Cooking – recipe ideas for camping?
Posted: January 22nd, 2011 | Author: Mitch | Filed under: Camping Recipes | Tags: amp, camp stove, camping, couple weeks, recipes | 8 Comments »going camping in a couple weeks and i have no camp-stove & do not want to invest in one just yet since this will most likely be the last camping trip of the season… so i will be cooking everything over the fire… what tips, suggestions, recipes could you help me out with?
any & all advice appreciated… thanks!
Plenty of heavy duty foil
Chicken breast
Corn on the cob
Baked potatoes
Polish, hot dogs, brats
Lunch meat sandwiches
Smores
you need skewers
shrimp
bacon
jalapenos
you cut the jalapenos in half then cut out the center
put one shrimp in one half then wrap in bacon then put them on the skewers then bar-b-q over the fire.
the best meal when camping ever.
This is a great list of food options
Food and recipes
The type of food common in outdoors settings is somewhat different from what is normally available in a kitchen, and also differs depending on the type of activity the cook is engaging in. While someone at a public campground may have easy access to a grocery store and be able to prepare plenty of recipes with fresh meat and vegetables, someone on an extended trip into the backcountry will not be able to carry large amounts of fresh food due to water content, and will have to rely heavily on dried meats, vegetables, and starches such as ramen, polenta, and dried potato flakes. Wilderness experts in both categories sometimes make use of locally available wild foods as well, particularly wild vegetables and fruit but also occasionally fresh fish and wild game; however, it is not unusual for camping food, especially backcountry food, to be partially or totally vegetarian.
Camping food is often very high in fat and carbohydrates to provide energy for long hikes, and hikers (much like soldiers) must rely heavily on energy-packed snacks such as trail mix, chocolate, energy bars, and even synthetics such as sports drinks. Water can also be at a premium, so important parts of a camper’s pantry include chlorine or iodine-based water disinfectants as well as drink mixes to mask the flavor of the chemical treatment.
Recipes are often designed with significant planning and home preparation in mind, with certain ingredients mixed at home and then cooked on the trail; to that end, there are a number of providers of freeze-dried food, both ingredients and full meals, to the outdoors market, and just-add-water instant meals (including hot cereals, pasta or rice in sauce, and instant soup) from the supermarket are popular as well. Alternately, some wilderness experts advocate bulk rationing, in which each hiker is given a selection of raw ingredients and prepares a meal from scratch on the trail.
[edit] Methods
The most traditional method for outdoor cooking (and indeed the oldest known form of cooking to humanity), campfires can be used for cooking food by a number of techniques. The techniques for cooking on a campfire are no different from those used for everyday cooking before the invention of stoves or where stoves are still not available. Individuals who are backpacking in an area that allows the gathering of firewood may decide to cook on a campfire to avoid the need to carry extra equipment; however, most campfire cooking is done in front-country campgrounds. Cooking food using a campfire can be tricky for those not accustomed to it; also, due to risk of fire damage, campfires are illegal in many areas, so many campers prefer to use a portable stove instead.
Direct heat
Possibly the simplest method of cooking over a campfire and one of the most common is to roast food on long skewers that can be held above the flames. This is a popular technique for cooking hot dogs or toasting marshmallows for making s’mores. Another technique is to use pie irons — small iron molds with long handles, into which can be placed slices of bread with some form of filling — which are placed over hot coals to cook.
Grill cooking
Grills are also simpler to use and they tend to make the food pick up flavors from the smoke. Grills over a campfire are used in the same way as ordinary charcoal barbecues. If the food is simply placed on the grill, it may catch fire so it requires constant attention. Handleheld grills that clamp over the food may be used for various tasks like warming food, grilling burgers or sausages or making toast. In cases where open fires are not allowed, lightweight charcoal grills (sometimes considered a type of hibachi) are sometimes used for direct grilling of food.
Dutch ovens and other pots
Closely associated with the American Old West, the Dutch oven of tradition is a heavy cast iron or cast aluminum pot, traditionally made with three short legs and a concave cover for holding hot coals on top. While such pots are generally considered too heavy for backpackers, Dutch ovens are often used in group camp-outs and cookouts.
A pot hanging over the fire, although picturesque, may spill, and the rigging may be difficult to construct from found wood. Generally this is done with metal rigging, much of it identical to that historically used in home fireplaces before the invention of stoves. Two vertical iron bars with an iron cross-piece allow pots to be hung at various heights or over different temperatures of fire. Griddles, grills and skewers can also be hung over the fire. When working with wood, one may use two tripods, lashed with tripod lashings, but the rope will be liable to melt or burn. Dovetail joints are more secure, but difficult to carve.
A good alternative to cooking with a tripod is to cook directly upon the fire itself. To do this properly the fire needs to have a reasonable bed of coals and to have burned down to the point where it is not a roaring fire. While the pot may be set directly upon the coals, this is not preferable since that will tend to extinguish the coals. To lift the pot up off the fire, often two small logs of similar size may be used on either side of the pot; camp-style Dutch ovens have three legs built into the pot to perform this function. This allows continued airflow through the fire while providing optimal heat. The one down side to this form of cooking is that the pots will become blackened with soot and ash, which can be difficult to scrub off. The ash and soot build up can be easily avoided by applying a thin layer of dish soap (preferably biodegradable) to the outside of the pot before cooking. The ash and soot will stick to the soap which is then easily rinsed off later.
Other covered techniques
The original form of covered cooking is the earth oven, simply a covered pit with a fire built in it, demonstrated in techniques such as the Polynesian umu, the central Asian tandoori, and the Native American clambake.
Another commonly used technique is the baking of food in aluminum foil packets. Food is wrapped inside a durable packet of tin or aluminum foil, crimped to seal, and placed on or under hot coals. Baked potatoes are commonly cooked this way but entire meals can be cooked in one packet. The way to adapt recipes where food is wrapped in foil is to use a barrier such as baking or silicone paper between the food and the foil; the overall technique is similar to the en papillote technique developed in French cuisine, but uses a more robust container.
Other simple methods include clay wrapping food (such as in the kleftiko method used in Greek cuisine), leaf wrapping, and plank grilling, where food is cooked on a wooden plank set vertically next to the fire. Hot-stone cooking, where food is placed on a heated stone next to or even in the fire or where fire-heated stones are dropped into a pot are other methods.
Long-distance truckers, automotive travelers and rally racers have occasionally resorted to cooking on accessible sections of the vehicle engine; the book Manifold Destiny, though written to a certain extent as a humor book, is considered the authoritative reference on the subject. The food is usually wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil and secured onto the engine block or other hot parts of the engine.
In some areas where there is a significant amount of steady, less-hazardous volcanic activity, lava cooking (invented in Hawaii) is sometimes practiced as a novelty. The food does not come in direct contact with the molten rock, instead being wrapped in a moist barrier (usually wet tropical leaves such as banana foliage or ti leaves). The wrapper is sacrificial, and is chipped or otherwise cleaned off along with the cooled lava before serving.
Cheers
Go with fish, burgers, hot dogs, and smores!
Breakfast:
Cereal Bars
Granola
Instant Oatmeal – Heat water over the fire, empty packet of instant oatmeal into styrofoam cup, add hot water.
Fruit – Apples, Peaches, Nectarines, Pears, …whatever
Lunch:
Lunchmeat sandwiches
PB&J sandwiches
Cup-o-noodles – add hot water
Fruit
Dinner:
Hot Dogs, Sausages, – anything that can be roasted on a stick
If you have a “Burger Basket”, you can make burgers.
Baked Potatos – Wrap in foil, place in hot coals
Desert:
Baked Apples – Core apple, fill with brown sugar, top with cinnamon, wrap in foil and place in hot coals.
Banana Boats – Keep peel on banana, slice thru one side of peel and thru banana but not the other side of peel. Fill the slit with alternating marshmallows and Hershey’s chocolate pieces. Wrap in foil and place in hot coals.
Well you can always heat up canned food in the cans in the fire Rember to have them open.
Hotdogs on a stick are easy.
if you have grille of some sort. Steaks,Hamburgs stuff like that.
I always liked wrapping food in alumumim foil and setting them on hot coals and cooking it that way. basicly wou take carrots meat potatos, or whatever you want to cook. wrap it up in a some foil. set it on some hot coals for about 15 mins while turning them and wala. Cooked food.
Spanky
The fish sauce can be used in many ways. Try it on deep fried fish fillet, the crunchy texture of the fresh cooked fish fillet; the sweet/sour/hot taste of the sauce together are heaven. Use it as salad dressing on green mango salad, green papaya salad is very good too.