Cooking in the Great Outdoors

Just because you’re camping out doesn’t mean you have to subsist on trail mix and energy bars, or resort to munching down on edible twigs and bitter berries during your wilderness retreat.   You can actually eat pretty well while camping out without having to lug a lot of extra groceries around with you (that might attract the unwanted attention of wild animals.) Heck, camping has become a great blend of modern amenities and the great outdoors! My husband and I always take our RV, complete with our dish network Columbus satellite and stocked kitchen! We live like kings! You really should weigh all your options when planning a camping trip, and your meals should be a major consideration if you plan on enjoying outdoor life to its fullest.  Here are some great ideas for cooking and camping.

Wrapping foods in aluminum foil and cooking them directly on the fire can be a mess free way to get a decent hot meal.  Potatoes cook well using this method.  You can even cook a whole meal in a foil by combining ground beef, potatoes, onions, and carrot in a packet and cooking them over the fire or hot coals for about half an hour.  The one drawback with foil cooking is, you really have to watch the food and check it periodically.  It’s not something you can just leave and let cook, and since it takes a while to get done, you have to commit to being close by for as long as it takes.  Of course, when you’re camping, you’re not on anyone’s schedule but your own — so have at it, and have fun.

Another way of campfire cooking involves building a sort of grill over your fire pit, or even bringing along a small grill that can be powered by propane or coals.  This method allows you to cook virtually anything you would normally grill on the barbecue back home, so the sky’s the limit.  You could grill up some cold packed steaks, tender, flaky fish fillets, or lean chicken.  You could also do veggie and/or beef kebabs.

One of the best campfire meals I ever tasted was a bit pot of home made chicken noodle soup my friend whipped up during a camping trip about six years ago.  He’d brought along some uncooked chicken tenders, and proceeded to cut them into bite sized chunks.  He also had fresh celery, some baby carrots, a little thyme and ground sage, a package of nice flat egg noodles, and some chicken bouillon powder for seasoning.  This savory soup tasted better out in the woods than it would have anywhere else, I think.

And just because you’re out in the woods doesn’t mean you have to forget dessert, either.  Smores, the old campground classic, are still as fun to make as they ever were. Just bring a long some Hershey bars, marshmallows, and graham crackers — and boom!  Dessert.  But if you had something more gourmet in mind, try making this quick and easy campfire peach cobbler:

Campy Peach Cobbler

• 1 large can of peaches in heavy syrup
• some Bisquick

Drain the peaches,reserving 1/4 c. of the syrup. Mix the reserved syrup with Bisquick until it forms a nice, thick batter. Pour the batter back over sliced peaches in the can. Place the can’s lid over the mixture, then set it directly into the hot coals for cooking.  You’ll know it’s done when the batter has formed hard dumplings over the top of the peaches.  Yum!

So don’t go around hungry while you’re out camping it up.  Cooking outdoors can be a real hoot.  Learn some new recipes and try them out.  And most of all, enjoy.