If you have been camping all of your life, some of the information in this post might seem obvious, but if you are like me and your only real childhood camping experiences included cabins and a dining hall then you might just find this stuff to be helpful, or at least entertaining if nothing else. This post is for all you peeps who have considered camping but didn’t do it because you didn’t know what to expect or where to start.
Here are answers to four questions you might have if you’ve never gone camping before…
1. Should you go camping?
First things first. Camping has never really been my thing. I am not proud of this because I associate not liking camping with being high maintenance, but the truth is I LOVE being comfortable. Last year was the first year my family went out to a camp site and set up a tent (that a friend let us borrow) to sleep in the great outdoors. I had no idea what we were doing. Had it not been for a couple of patient friends reassuring us that they would walk us through the hoops of camping, our family would not have ventured out to sleep with the raccoons. Just sayin’. We went, though, with the encouragement of friends, and I am so glad we did because the kids LOVED it!!! They loved it so much that we bought our own tent and agreed to go camping with the same group of friends to a different camp site this year. Here is the thing about camping… you and your family will make so many unforgettable memories, and knowing that makes things like walking to a porta potty in the middle of the night worth tolerating.
2. What meals do you eat when you go camping?
The first question I had once we decided we were going camping was, “What do you eat when you go camping?” My idea of what camping looked like was this: Go out to some random open place, pitch a tent, fish for your food and cook it over a fire you started while singing Kumbaya, and then dig a hole when you need to do your business. You know, a glorified picnic that lasts all night and smells bad. Something like this:
(Picture above from Camping Tourist)
So maybe I was a little off… and I knew nothing about camp sites either. What I did know was that it was going to be my job to come up with the food for our family. Luckily for me, one of my friends who grew up camping had plenty of experience trying out different camping foods so she was able to tell me what to bring, how to package it, and how to cook it.
Foods we made this year while camping
Dinner was the main thing we wanted to make sure we got right. Lunch could be hotdogs or sandwiches, but we wanted dinner to be something satisfying. We toyed around with the idea of making onion bombs (basically a big meatball cooked in an onion) but decided our kids (and possibly husbands) wouldn’t want to eat them, so we didn’t make those. If you want the recipe for onion bombs you can go here.
We were only camping for one weekend, so we only needed two dinners. We did “foil packet” recipes which means you put all the ingredients for the recipe on some heavy duty aluminum foil and seal it up with another piece of aluminum foil on top. Foil packets usually look like this:
or like this:
(pics from Baby Bakes and Popsicle Blog)
We made Grilled Sausage with Potatoes and Green Beans and Beef Pot Roast. Instead of using foil packets we used disposable aluminum foil pans so we could stir up the food while it was cooking and we could check it easily to see if it was cooked all the way through. Here is what we used to make both of these meals:
We put the ingredients for each meal in the foil pans the night before we left and then covered them with aluminum foil and labeled them. You can freeze the meal if you know you won’t be using it for a few days, but refrigerating it is fine if you will be using it the next day and you plan on putting it in the cooler in the morning. I froze mine and it was still frozen when we pulled it out to cook it, so it took longer to cook. I followed the recipe for the beef pot roast from here, but my friend added a McCormick seasoning packet, and I think I will do that next time.
3. What snacks do you pack when you go camping?
We let each of our kids pick one “fun” food from the snack aisle at the grocery store. They picked cheese nips, honey maid star war cookies, and vanilla wafers. Besides ingredients for s’mores, some other foods we brought that did not need to be kept cool in a cooler included beef jerky, granola bars, raisins, rice cakes, peanut butter, cashews, nature valley granola bars, bread, bananas, popcorn, buns for the hotdogs, and Bisquick shake and pour for pancakes.
Besides the two dinners, some other foods we packed in the cooler were blueberries, sweet peppers, plums, apples, hot dogs, cheese cubes, and a salad for me.
The first year we went camping, I made up travel snack bags for each of the children and gave them to the kids in the morning, right before we were setting out to leave. I did it so I wouldn’t have to pass back food to them, so they wouldn’t fight over foods in the van, and so I wouldn’t have to hear them complain about someone not sharing. They also kept their bags for snacks throughout the weekend. I forgot that we did that until Keely asked me if I was going to do it again this year. I told her I would think about it, and then I put these together after the kids were asleep that night. I put them on their seats in the van, along with a neck pillow for each of them. When they went out to the van they squealed with excitement when the saw them. (Sometimes it’s the little things, you know?)
I grabbed some beef jerky and turkey jerky along with some fruit for me and my husband.
Packing camp food into a cooler
My husband packs the van and the cooler because he likes to find the most perfect way to pack things into spaces. It’s kind of like a puzzle for him, and he enjoys that kind of thing. One thing we did that seemed to work well was to freeze water bottles and use them instead of ice in the cooler. We placed some under and above the food. It kept everything nice and cold, and we could always pull out a water and let it thaw so we had plenty of cold water all weekend.
4. How do you cook your camp food?
Did you know you can cook more than just hot dogs over a campfire? You can! 🙂 My friends taught me this while camping last year. Here are the different ways we cooked this particular weekend:
1. Cook over the fire on a grill rack.
Take the foil packet or pan straight from the cooler to the fire pit and let it cook on the grill rack. If you are using the pans, you can lift up the foil on top from time to time to stir the food and to see if it is cooked or not. Not cooked yet? Put the foil back on and check it again after a bit. This method takes a while (maybe an hour), but it’s camping, and it works. You may also have to fan the flames to keep them going, as my friend can attest to.
2. Cook on an electric griddle or skillet.
Using an electric griddle is a quicker way to cook your food, but you are left with cleaning your griddle after using it. My friend had a solution to that as well. She heated up water in a big pot on her propane stove and put it in a plastic bin with some dish soap to wash the dishes and put regular water in another bin for rinsing the dishes.
We also used the griddle to make bacon and pancakes in the morning. We brought Bisquick Shake ‘n Pour pancake mix so we wouldn’t have to bring eggs, but it didn’t mix well, and we ended up having to use a bowl and whisk. We made blueberry pancakes and chocolate chip pancakes. Everyone loved breakfast! The night we made the beef pot roast, we had leftovers so we put the leftovers back in the cooler, and the next morning ,we cooked it up with some scrambled eggs that my friend brought. It was good!
3. And, of course, you can always cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows using long skewers.
(picture above from when we did a bonfire in our backyard)
Preparing for a camping trip can be a lot of work, but once you are there, it is a perfect opportunity to play together during the day and share stories over a campfire at night. Camping is designed to be an opportunity to bond with those you love. Camping has never really been my thing, but connecting with friends always has been, and that is what makes camping great (for me at least).
Memories for a lifetime…
(pictured above: Two friends swapped vehicles so these three boys could ride together in our van on the way there.)
(pictured above: We all played the spoons game several times this weekend. This is a fun game that you can play with your family. If you haven’t played it you should give it a try sometime!)
(great friends making memories they will never forget)
(our new tent)
This year, we went to Starved Rock in Illinois. Starved Rock is the most visited State Park in Illinois, with over 2 million visitors annually. If you are looking for a beautiful place to hike, this is it….but wear water shoes that won’t hurt your feet! (I know this from experience) 😉 Here are some breathtaking pictures we were able to capture on our hike…
For other great camping food ideas that your kids are sure to love, you can go here.
Cyndi M says
We have a fire pit at home and occasionally like cooking outside. One of our favorite things to do is to take the medium foil tins and fill them with a little parcooked rice (we especially love the portioned wild rice cups), loads of veggies (bell pepper, onion, mushrooms, squash cubes, carrots, whatever is in season), some diced chicken, then drizzle with a lemon/olive oil marinade. Cover well (we use two layers of heavy duty foil) and cook right in the coals. Everyone makes their own. SO delicious, a real treat, and WW friendly!
I am always on the lookout for more foil pack meals to make. I am subscribing to this post in the hopes that others will chime in! 🙂
Alisha Hughes says
Great ideas Cyndi! Thanks for sharing that.