Meat and Cheese Amongst the Trees

A hoy-hoy and welcome back! Now! Close your eyes (DO IT)!! Imagine you are out camping (no I don’t care if you don’t actually camp, just do it)! Okay, again, imagine you are out camping: you hear a slight cooling breeze sway through the trees while you smell the smokey, yet sweet scent of your camp fire while reclined in your camping chair. But wait! What else are you smelling? Bacon? Stir fry? Toasted marshmallows? Mmmm, all of these things make me happy and relaxed. Today’s blog will be about organizing and preparing camping food. Yes! See? Aren’t you glad you stuck around? LOL. I had a request per my wonderful friend who thought a blog explaining what foods we make while camping and how we organize our menu for camping would be helpful. And, well, I thought that was a brilliant idea and wished I had thought of it myself!! LOL!! So, thank you Prima and love you because honestly, I feel (and correct me if I am wrong) that most people don’t talk about how they organize their menus and what they make. That being said, families who camp in huge RVs with full kitchens can organize their food like they would at home. But if you don’t have a refrigerator or sink or full kitchen you need to organize and prepare your food a little differently. Not as extreme as say, backpackers, but, with only the use of a cooler and a camp stove or fire, one needs to be organized. 

Story Time! (Doodle-do-do, doodle-do-do, doodle-do-do). Teehee. 

Sweet chicken nuggets, what happens if you aren’t that organized?? No, you won’t starve, well, that depends on where you are. The Husband and I tend to stay in state or national parks that are typically surrounded by or close to towns, and, lets face it, McDonald’s is probably on the Moon by now. The first time we went camping in the A-Frame, we left later than we wanted to or the traffic had slowed our progression. Either way, we were late coming into camp. We set everything up and… the power wouldn’t turn on. Yeah. Did I mention it was dark out? No? Oh, yeah, it was dark out because as I had mentioned, we were later in getting to camp than we wanted. Honestly, at this point, it was dark, we had no power, it was getting later and later and, well, we were defeated. We hadn’t even started and we were already defeated. So, we did what any American couple in this position would do; we went into town and got McDonald’s. Yup. We were so embarrassed (even though I am sure no other campers cared or even noticed what we were doing) that we took our hamburgers and French fries with our little lantern, went inside the camper, and ate in shame. LOL. The next morning, The Husband did fix the electrical and all went well. But. We did learn something that night: pack an easy meal that one can eat without power or even when life has defeated you for the moment. I will talk more about this as we move on. But, getting fast food every once in awhile is okay (hell, who am I kidding, we get more than just once in awhile!). LOL.

Gear

Before we get started on the food, though, lets talk about gear! The following items we keep in our campers year round:

Nesting camping pots

Camp utensils in its own carrying case

Camp Stove

Plastic Silverware for eating (easy clean-up)

S’more’s Sticks 

Paper Towels

Wet Naps

Small Soap for Dishes – get the biodegradable if you can

Zip Lock Bags *****

Foil – can never have too much foil

Plates/Bowls – we use paper plates, but try to use the plastic plates and wash more 

Cups – I have red Solo Cups for a group of people, but The Husband and I mostly use our Yeti cups or drink from our Seltzer cans

Note: People in large RVs with full kitchens can also carry with them and use: blackstones (we actually have a mini one we use and love for stir fry and breakfast), AirFryers, slow cookers, honestly, whatever you want! We tend to go for simple, easy to clean up, and less to carry with us as our campers are smaller. We tend to use the camp stove, fire, or now, the mini blackstone.

**** We are and have been using plastic sandwich and gallon sized bags for leftovers and such, but recently are slowly working to transition to silicone reusable sandwich bags. Now, don’t call us Captain Planet or anything; we do use a lot of the plastic silverware and paper plates for easy cleanup, but, we are trying. Slow and steady. 

And now, the Food!!

Quick Note: Remember that The Husband and I camp fairly simple. As stated before, in larger RVs you can have more “at home” meals. But for those of us smaller in campers and even tents, this should help you and hopefully can be a good starting off point for you.

Organizing Your Meals

When we are thinking about meals and what to have each day and how those food items can be used the next day or even in the next meal, we begin with the first meal we will be eating. The Husband loves (I mean, loves) breakfast food. I am okay about it, but, there is something about camp breakfast that just hits differently. I don’t know what it is, but it just tastes better. Therefore, when camping, I am also, now, a huge fan of breakfast.Before I get ahead of myself, lets start at the beginning, meaning, you just got to camp. If you are like The Husband and I, we leave either noon or after work, so typically we will have time for dinner after setting up. 

The First Night Camping Meal – It does not take too long to set up the Aframe, and honestly, in Cosmic Charlie, all we have to do is open her up and set up the outside rug and lights and get ready for dinner. As stated before, sometimes unexpected “bumps in the road” can occur. Therefore, we try to pack easy to prepare meals that take little time and/or effort and we can also use in our breakfast for the next morning. These are some of the meals we have prepared:

• Sausage over the grill
• Steak also over the grill
• BLTs – for left over bacon
• Deli sandwiches with chips 

The sausage, steak, and bacon we can use the next morning with eggs as is or in, as The Husband loves to do, a tortilla shell for a breakfast burrito. What we typically end up doing while camping is to get up super early (4:30-5am) and get onto the hiking trails are soon as possible for two reasons: to miss out on the crowds and the heat. This also allows us to get in more than one trails before the heat of the day (did I mention The Husband is a redhead?). So we typically bring trail mix*** and beef sticks or jerky to eat on the trail or after and when we get back to camp make our big breakfast. 

***Note: Speaking of “trail mix”. The Husband went to the Costco and got us “trail mix” for one of our camping trips. Now, I am not going to lie, this was a damn good “trail mix”, but as I am eating it more and more, I am noticing that it has more mini peanut butter cups, peanut butter and chocolate chips, peanut butter filled pretzels, and a couple of peanuts strewn in for good measure. Did we take this on a particularly extraneous hike? Yes. Did we eat this throughout said hike? Also yes. Was it the most amazing “trail mix” I have ever had? Yes. But, something was off. So, when we got back to camp, I grabbed the container and really looked at the label: this was not, in fact trail mix, it was a chocolate and peanut butter SNACK MIX. Let me repeat, snack mix, not trail mix. Yeah. We still continued to eat the stuff, because, WOW, it was good and it kept our energy up throughout our hikes. Don’t you judge us.

Breakfasts – As mentioned throughout the beginning of the blog, we like to prepare our meals so that we can use ingredients from the night before into the next day’s meals. This is not only for ease but it also cuts down on waste or having to bring food items back home with us. In this list of breakfast items we have made, I will make bold the items that we use from one meal to the next to help you better see how we try to organize our meals. 

• Sausage and eggs
• Steak, potatoes, and eggs
• Bacon and eggs
• Meat/Cheese/egg sandwiches or burritos 
• Bacon and pancakes
• Chorizo and eggs with tortillas

For coffee, The Husband wanted me to point out that he uses instant packs. He can simply boil water, add it, and BLAMO, coffee. You could also make instant oatmeal, which is super easy and/or the small boxes of cereal with milk. Nice and easy. I must say, again, nothing beats a filling, warm breakfast; it truly almost fills the soul with joy, especially after a good, hard hike before. NOW, I have to tell you, most of these I will happily claim as my “favorite”, but truly, my favorite is the chorizo and eggs. I had never had chorizo and eggs until I began to date The Husband and started camping with him. Let me tell you, this is by far, the best, most greasy, filling, and soul changing meal you can have while camping. The wonderful spicy, pork Mexican chorizo is gloriously greasy which allows you to use that spicy grease to then cook the eggs. Add cheddar cheese (or whatever cheese you want) and places into a warm, soft tortilla (corn or flour). It is transcendent. Wonderful. Tasty. But I digress, any of these delightful breakfasts are filling and soul warming to usually hold us throughout the afternoon and into dinner. 

I will also admit that we typically don’t use any food items from breakfast into any of the other meals. But, do as you will, get creative! If you are in a larger RV with a full kitchen, make ready-to-cook casseroles! You could even make a cinnamon roll casserole if you wanted something sweet! Biscuits and gravy! Breakfast is your world! LOL. 

Lunch – As I noted above, we usually have such a big breakfast that we don’t eat again until dinner. BUT. If we do eat a lunch, it is usually something light.

• Sandwiches or sub sandwiches that we make or buy from a deli or sandwich fast food place and chips
• Meat and cheese roll ups with no bread
• Leftovers from dinners
• Hotdogs 
• Hamburgers
• Cheese and crackers with fruit and/or meat 

Dinner –  Oh dinner. Now, this is my favorite meal of the day. Well, besides dessert. There are a plethora of ideas you can use to make fun camping dinners! 

• Chili
• Walking Tacos
• Foil packets
• Fried fish
• Burgers/hotdogs
• Chili cheese fries (second dinner idea if you had chili for dinner the first night)
• Pudgy pies
• Dutch oven pizza 

The possibilities are endless! If you have a large RV, you could even make slow cooker meals like pulled pork sandwiches or whatever meals you use in the slow cooker. Again, you could have prepared casseroles. Breakfast for dinner. We love chili and walking tacos, which is seriously one of my favorites (because I LOVE with a burning passion that consumes all; Fritos). Not gonna lie. LOL. Foil packet dinners are super easy and versatile to make! Pick your meat, your veggie, and your carb, it is usually potato, and spices and wrap up in foil and place in your coals to cook. So, good. Now, if your husband is a fisherman and him and his friend go out fishing all day and catch a bunch, nothing, and I mean nothing is better then eating fresh caught, cleaned, and fried fish for dinner. The fish is sweet and tender with a salty, crispy coating. It is just so delicious. I must warn, proceed with your Dutch oven pizza with caution. From our experience, the bottom is burned black while the top is still raw. LOL. Or the whole pizza gets soggy from the tomatoes. Either way, if you are able to make pizza over a fire while camping, please write in the comments to tell me what black magic – I mean, methods you use. 

Desserts – Next, desserts!!!! I know, I know, remain as calm as you can!!! Cause you know what we are about to talk about! Yes you do!!!!! Crispy, not too sweet graham crackers with toasted brown and gooey marshmallow, glued altogether with rich and creamy melted sweet chocolate. That’s right, baby: S’mores. But wait, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Cheese and crackers!  Again, there is a great variety of desserts you can make for fun from creative camping desserts, to the good old classic. The choice is yours, of course. But here are some ideas:

• S’mores
• Banana and chocolate chip in an ice cream cone foil packet (with fruit too)
• Banana boat with chocolate chips and marshmallows 
• Fancy S’more bar with different types of candy in place of the chocolate bar
• Pudgy pies

Honestly, we always make S’mores. Or! One time, I did make a s’mores bar variant. The “cookie dough” portion of the bar was made with crushed graham crackers in the dough. Layer the chocolate bar and then marshmallow fluff in a jar, then more the graham cracker cookies dough on top and bake. It was magical and ready to eat! Bridget, what the heck is Pudgy Pie? I have mentioned them twice now. You make Pudgy Pies using a square, cast iron mold. With this mold you can make either savory or sweet sandwiches. You grease the molds, then put bread, meat, cheese, and bread for lunches or dinners. Close the mold and then, like a marshmallow, roast the pudgy pie over an open flame. For dessert, it is the same concept, but with sweet treats! You can use bread or biscuits with chocolate and fruit or chocolate and peanut butter fillings. Whatever you wish! Like a marshmallow, though, be careful to not burn them! LOL.

Snacks – Oh snacks, how I adore you in all of your salty and sweet forms. Have I ever mentioned that I never have chips in the house because I will eat the whole bag or box more than likely in one day? Yeah. But, while camping, you do tend to move around more than you would at home. We like to hike, come back to camp to relax and then do a shorter, more leisurely hike in the late afternoon when it is not so warm. So sometimes while lounging around the camp site, we will indulge in a snack or so. Heehee. Of course if you have kids, you will always want to have snacks as they are ravenous beasts that constantly need to be fed! LOL. Here are snacks we keep around, but bring whatever you like to munch on while lounging around.

• Chips
• Cheese crackers
• Trail mix
• Beef sticks
• Beef jerky 
• The Husband’s “trail mix” AKA candy snack mix LOL
• Protein bars
• Apples
• Candy, yes, candy

We honestly are trying to get away from getting and indulging in the candy portion (especially if we have s’mores to eat later), but we still get one or two candy-like items at times. The Husband has been going carnivore the last couple of years, so it is just me eating sweets, and, as mentioned before, I’m lazy and don’t want to make s’mores for just myself and have all of that leftover graham crackers and chocolate and marshmallow. Therefore, this time, I went and got myself a package of chocolate fudge and would have a piece or two a night or one for a sweet treat in the afternoon. Just right for my sweet tooth. 

Conclusion 

I really hope that you both liked and found this post to be helpful. Again, wish I would have thought of this sooner (big thanks again to Prima Crissy!!). I’m working on a camping with dogs post, but never thought to write one about camping food! LOL. I hope that this inspires you to get out there and enjoy our world away from technology and stress! Thank you for reading and see you next time!