One of the best parts about camping is the food! Really! You won’t believe how good a hot dog tastes when you’re in the middle of the woods and you just spent 30 minutes building up a perfect fire to cook it on. Or how delicious hot chocolate tastes when you’re shivering in the morning. There’s something very rewarding about building a fire and cooking a meal on it. If it doesn’t burn, it tastes like the best thing in the world and bragging about your cooking/lack of ash that ended up in the meal is totally acceptable and encouraged!
When we camp we have certain meals that we eat a lot:
Car camping dinners: ground beef/potatoes/carrots/onions tin foil dinner, white fish/potatoes/spinach tin foil dinners, chili dogs, stews,
Backpacking dinners: pasta roni, freeze dried meals (hit or miss)
Desserts: peach cobblers, baked bananas stuffed with chocolate chips/mini mashmallows, s’mores, baked apples with cinnamon/sugar/butter
Breakfast: egg and sausage scrambles, pancakes and sausage, oatmeal
Hiking/ backpacking lunch: tuna packets and wheat thins
I’d love to hear what you like to eat and cook over a fire, any favorites?
And a couple other photos from our Trinity Alps camping trip:
Our own private fireworks show and amazingly the tent didn’t catch on fire! Success!
Love camping. Its been way too hot and dry this year. Fire bans eleminate campfire cooking. But, when we do go our menu is first night is set up camp night so hot dogs or in order and s'mores to reward job well done when camp is set to go. 1st morning is bacon and scrambled eggs with toast and sometime fried tators. Next we eat an early supper, I put steaks in a flat bowl and cover in Italian salad dressing before we leave home and wrap baking potatos in foil. ready to cook as soon as the fire is ready. Next day breakfast is sausage egg potato burritos and early supper which is a packet meal, sliced onions and bell peppers on bottom, chopped steak next, add sliced potatoes and yellow and zucchini squash topped with slices of link sausage to flavor and add corn on cob to the sides. squeeze butter on top (Lots) and salt and pepper. Seal foil pouch Cook on coals for 45 minutes flip over and cook another 30 minutes.. Open and everyone fills their plate from the packet. Last morning burritos again and sandwiches for lunch as we are packing up to go home. I have to had those bananas to the menu now too. They sound great. We I was little we did hobo stew in empty tin coffee cans that you opened with a key so you had the lid to put on top securely. Just added ground beef potatos and mixed veggies put in coals and cooked. I wish we could still get those coffee cans 🙂
WoW! These food combinations sound so delicious! I just went camping and we brough cut up red potatoes and onions with minced garlic, salt, and pepper then wrapped in foil. Also, corn on the cob with butter and salt wrapped in foil to easily throw on the embers or grill.
I do a lot of dehydrating, but I've never thought of dehydrating full meals. We love tin foil dinners for car camping and my husband loves couscous with parmesan cheese and pine nuts for backpacking.Dehydrated blueberries are my favorite add-in for oatmeal and dehydrated mangoes are my favorite snack. I've been meaning to try this recipe. . . maybe I'll do it tomorrow: http://clawsonlive.blogspot.com/2009/05/camping-isnt-camping-without-these.html
We mostly backpack at this point, and my boyfriend is seriously the best backpacking cook ever! We invested in a food dehydrator and make a lot of our backpacking meals that way — my faves are pasta with bolognese (make and dehydrate the sauce, cook regular dried pasta in camp while you're rehydrating sauce) and beef stroganoff (again, with regular old noodles, and we add sour cream powder in camp rather than pre-dehydrating). We also do an excellent chicken tortilla soup and peanut noodles. If we're feeling really lazy, sometimes we just bring mac-n-cheese and sausages. Anyway, I really recommend the dehydrator. Everything we make is SO much better than those foil baggie meals, and way cheaper, too! We've been cooking and dehydrating lots of stuff to get ready for our big Alaska trip in August, so it's been fun to try out new recipes.
where did you camp in the trinity alps? my aunt owns a rustic resort just by big flat campground/coffee creek, which is a fantastic place to camp/hike! 🙂
Love camping food! I'm attempting the campfire bananas for the first time ever this weekend. They sound yum.
Our favorite camping meals aren't super glamorous, but they are pretty tasty! breakfast: oatmeal with all the fixing's (nut or seed butter, raisins, chocolate chips or sugar). It really keeps you full until lunch time.lunch: we figured out hiking in Baja that the best camping lunch EVER is a tortilla full of avocado and hot sauce. SO good!dinner: my favorite is to get a pack of quick-cooking rice dinner (Zataran's, for example) that has some spices and freeze-dried veggies in it, and then add fresh ones (onion and peppers hold up well) and cheese to that. those bananas are so happening this weekend, thank you!Side note – I went camping with a friend recently who has a dehydrator, and she dehydrated tons of vegetables, pasta sauce, canned beans, garlic… it was amazing! definitely recommend that, especially for hiking!
I used to work at a camp in Maine and guide wilderness trips (2 weeks canoeing/camping along the Allagash waterway, etc) and the girls were obsessed with scrambled brownies– just a brownie mix and water scrambled in a pan with lots of m&ms added near the end. Eat out of pan with fingers!I'm a fan of any pasta with pesto (easy). My sister graduated in recreation mgmt (and took gourmet camp cooking classes), so she's always breaking out the mini chocolate cakes cooked over coals in hollowed-out oranges and the like.
Wow this makes me want to go camping and I am not a fan of tents! Love your campfire dinner ideas!! To me S'mores are a must over a fire as are hot dogs
Love this! We just went camping, or I guess I should call it glamping–we ate all our meals in restaurants, silly geese! It's all on my blog. http://thoreausdaughter.blogspot.com/
Our family always does dutch oven cooking when we camp. It takes a little more preparation but is always worth it! Plus for some reason everything tastes better when cooked in a dutch oven!
Lizzy, those pizzas sound amazing too. Must try!Anon, for the bananas you simply slice the banana in half long ways with the peeling still on. Don't quite go through the other side, you want to have a pocket so you can stuff things inside. Then you just stuff in mini marshmallows and choc chips. Wrap the whole banana in foil and put in the coals for a few minutes for it all to melt a bit
my mom used to make chili ahead of time when we were younger- great for fall camping! we also like to bring carnitas already made + heat the tortillas + filling over the campfire. easy + delicious 🙂
Bananas stuffed with chocolate chips sounds like heaven. Can you share that recipe? Please?
we like to cook pizzas on our cook stove. we sub tortillas or flatbread for the dough, have the toppings pre cut and then let the kids put whatever they want on.
sara, um jello no bake cheesecake. say whaa??? details please
Camp food is the best!!!!!!!!!
baked bananas stuffed with chocolate chips? that sounds amazing.
Yum! The one time we went camping we had foil dinners- hamburger, carrots, and potatoes for dinner and eggs, sausage, potatoes and cheese for breakfast. We've tried some freeze dried meals and like some of them and don't care for the others. We're actually going this weekend and will probably have something similar.
mmmm, yum! I'd say eggie in a basket is my fave for campin' trips
Car Camping Breakfast: The finacee and I love making egg & soyrizo burritosAnd for Backpacking: who says you have to scrimp? some friends and I once made a JELLO no bake cheesecake
Mmm your camping food sounds good. I really hope to get in a camping trip before the end of the warmer weather!!
I love camping food! Hands down the best part of camping.
Mmmm, my all time favorite, chicken apple sausage with gouda that they used to carry at Trader Joe's. Delicious! Love your blog!
i LOVE smores! i went camping once and my friends had a metal contraption that you put bread and fillings (cheese or meat) and then it cooked it over the fire! genius. i do like an occasional fire roasted brat or hot dog too! xoxo jillian:: cornflake dreams