Cooking Outdoors

You are enjoying your day outdoors at the campground—perhaps fishing, swimming or just sitting and reading peacefully. Now, it's dinnertime…PANIC!? No, not at all. Cooking and camping go hand in hand. And in fact, with a little planning making dinner can be easier in the great outdoors than in your cozy kitchen.

Our family has a number of traditional foods we enjoy while camping… and we only eat some of these dishes while camping thus reinforcing the "special-ness" of getting away from it all.

First, before we head out we make the menu as a family. Each family member gets to pick his or her favorite dinner. After a trip to the store I pack a cooler for the fresh items and the kitchen staples get put in a plastic tub that stays packed for the entire camping season.

One of our favorite meals cooked over a roaring fire is kabobs. We spear chicken, steak and lots of veggies and reminisce about the day as they cook over the fire. Corn on the cob cooked over the fire is also delicious. My tip is to soak the cobs all day in water and when you return put them on a grate over the fire. It tastes like the corn you get at a state fair…yummy!

One of our favorite meals is the "Camp Stew" that cooks all day in our Stansport cast iron pot. It's so easy to prepare and so yummy to eat! Put everything in the pot in the morning and head off for the day of boating or walking or whatever. When you come back to camp your dinner is done and it's so delicious…it tastes like you have been slaving over the stove—or campfire--all day

For dessert try peach cobbler in the cast iron pot ….nothing beats warm peach cobbler with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! Don't forget one of the best and simplest desserts is s'mores. Roasting marshmallows over a crackling fire at the end of the day is a great way to spend some quality family time. There's no TV, phones, visitors; just your family and a few thousand stars.

My real reason for loving camping so much is that I do not do a lot of the cooking. My husband takes over the "chore" because it does not seem like one when you are outside. Every morning we are treated to a huge breakfast of pancakes, biscuits and gravy, eggs and bacon cooked on our Brunton propane stove. What a treat! Good food and I did not have to cook it; even better. No wonder camping is so relaxing to me!

So as you can see camping and cooking go well together and you don't have to intimidated about fixing meals when you are not in your kitchen.