Camping Suggestions

Posts Tagged ‘Cooking’

For all campers, make a decision first where you are placing your tent and use the pointers below to guide you for safety camping.

Don’t place camping tent in a low-lying area for flooding purposes. Don’t place your camping tent under old tree.

Plan ahead before go to camping trip. Be prepared to treat injuries and allergy. Have a first-aid kit which includes treatments for allergies and any injuries.

Make sure that each child is at a safe distance from the campfire and also from cooking fire.

Teach children about camping safety tips. Always it is better to keep sand or water near the campfire to put out the fire.

Always go with your friends or family member when leaving the campsite and let an child know when you are leaving and when you’ll be back correctly.

Food that you keep yourself when camping attracts wild animals and insects. If possible, store such foods it in a cooler in your car. Don’t keep it in your tent.

Gas Appliances

If possible try to change disposable gas cartridges only when cartridge is completely empty.

When a cooking is completed or your appliance is not in use, the cylinder should be turned off at the valve.

Ensure that flexible pipes are strongly clipped and do not leak.

Liquid fuel Appliances

Try to avoid using appliances fuelled by petrol, if achievable and ensure the right fuel is used.

Filling and illumination should be carried out in the open air. All fuel used should be stored in a cold place away from combustibles, and in the right containers.

Keep in mind that hot weather will cause fuel to evaporate. The vapors will follow ground contours and may travel a long way ignored.

Make sure that your camping group knows the location of the telephone to call the Emergency Services.

Ensure that your group knows how to use the gear provided.

Cooking

Site cookers stay away from the entrance of your tent. Cook only in areas that have designed for cooking. Ensure your cooker is steady and not likely to tip over. Keep flammables things away from the cooking area. Enjoy your camping with more and safety.

Do your camp cooking planning before you go camping and have your meals, food, utensils organised. So you don’t get there and wonder what each meal will be and realise you have left some food or important utensils behind. Here are a few tips and ideas.

Plan your meals – For example if you are staying for a long weekend work out how many meals you will need to provide for. Then take the appropriate food required for each breakfast lunch and dinner.

Keep Meals Simple – Keep all or most of your meals easy to prepare, cook and to clean up. No need to make restaurant 3 course meals.

Cooking equipment – Check if you will have a campfire, barbeque or using the camp stove. Take the cooking equipment required to suit the food that you are cooking or preparing, Do you need a frypan, saucepan, tongs, camp oven etc.

Food – Work out what ingredients you need and only take the food required for your meals. Don’t take five different types of sauce if you are only going to use two or don’t take kilo of rice if you only need 1 cup. You have limited space so make the most of it.

Camping makes you hungry – When deciding how much food to take allow a bit extra for each meal, add a few more sausages, or eggs etc.

Experiment – You may like to test out a new recipe and try a new meal or dessert each time you go camping too make it more interesting. If it’s a success that’s great, you may like to add it to the menu next time you go camping.

These are ideas I use each time we go camping so there is enough food for everyone, without having wasted leftovers when we get home. Make your meals tasty, but easy to prepare and wash up and everyone will have a great time. A wash up time saver is to use  a paper plate over a sturdy plastic plate for the main meal, saves washing up a greasy or messy plate.

Have you tried a new camping recipe lately?

Camping grill with foldable legs are available in these two stores: Safety Central and Hillbilly Camping Gear.

The easiest way of cooking when you are in the outdoors is grilling. Many campers like to grill because it does not need much preparations and food cooks faster. With the rise of technology, new camping grills are now available that are more efficient though a bit pricey. But still, many prefer ordinary camping grills because they are affordable and fuel isn’t difficult to be found because you can cook your food even over an open fire. These camping grills now come with foldable legs so that you can let it stand over your campfire and fold the legs afterwards for storage. These kinds of grills can be bought at:

Safety Central

This store has good quality selections of portable camping grills. All their items are well-made thus they are great for any campfire cooking and are guaranteed to last a lifetime. All their grills are also very affordable with prices ranging from $8.99 to $39.99 only. They have a 12” x 16” camp grill with folding legs made of 13 gauge metal.  It is ideal for individual or groups of two campers. They have larger camping grills too. Sizes are 24” long x 12”wide x 9-1/2” high. It is made of chrome plated steel. It can cook two or more meals at the same time. They also have the Explorer campfire grill with a 12” x 18” grill rack with foldable legs. When folded, it measures only about in 1-1/2” thick. It is perfect for a backpacking party. This one has a raised edge to prevent food from falling over the edge of the grill. The store also has a selection of Stansport folding camping grills like the folding pack grill, model 609 portable fire pit camp cook grill and 24” x 16” heavy duty portable folding camp grill.

Hillbilly Camping Gear

This is where you can find a 540mm, 600mm and 700mm long freestanding camping grill with a barbeque hotplate on it. Made of 3mm thick steel plate, it is good for barbequing and grilling at the same time.  It comes with 10mm solid steel foldable legs too. Prices are $ 85, $95 and $110.

There is nothing like the fresh air and exercise that you get on a hiking or camping trip, to work up a really big appetite. But you don’t want to spend ages preparing and cooking complicated meals, which turns it into a chore.

The whole experience should be fun, so if you can plan out a few simple camping dishes, it can make it a lot more enjoyable. Well with some traditional campfire cooking recipes, this can be a lot easier than you think.

Try out a couple or even all of the easy recipes below and see how much more exciting and interesting you can make your camping meals.

BREAKFAST

Oat and nut pancakes.

Ingredients.

1 & 1/2 half cups of oats,

1 cup of flour,

2 tablespoons of brown sugar,

Pinch of salt, to taste,

3 teaspoons of baking powder,

½ a cup of mixed chopped nuts,

1 & ½ cups of milk,

2 eggs,

2 tablespoons of butter,

Mix together all the dry ingredients (oats, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, nuts,) and put to one side, while you whisk together the milk, eggs, and butter. Pour this onto the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Lightly grease a griddle or frying pan and pre heat on the fire. Pour about half a cup of the pancake mix into the pan and cook until bubbly and edges look dry, turn pancake over and cook until golden brown. Serve with maple syrup or similar.

LUNCH

Simple Spam snack.

Ingredients.

1 onion,

3 or 4 potatoes, (depending on size),

1 tin of Spam,

1 tablespoon of butter,

Salt & pepper to taste.

Peel and chop the onion and potatoes into roughly ¾ inch pieces, and cook in skillet or frying pan until tender. Chop spam into similar size cubes as onion and potatoes and add to skillet or pan add salt and pepper and continue cooking until all ingredients are, crispy and spam is well heated through. Allow to cool slightly and serve with some crusty bread and butter.

MAIN MEAL

Foil cooked Meatloaf.

Ingredients.

2 pounds of ground beef,

1 egg,

½ a cup of bread crumbs,

½ a can of tomato soup,

Salt & pepper to taste.

Mix all the ingredients together in a suitable container or bowl until it all binds together and can be moulded into a loaf shape of your choice. Place into a large piece of tin foil and wrap well, leaving an air pocket at the top for steam. Cook on small grill on top of fire embers for approximately ¾ of an hour, turning as necessary. Serve with potatoes and vegetables of your choice. Will serve 4 people.

SWEET

Baked Banana.

For a quick tasty desert, simply split a banana lengthwise leaving the skin on. Insert brown sugar and butter into split. Wrap in tin foil and bake in embers of fire until sugar and butter melt into the banana.

Cooking outdoors is a very easy task with a little preparation and planning. If you are planning a rafting or camping trip, there are a few things to remember before you head out to the wilderness, and a few things that can turn a great riverside camp meal into a tantalizing, mouthwatering treat.

First, check your cooking equipment and make sure it is clean and well organized before heading outdoors. Include common utensils and equipment like spatula, turner, large serving spoons, knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, cups, coffee pot, cooking pots, pans, (preferably cast iron skillet and Dutch oven), lids, and plastic bags. Utensils can be stored separately in plastic Ziploc bags or long, thin plastic containers with lids. Stack cups inside bowls and pots and pans to utilize all areas of space and remember, you can stack upside down too! Once the tools of the trade are collected, be sure that your cook stove is clean and all working parts are present, including propane, regulator, briquettes, matches or lighter. A few other essentials to include in the cook tubs are pot holders or gloves, foil, cutting board, clean dish towels and scrubbers, dish soap, garbage bags, bleach and a flashlight.

Secondly, plan a menu for each meal of each day that you will be cooking outside. It is easiest to plan the menu by days and meals. For example, Day 1: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks; Day 2: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks, etc. Once you have your menu planned you can easily make the list of ingredients that go into each meal or snack. Break the list into categories like meats, dairy, fruits, vegetables, dry goods and so on, until you have a complete list of supplies you need to pack. This list can also double as a shopping guide. Perishable items like meats should be frozen ahead of time and packed together in a cooler along with other items that need to be kept cold like milk or cheese. Be sure to pack frozen water bottles, or recycled juice bottles full of frozen water to keep ice chest temperatures cold. It is also a good idea to keep a small thermometer in the cooler so that you know temperatures are appropriate to prevent food spoilage. Crushed ice is added after everything else is packed into the cooler, and it is best to pack drinks in a cooler separate from the perishables cooler.

Now that everything is prepared and organized, a few other pantry items are pertinent to note. Add to the dry goods staples items such as salt, pepper, garlic powder, sugar in a mason jar with screwed down lid, an additional empty pint sized mason jar with lid, vanilla flavoring, other favorite herbs and spices including cinnamon and nutmeg, Pam, or your favorite brand of non stick cooking spray, tea, coffee and hot cocoa. These items can fit into a small storage tub with a lid and labeled as Preferred Pantry! In the cold cooler, be sure to add heavy whipped cream in a mason jar with lid, butter, milk and half and half.

Next comes the cooking. Take the time to organize the camp kitchen. Set up a hand washing station with water, pump soap and clean towel. Unpack tools and utensils so they are easy to reach, yet discretely out of the way. Prepare the garbage/recycle station before you start to cook. If you are using a small grill, set it up and check to make sure it works, and that you have placed it in a well ventilated area. Open coolers as little as possible to keep things cold. As the cooking begins, remember you are working at a slower pace than the stove at home. If using a campfire to cook, smoke will enhance and flavor meats and grilled vegetables with an unbelievably delightful flavor. When food finishes cooking, transfer to a plate and cover with a lid or aluminum foil to retain heat and flavor.

Finally, an impromptu treat of Same Day Cobbler is made possible by the supplies included in the pre-trip preparations. In August, there are many ripe blackberries. Pick a quart or two of the wild berries. Rinse and place the berries into a Dutch oven. Sprinkle with sugar and use about one tablespoon of butter and dot the berries. If berries aren’t available, pack a can or two of peaches. After that, mix up the cobbler topping using the pancake mix you brought along. Add a few tablespoons of sugar to the mix, and mix with milk until t it is the consistency of a drop biscuit. Drop the cobbler dough on top of the berries or peaches. Sprinkle the top with a teaspoon full of sugar, put on the lid and bake in a Dutch Oven until you can see and smell the steam escaping from the top. While the cobbler is baking, fill a mason jar two-thirds full of heavy whipping cream. Add a dash of sugar, a touch of vanilla and screw the lid on tight. Now it is time for more fun! Pass the jar of whipping cream around the camp fire. As each person shakes it, watch your family and friends make whipped cream! When the Same Day Cobbler has finished cooking, serve with a little whipped cream. Enjoy!

Cooking outdoors can be very enjoyable and delicious. It contributes to the relaxing rhythm of an outdoor adventure and invites others to share in the work, or keep you company while you are cooking. Be sure to clean up, wipe down and store all unused food. Outdoor cooking is an integral element of rafting and camping. It enriches the experience, slows the pace and enhances the flavors of food. Enjoy what comes along and be sure to share the joy of cooking at the camp fire!