Saturday, June 15, 2013

Camping - Food!

We really do enjoy camping (even backyard camping) and have come up with some favorite "recipes" to sue every time we camp.  I thought it would be fun to share my camping ideas and "lists" over the next few weeks. 

A little background - we are tent campers.  We bought a tent for our first anniversary and have used it ever since.  When we had Josh, and then Nate, we decided to rent Mini-Cabins while the boys were little in order to have a more "controlled" environment in case of rain or cooler temps.  It also made it nicer for the kids to nap and go to bed on time since the tent gets so warm during the day.  This year we are retuning to tent camping since the boys are older and they love the idea of a tent.  Ultimately we want a camper/pop-up trailer and have committed to save this year for one so that by next spring we can purchase one and, ultimately, camp more often and for longer stretches of time.  The camper will help with not needing to worry about the weather and we'll also be able to bring our dog since she'll be able to sleep in the camper (she is not a lover of storms, fire, lakes, loud noises, etc HA!)  I personally would love a small camper (with A/C and a bathroom) with one pull-out to open the space up (so I can leave everything packed!)  but financially, a pop-up may be in our future instead.

So our food ideas are pretty simple.  We've always been limited on space for packing (starting with a trailblazer, then an Alero, an impala and now back to a trailblazer) so we only took one large cooler one one small cooler.  This usually means one store run mid-way through the weekend to pick up a few more things but that's ok too. 

Some of our favorite camping foods are:



Breakfast
Eggs, Bacon and Danish
Pancakes, Sausage and fruit
Cereal and Donuts

Lunch
To be honest, before kids we always ate out for lunch.  Darryl and I liked to explore little towns on the lakeshore so we would stop on the way and pick a fun place to eat. With kids, we are changing our ways so here are few things that are on my radar for lunch this camping season.
Walking tacos or nachos
Sloppy Joes
Chicken Tacos

Dinner
Marinated Steak Kabobs (cooked over the campfire) with fried zucchini and baked potatoes (crock-pot)
Hot Dogs with chips and homemade salads

Snacks
S'more's (of course!)
Family favorite chips, crackers and cookies - I usually make homemade cookies but not always
Cheese Sticks
Popcorn (I would like to get a popcorn popper eventually so we can make popcorn at our campsite)


We do have Pie Irons but really haven't used them.  There is a post over at Mustard Seeds that shares links to lots of ideas for Pie Irons including this idea for breakfast.


Do you have favorite camping recipes?  Feel free to share!