You can’t go wrong with the classic Boy Scout tinfoil dinner. Lay out a piece of foil. In the center, place a ground beef patty. Top that with diced onion, potatoes, carrots, and celery. Season with salt and pepper. Maybe add a little cooking oil. Fold the foil up into a packet. Bury the packet in smouldering coals from your campfire for 20 minutes or so. When it’s done, remove the packet from the fire, open, and eat the contents.
My ex-bf made a delicious Tarragon Chicken whenever we went camping. Sadly, I never got the recipe.
I’ve had them blow up in the back of my fridge, so yeah, it’d be a risk. If I do this, I’ll put the paper tubes in ziplock bags to at least contain the dough.
I essentially do that at home all the time, but with a microwave and toaster. I do like the idea of hard boiled eggs, because that’s also something that I feel like can survive for a bit without refrigeration, and it’s the egg that makes it a breakfast sandwich.
To modify it for car camping, I think I’d fry the bagel in butter, fry the meat slice, and then while it’s still hot put the cheese in.
I haven’t been to the UP since the 70s. I do like the idea of using smoked fish to make a one pot meal. Again, I feel like something smoked and sealed is not going to go bad even after a day in a cooler where the temperature drifted up into the danger zone.
The first camping trip is next to a lake stocked with rainbow trout, and I can get my 10 year old a fishing license for $12. I guess dinner will depend on the kid. I suppose I’ll also have to get her to watch the “knife goes in” episode of The Simpsons, because my experience cleaning fish is watching my dad do it when I was 10. Unfortunately for my dad, my interest in fishing doesn’t start until the kitchen.
Oh, it looks like in Washington nobody under 15 needs a fishing license, so I’ll try to put the kid to work. We won’t have gear, so I guess it’s just whatever she can grab out of a tide pool with her hands.
Thank you for reminding me of foil packs. I do that at home occasionally, even just in the oven.
Oh boy, there’s nothing better than fresh-caught trout on the grill; the fresher the better. Maybe rethink your aversion to fishing and cleaning, hope your daughter’s a natural at it. or just bring your dad along too. 
Here’s a couple videos for your edification (and mine, since I typically have bad luck catching trout):
If you do happen to catch and clean a trout for the grill, I like to keep it simple and just put thin lemon slices, a couple butter pats, and some salt inside the trout, and grill.
For breakfast I pre-scramble some eggs freeze those with frozen hash browns and cut up breakfast links.
I cook the sausage, then add the potatoes. I add a bit of water, then the eggs.
Since everything starts frozen, is fine for breakfast the next day if kept in a cooler.
I like adding nacho cheese sauce.
Microwave rice packets cook well in a pot (just add a little water) – I’ll add meat (cooked and then frozen chicken) and maybe cut up onions and again nacho cheese sauce
I find anything tastes better while camping
Brian
Biscuits smothered in sausage gravy is always a crowd pleaser! Canned biscuits are certainly convenient, but no match for scratch. While I haven’t tried this variation, I’m told cream biscuits are fantastic - omitting the somewhat tedious step of cutting in butter or fat - just whipping cream, self-rising flour, and a little salt. Can’t get much easier than that.
Most commercial breakfast sausage is very lean these days, so some sort of additional fat is required to make a proper roux/gravy. Whole milk is fine, Half&Half is better - but evaporated (canned) milk makes a very acceptable sausage gravy and has the advantage of not needing refrigeration. I like to add a chicken bouillon cube or two, fennel, and white pepper for that authentic four-calendar cafe whang.
This one is more “after a couple of weeks away from civilization you have long since consumed any fresh ingredients” than “gourmet car camping”, but flour + water = bread:
Flour+water+salt=better bread
Flour+water+salt+baking powder+oil=Bannock Bannock Recipe
Corn Meal+salt+water=Hoe Cake Hoecakes: The Breakfast of Presidents – Homemade Italian Cooking
I am so taking this recipe with me on my trip to the UP this fall! Especially given that Gustafson’s is on the list of Must Do Places. Thanks!
Glad to help! Please report back and name-check me in a thread or PM me and let me know how things went. Also please assure me that Gustafson’s market is still in business and doing well. And, try their jerky too-- it’s by far the best I’ve ever had. Intensely flavorful and much more tender than most store-bought jerky, which is often as tough as shoe leather. Gustafson’s, I think, starts with a better cut of meat than most jerkys, and they must be very careful to only cut the strips cross-grain or something. Not sure what they do, but it’s not to be missed.
Bonus U.P. recipe: I don’t remember from your other thread exactly when in the Fall you were going, but I suspect it will be too late for blueberry season. Just in case it’s not though, you may want to take some pre-rolled raw pie crust dough. I used to camp with a friend or two up in an area east of Grand Marais in early September- we’d take the week off before Labor Day weekend to get the bonus Monday too. At that time of year, blueberries were everywhere-- we’d eat handfuls of blueberries right off the bushes all week long. I eventually brought up some pie crust dough, mixed up blueberries with a little sugar, and made kickass blueberry turnovers over the fire.
Ha! I was just thinking about my version of that. I use hot Italian sausage, a can of white beans, a cut-up chicken breast, a few cloves of garlic and a can of diced tomatoes. And a couple sprigs of rosemary. Very flavorful and easy to make. My wife came up with this idea when we were trying to use up some remaining items in the RV reefer on the last night of a road trip.
A filling if not gourmet meal with zero refrigeration and only one pot… Ramen with canned chicken, maybe throw in some chopped vegetables to round it out.
My son’s go to boy scout meal is quesadillas. It takes some time to cook each one, but they’re easy to make, easy to please, and you can setup some toppings. We like the squeeze packs of sour cream and guacamole, if you can find them. Also works with canned chicken meat, or refried beans, and the ingredients are cooler friendly storage for a couple of days.
I think it’s worth a mention to take the time to gain some proficiency in the art of using a cast iron Dutch oven. Charcoal briquettes are convenient and consistent, but any good hardwood coals will work fine. A Dutch oven intended for camping use will have legs to raise it off the ground, and a raised lip around the lid to hold coals. Anything you enjoy at home baked in the oven can be made with a dutch oven.
Our troop used Dutch ovens for many things, including making pancakes on the inverted concave lid. One of the scouts tried pouring the batter from a height of about six inches, with the batter spraying in every direction. He learned a good lesson.
TL;DR: any recommendations for a single burner camp stove that uses 1 pound propane canisters? Either the kind that sits on top of the canister, or could use a hose. Also, any recommendations on 1 one quart camp kettle that pours without making a mess, and the handle doesn’t get hot?
Thank you all for the camping recipe suggestions.
The first camping trip was completed, and I’ll call it a success, in that I tried lots of things, learned some stuff, and have moved on to the second set of questions (which I didn’t know I had ahead of time).
I’ll divide this post into three parts:
- Recipes
- General camping and camp cooking related questions
- Elk
1. Recipes
I made several of the recipes suggested in this thread. First was just a basic camp chili, “pour some canned beans in a pot, cook.” That came out fine. I used some spices I pre-mixed at home. Next time, I’ll leave the salt out of the spice mix, and add to taste, because it was a bit saltier than I preferred.
I next did a variation on the smoked fish stew from @solost. That was a limited success, but the failing was my fault due to forgetting some ingredients, it was only onions, potatoes, and fish. I started cooking onions, butter, and flour to make a rue/onion mix. Then I added some water and chicken cubes. Then I added two diced potatoes, and less salt than necessary. Once the potatoes were cooked (40+ minutes at 8200 feet, where boiling is around 196F). When the potatoes were finally done, I added some honey smoked salmon, and then any additional salt.
The stew sauce consistency was perfect, considering I just threw in whatever flour I had leftover from the chili rue the night before. Without the peppers and tomatoes it was definitely missing something. It tasted fine, just not “right”.
For breakfast, baking biscuits in the cast iron pot on the stove was mostly a failure. I mean, they cooked, but burned on the bottom. Burying in coals might have worked better, but we never bothered with a fire, so I just had the direct heat from the stove. I ended up with a sausage cobbler, which was fine, even with the burnt biscuit parts.
Toasting bagels in the pan worked much better. A pat of butter, put in half a bagel, and press down the center with a spoon, so it toasts before the edges are burned. Cheese and sausage for a sandwich, or just eat toasted. That worked, and was easy.
Conclusion: Chili is always an easy camp favorite; fish stew was a good start, but needs work; biscuits are out; bagels are in.
2. General camping and camp cooking related questions
As expected, I cooked everything in what I think is a “vintage” (almost as old as me) Birmingham Stove and Range 10 1/4 inch cast iron chicken fryer with iron lid. That worked great for chili, stew, and toasting. My next camping trip will just be me and 10 year old, so that is much too large of a pan.
I need to pick a new pan for the next trip, but using a small pan will limit canned options. I don’t think the 8 inch pans can hold meat, a can of beans, and a can of tomatoes. Of course, all of that would be too much for the two of us, when we have no place to keep leftovers.
I have several choices in pans to use instead: If you could only have one, which would it be?
- 8 inch anodized aluminum omelette pan, with matching lid
- heavy
- metal utensil safe
- Stainless steel copper clad omelette pan, with glass lid
- light
- a bit too small?
- metal utensil safe
- who takes All-Clad camping?
- Teflon 8 inch omelette pan, with glass lid
- needs fancier utensils than just a metal spoon
- easy fried eggs
- easiest cleanup
- 10 inch anodized aluminum sauce pan, matching lid
- heavy
- poor at frying and grilling
- easily makes too much food
Advantages and disadvantages to each, some things are both advantages and disadvantages.
I used a two burner propane stove. It worked fine, and would have even worked better if I’d remembered a stick lighter or the big matches. However, just like the big chicken fryer, I don’t think I want to drag it 3000 miles. Does anybody have a recommendation for a single burner stove that uses those 1 pound propane cylinders? Due to the classic buying some because I didn’t have any, and then finding more at the in-laws, I have a bunch.
Mostly I’m concerned about stability. I have a little liquid fueled backpacking stove, but I hate it, because it’s always falling over. It’s a bit more stable with a heavy pot on it, but that just makes the penalty for falling over even higher.
I care more about low cost and stable than absolute power output. As long as it can boil a quart of water in under 10 minutes, I’ll be fine.
Does anybody have recommendations for a one quart stove top kettle that doesn’t make a mess when pouring?
I used my in-law’s kettle from their old scouting camp kit. We were forced to bring the entire kit, even though I only used the kettle, but that’s a different thread. The kettle is bad. I mean, it holds water, and gets hot, but the handles are too hot to hold, it requires two hands to pour, and it spills boiling water all over the place if it’s more than half full. I think the whole thing is an exercise in teaching 12 year olds that handkerchiefs are versatile and necessary camping tools than in actually making hot water.
3. Elk
Wow! How’d you cook the elk?
For easy lighting of a stove in camp, those “fireplace lighters” are nice. They have reach, and avoid burning fingers or singe-ing arm hair. I like the Imco Funkmeister, long sold by Coghlan’s. It doesn’t produce a flame, it’s just a spark lighter.
For all around utility, it’s tough to beat a 12" cast iron skillet for camp use. Practically indestructible, and unsurpassed for frying, baking, and turning out goodies over the fire or stove.
Amazon has a couple of quite serviceable ones by Coleman. In fact, the first one on that page is the one I have.
As for the pan, I’d go with the 8" anodized aluminum. You aren’t backpacking so weight really isn’t an issue. It will withstand abuse better than the others.
Kettles - The one we use is about a gajillion years old and came from who-knows-where. Looks just like the one Cookie uses in every John Wayne movie. But Amazon has some at every price point.
Yeah, those are so good I bought some. They were sitting in a cupboard in the garage the whole camping trip…
I do have a 12" cast iron skillet, and it is fantastic for most things. That is another option to take. My worry is that it won’t work poorly for very small amounts of chili, soup, or stew—cook off all of the liquid very quickly.
I was looking at those, but I think the winner might be this $13 one from Walmart. For that, if I never use it again, I won’t care too much. I do feel a bit silly considering I have a big Coleman white gas stove, a two burner Coleman propane stove, and one of the ubiquitous MSR Whisperlite liquid fuel backpacking stoves. The issue is the liquid fuel is a huge pain to deal with.
Reviews on the Walmart stove are generally along the line of “it’s a piece of shit, but for $13 what do expect, and it works well enough to be useful.” One completely unhelpful one was that for just “$5 more there are better stoves” without actually mentioning what any of the better options are. There are plenty of terrible stoves (based on reviews) in the $15-30 range.
Yeah, that’s the problem. Lots of choices, but which one has a handle and spout designed to actually work? On my $15 electric kettle the handle stays cool, and the spout doesn’t run water down the side of the kettle. That’s all I want.
Yeah, we had one of those. Used it on one trip and never again.