Delicious Camping Food – Uh, Really?

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

You read right: you can have delicious camping food, even when you’re roughing it in the wild. This doesn’t involve necessarily bringing in an RV or finding a place to eat out – instead, you can learn to become a great “outdoor cook” that knows how to handle his or her way around the campsite kitchen. It just takes a little know-how, a solid attitude, and the willingness to make it happen. Here are a few tips to making your camping meals great.

Good food starts with good tools.

If you’re not working with good tools, it won’t matter what you’re cooking – you need to be able to cook your food well. This means clean pans, a good way to heat your food, appropriate utensils for eating them, and the right tools for flipping, poking, grabbing, and mixing. Tools like pans built for the outdoors, tripods that let you heat pots over fires, and camping silverware need to be present – and you should consider them essentials for a comfortable camping trip.

Ingredients, ingredients, ingredients.

Your ingredients will determine the quality of your food – it’s that simple. So you need to start thinking of you and your family’s favorite ingredients that also travel well. A steak can be great, but unless you’re prepared to bring some with you, you won’t be able to enjoy them in the outdoors. You’ll need to prepare for it by bringing a cooler and keeping your meat refrigerated.

Think about other ingredients that both taste good and make for easy packing – foods like nuts, beans, and other canned ingredients can be combined easily during a meal. If you use a little imagination, you can find ways to bring these ingredients together and create some great recipes.

Think calorie-dense food.

When you’re running around in the outdoors all day, you need plenty of energy. It’s not time to count calories and order the salad – you need food that fills you up without dragging you down. And you need plenty of energy to feel good. What foods are calorie dense? Bring a bottle of olive oil to add to your pans for healthy fat; other calorie-dense foods like cheese pack well and can be stored in the cooler.

Cooking in the wild is just like cooking indoors: it’s the preparation that will make or break a meal. You can’t cook without preparation indoors, so why would you expect to whip up something easily outdoors? Prepare by bringing the right ingredients, keeping them stored safely, and knowing how to bring them together over a simple pan and fire. It only takes a little bit of thinking and shopping: you can let the fire do the rest.

Photo Credits: fishbone1

Creating Your Campsite Kitchen

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

So you’ve finally made it into the great outdoors with a full campsite: you’ve got your fire ready, chairs set up, your tent ready to protect you from the elements, and even a warm place to sleep. You sit down to enjoy the just-beginning sunset, and it suddenly hits you.

Your stomach grumbles.

Oh yeah! After all of that work, you’re still going to have to eat once you’re out in the wild.

For many people, being outdoors is an unappetizing thought, let alone eating outdoors. But it’s not as hard as you might think to create a campsite kitchen that produces good, fresh food and fills you with energy so that you can start worrying about the more interesting activities – like camping! Here are some tips to creating your own campsite kitchen.

Tip #1: Bring your own refrigerator.

Without an RV (which literally lets you bring your own kitchen), you’ll still need a way to keep your food cool so that it lasts as long as possible. Use small coolers – they’re lighter and will require less ice. Make sure to keep cool only that which really needs to keep cool to reduce the burden on your equipment.

Tip #2: Plastics.

Giant, re-sealable plastic bags will be your best friend when you head outdoors – even if you already have another container like a cooler to store your food in. Why is this? Even inside bags and coolers, it’s easy for debris and dust to get on your food if you don’t have your items well-sealed. Plastics will also keep moisture out of your food, which is essential if you want to avoid soggy hot dog buns and wet potato chips.

Tip #3: Easy fire-starters.

Be sure to have plenty of tinder and wood near your fire so that you can easily start a fire for breakfast in the morning, and if you can, cover the wood with a tarp overnight to protect it from potential rain. Even when the weather forecast is clear, you’re never sure if a light shower might break out at four in the morning, so be prepared.

By the way, don’t bring a lighter: bring a torch. The Micro-Jet Lighter Torch will take your lighter and turn it into a flame-blowing torch that will work better in windy conditions.

Tip #4: Bring a decent cooking rack.

Tri-pod racks are popular since they’re relatively easy to set up along with a fire you have just built. Just make sure you have a rock that will be able to stand on its own as you cook hot dogs, burgers, and other meats on your grill.

Photo Credits: BaronBrian

What is a Camping Vacation?

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

We might be familiar with the old-fashioned idea of packing up a camper and heading into the wilderness, especially because the premise offers so many opportunity for laughs in movies like “RV.” But when was the last time you actually thought this might be a good idea for you and your family and really considered trying a camping vacation?

Simply put, a camping vacation is what you make it – there are no set rules that make your camping trek any more or less legitimate than anyone else’s. All you have to do is have a plan of action, a plot of land to set up shop, and come prepared to enjoy the wilderness to the highest extent.

Here are some quick tips to preparing your next camping vacation, as well as how to get started today:

1. First, be a scout.

A good camping vacation starts with the idea of scouting – finding the right destination for your family to enjoy. You’ll want to consider a number of variables during this phase, and come up with as many different potential spots as possible. For example, if you have small children, a place with easy accommodations not too far from the campsite might be ideal. If your kids are older, they might embrace the challenge of a more “rustic” experience (of course, they’ll have to bring their cell phones with them). Know what you’re getting into ahead of time.

2. Decide what to bring with you.

If you’ve never been camping before, it can be a bit difficult to know what to bring with you, and it’s tempting to go a little overboard. Dropping a big chunk of change on an RV that you might not necessarily need isn’t the way to go.

Mentally run yourself through a typical day as you see it, and imagine the type of supplies you’ll need. Soaps that double as shampoos are great because they carry less weight. Tents that set themselves up will also take a lot of the edge of nature off. And don’t be afraid to splurge on a gizmo or two if you think it will really help you enjoy your experience.

3. Have fun.

This is an obvious one, but you don’t want to force anyone into a camping trip if they’re determined to have a bad time. Instead, make sure everyone in your family is okay with a camping trip, and ask them for their input. If they love water sports, make sure to go near a lake. You might even consider renting a cabin in the woods – it’s not quite “camping,” but it can be a lot more comfortable for city slickers.

Photo Credits: oskarlin