Camping for a week... need ideas...

[ChampagneBlossom]

We cook mostly from scratch around here. We do buy boxed pasta and peanut butter and such, and cheese and... well, that sort of stuff; basics. But we basically don't do ready-to-eat meals or snacks. We make our own bread, our own soups, stews, roasts, etc.

Question is, how do I do all this without my kitchen? We're going camping for a week next month and I'm totally curious as to how we're going to survive. I don't want to resort to canned beans - well, maybe for one meal, but definitely not all of them! We're going to have a (smaller) cooler with us but it's not a high-end one and probably won't more than a day or two.

How do I go about this? What supplies do we essentially need? We don't really have any supplies. The cooking is over a campfire. How do I feed a family of four for a week without my oven or stove?

TIA! :

ETA: Since the camping part of the trip is just incidental (we're not going out in the middle of nowhere to do this, there will be other stuff going on that we will want to attend) I won't be able to spend all day lazily tending the fire or anything.

[PaulaJoAnne]

Here are a few things that will help.
Bring a huge bag or two each, of potatoes, carrots and onions. You can fry any mixture of these up very easily in butter over a fire.
Blocks of hard cheese and real salami.
Lots of butter, salt, pepper and any other spices your family likes.
A good amount of rolled oats for the first 2-3 breakfasts. Milk can be kept in the cooler without it going bad for 3 days or so. Raw milk will just gently sour, so if you have access to some, its a good choice.
And, if you can find some local fresh eggs, take several cartons of those along. If they are kept in a cool area, they should be fine all week.
I would only do this with farm fresh though!

Take a couple of cast iron skillets with, as these are the best for cooking over fires with.
A cooking pot that will be ok over a fire, can come in handy towards the end of your week for making soup out of the ends.

A cutting board and two kinds of knives.
And of course bread and the various fillers your family likes.
Jiffy makes a popcorn thing that can be used over a fire as well.
It has a handle, is flat to start, and expands as it pops....

Oh, and of course, you can find good quality dogs for roasting on the first night.
Our Safeway sells a buffalo dog that is high quality.
Maybe you can find something like that.

[mamatoablessing]

What about preparing some soups and stews ahead of time, freezing them in large ziplocks and then thawing and heating them over the fire?

Bring a few loaves of fresh baked bread for sandwiches, toast, bread and butter, etc.

The pp had a good idea with the ziplocks of pre-chopped veggies and potatos. Add some meat to it and you can throw them on skewers to cook over the fire. As long as your cooler stays nice and cold with ice, the meat will be good for several days.

Eggs are a great meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Egg sandwiches with cheese on toast, a scramble with meat, veggies, potatos and cheese and scrambled egg burritos would all be yummy!

Lots of fresh fruit and veggies for snacking...along with cheese and crackers, peanut butter and maybe some deli meat?

You could also make a nice quiche or strada ahead of time and then just heat it up when you're ready to eat.

Corn on the cob can be cooked in the husks over an open flame, so they would be really easy to bring.

We always pre-marinated some chicken and steak (at home) in large ziplocks-they'd be ready to throw right on the grill for a nice dinner.

Good luck and have a great time!

[RiverSky]

Fajitas are a really fun and easy thing to make over the campfire. I agree with previous posters who suggest freezing soups and stews and heating them up over the fire.

Look up some recipes for bannock (a Native American or First Nations' bread) and use it to replace the bread that you might usually make at home. You can even wrap the dough around sticks and cook it over the campfire. Yummy!!! Or you can lightly fry it in a fry pan over the fire.

I second the suggestion of using cast iron...having a cast iron fry pan and hopefully a cast iron dutch oven would make it all much easier (check out thrift shops if you don't already own, they last FOREVER). We always bring a big huge stainless steel pot for heating water, boiling corn-on-the-cob, making HUGE portions of soup, and a smaller one for heating up cans of corn or cooking oatmeal.

Chili would also be a pretty scrumptious meal while camping and again, you could premake, freeze and then just heat up over the fire.

Baked potatoes and baked sweet potatoes are incredibly easy to make, and extras are great, fried with onions and peppers, cut up for breakfast. To bake the potatoes, double-wrap them with foil, and put them on a rack to the side of your campfire (not directly over flames at any point, preferably) for 30 minutes or so, then you can transfer them down inside the fire ring, to the very edges to finish them off for a while. Just keep feeling the foil with metal tons or a wooden stick to see if they are soft, you don't want them TOO soft, probably. To eat a campfire baked sweet potato, just pull it out, let it cool down a bit, peel back the top bit of the foil and bite right in. Yum!!!

One year, there was a campfire cooking demonstration at a state campground we were at, where a peach pie was made (from a premade crush and a can of peach filling, not as natural as you are accustomed, but it was a yummy treat, and you could customize if you wanted it to be more natural). First, a fire was made, then let to die out, to create coals. A cast iron dutch oven was used, to put in a layer of crust, then the filling and another layer of crust. Then the dutch oven was laid onto the remain coals in the firepit and left for 45 minutes or an hour. Then yum, dessert!

[RiverSky]

Another delicious thing we've made over the campfire that was very simple and wholesome, was that we would wrap up fresh broccoli in foil, along with shredded cheddar, and just put it over the fire long enough for the broccoli to steam in its natural liquid and for the cheese to melt. It's always been a big favorite when friends were camping with us. Cauliflower is fantastic this way, too.

[ChampagneBlossom]

You guys rule... Keep them coming, I'm taking notes!!

Also, how long does a cooler, well, cool?

[vbactivist]

[QUOTE=ChampagneBlossom;13777883]You guys rule... Keep them coming, I'm taking notes!!

Also, how long does a cooler, well, cool?[/QUOTE]


you need to keep ice in it. As long as there is ice in it, it will keep things cool.

[RiverSky]

Yup, ice. You can buy coolers that are say, 5 day coolers, which are even better at making the ice last, but some coolers need more ice every single day. We tend to bring two coolers, one for beverages and one for perishable foods, then a container to hold less perishable items (things that don't need to be refrigerated).

[PaulaJoAnne]

My SIL has one of the big dutch ovens that has a special lid, which when inverted, you can put hot coals on top, and bake biscuits inside.
There is a bit of a sicence to it. How many coals for how long they need to bake, etc.
And the coals are usually briquets that are flamed in a coffee can till they are ready.
She just brings a ziplock with the dry ingredients all mixed, and then just adds the wet when ready.

Oh, and wanted to add, do not bring your veges pre-chopped.
They will go bad if you do.
Thats why I mentioned the cutting board and knife.

[Carley]

We go pack in/packout, so take this with a grain of salt. I realize there are more "whole food" options, but these are some of the supplies we keep in rotation because they're light & can be cooked over a canister stove (or fire)

If you have the space/money, it'd be good to take a couple things like this for kids/husbands/you to heat up for a quick bite.

Dehydrated black beans
Vegetable Boullion
Ramen
Tortillas
Falafel mix
Bulgar
Instant oatmeal w/ fixings
Premixed flour/bakingsoda/etc = baking mix (pancakes/flatbread/breading fish etc)

Dunno if that's applicable at all, but yeah. I'm jealous of this whole camping-with-a-cast-iron-skillet business!!! MMmmmmmm!!!

[mamatoablessing]

Another idea I had is pasta. You said you eat boxed pasta, right? Make a nice from-scratch sauce at home and freeze it in a ziplock bag. While camping, all you need to do is boil water, cook the pasta and heat the sauce. You wouldn't need to even make sauce if you didn't want to. You could just toss the pasta with olive oil, minced garlic and maybe some crushed tomatos.

[Alyantavid]

I'd make a lot of stuff beforehand and then reheat when you're out there. You can make up packets of meat and veggies in foil and cook those over the fire. Dutch ovens are great too, you can just put cut up meat or veggies or whatever in there and cook it that way. Baked potatoes cooked in the fire are good too.

I would think you'd need more than 1 small cooler for a week though. We never go that and always have a few coolers and lots of ice.

[lil_earthmomma]

I just got back from camping and we had a blast!!! :

We had to cook everything over the fire as we were roughin' it, but we didn't spend the whole day tending the fire or anything...
Here's what we did:

Before we left I made a huge potato salad with a 10 lbs bag of potatos (to share with 3 other families over the weekend)

I cut up veggies, threw in some chunks of butter and seasoning and made tinfoil packets. Asparagus, peppers, zucchini, onion etc.

I took another 10 lbs bag of potatos, cut them in half the long way. Sauteed onion rings and garlic in butter until soft, then scooped some of that onto the potato half, put the other half on top and rolled up in tinfoil. Stuck all of those back in the bag, ready to grab. Those were so so so yummy cooked in the coals. Any that didn't get eaten were chopped up and fried as hashbrowns for breakfast the next day. Speaking of breakfast, we just did bacon and eggs. One day we did fried egg bunwiches, one day breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs etc.

For lunches I made up some tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad and ham salad. People could make themselves a bun anytime. I cut up veggies and brought some dips, and had plenty of fruit.

I baked mini muffins for snacks, and made some granola as well. I also brought salsa and tortilla chips for snacking.

For dinner we had smokies the first night, steak the second night (over the fire, so good!!!) Homemade burgers the third night, and porktenderloin the last night. Pretty much anything you can make on your bbq you can make over a fire.

(Oh ya, and we made smores too! My first smores ever!)

[ChampagneBlossom]

Hm, these are great! We're going to have a tripod and a dutch oven and a skillet.

My only concern is that we won't have access to ice. : It's basically, once you're on the campsite you're pretty much stuck, and they don't have ice available on site. So most of the stuff will have to be non-perishable. BUT DH is an almost pure carnivore so he will not eat vegetable based meals. I guess I can make some stews with dehydrated meat? Or is that icky? I don't recall ever having any.

Salsa and tortilla chips sound great. I'll let it go this time and buy the jarred kinds since fresh would probably need refrigeration.

The pasta idea is excellent; all you need is boiling water and I can make sauce. I also want to try my hand at baking bread or some sort of dessert. I can also make a chili (maybe without meat??) and definitely stews.

Hmm. This is good for my brainstorming, thanks!!

[RiverSky]

Then I would really suggest buying a new cooler, the best rated cooler you can find. The tags at the store will estimate how long your ice will last. There are definitely 5 day coolers that you can get, so you put the ice in one and it should last close to 5 days, as long as you take care not to open it too often.

[lil_earthmomma]

We still had ice at the end of our trip, so definitely look into a good cooler. There are also coolers that plug into your car to keep cool.

We brought two coolers, one for our meat and eggs and dairy etc. and one for drinks, veggies and fruit. This kept the meat cooler cold because we barely opened it.

ETA we brought fresh salsa and it worked out great!