts down on the fuss when you’re out in the woods. Also, having everything in ziplocs helps with packing space. Everything is already out of the wrapper, too, so that helps with trash containment. The empty ziplocs just get crammed inside each other for storage until we find a trash can somewhere.
*Our GORP is also a little more exotic. I include sunflower seed kernels, toasted pumpkins seeds, dried cranberries, and almonds along with the raisins and cashews.

I think no matter what you eat, at some point, you have to drop it into the fire, fish it out, scrape the dirt off, and eat it anyway. That’s genuine camping food taste.

Abso-freakin’-lutely. Hot dogs are ideal for this purpose. S’mores somewhat less so. Steak… yeah, you can ash steak… mmmm. Especially if you like it well-done. q;}
An absolute must for me when camping is breakfast burritos, cooked over a fire. This, of course, presumes that I can keep the eggs and sausage cold long enough to cook. A cooler works well for a few days.

And the best thing is that the utensils are minimal: A big-ass frying pan (the bigger the better) and a spatula (Tongs are helpful for frying the bacon, but not essential.)

You need to let your fire burn to mostly coals; big flames aren’t really helpful, and you can just stick the pan on the coals to cook.

First, fry up a pound or two of bacon, depending on how many are eating, in the frying pan. Don’t worry about keeping it flat or anything, you’re gonna crumble it up later. When it’s done, let the bacon drain on some newspapers or paper towels, and dump most (NOT all) of the remaining grease on the fire, very very carefully. This is for the oohs and aahs you’ll get from your fellow campers as your eyebrows disappear in the 6-foot flames you’ve just made. They grow back and die down, respectively, fairly quickly.

Next, take one of those big tubes of breakfast sausage, about a pound per pound of bacon, and squeeze it into the pan with the remaining bacon grease… Mash it up with the spatula as it cooks, like making ground beef for tacos; nice and crumbly. Drain the grease out of this a little more carefully, as it’s easy to lose the ground sausage with the grease. The spatula comes in handy here as well. Don’t worry about your eyebrows, you lost them in step one.

Now, add other ingredients. Chopped onions, peppers, whatever else you want. Stir it up with the sausage, then crumble the bacon into the mix, and mix that up.

Now dump in a dozen eggs or so; those with sensitive digestion may choose to remove the shells and scramble them first. Cook until firm, scrambling heavily as you go.

End result is a big-ass frying pan with a scrambled-egg-and-other-stuff mixture in it, and a spatula with which to scoop it all onto tortillas. Garnish with shredded cheese, salsa, and sour cream to taste.

Or if you’re hungry enough, or lacking in tortillas, eat it with the spatula. Or a spoon. It’s really up to you.

hotdogs

Baked beans, Hershey bars, and Tang.

Why?

Oh yeah, and as for hiking food, beef jerky (go ahead and spend extra for the good stuff) is awesome. Nothing takes the mind off of a long mountain hike like gnawing on a piece of dried meat (it’s the ONLY time I can stand to eat beef jerky)

This guy did an interesting cooking show on Aussie TV. The link includes some interesting camping recipes cooked in an open fire.