JFF - Calling All Camping Junkies!

cabbage pouches over the fire/grill....place a cabbage wedge on a sheet of foil, a few slices of butter/marg/olive oil, S&P, & some fresh garlic/onion. Grill as you would potatoes....& it's even better when smoked!

frozen dinners - 2-3 ft of alum. foil. Meat of choice (we have used chicken, steak and salmon). Veggie and seasonings. Wrap. Freeze.

In the cooler it acts as an extra ice pack.

Cooking - just put it on the side of coals or on the grill. About 30 min.

Unwrap and individual dinners are cooked, with zero on-sight preparation.

Also - Smuckers Crustables (in the freezer section). These are frozen PB&J that thaw to edible in 30-45. Perfect to stick in the cooler for a hike or float.

We tent camp almost every weekend during summer, we have lots of good spots no more than an hour from where we live with lots of rivers and lakes, it's pretty awesome.

Our staples in the ice chests are one ice chest specifically for waters, condiments and beer. The other ice chest holds, homemade tuna salad, egg salad, potato salad, wieners, salami, and a couple of steaks, bacon and eggs.

We take plenty of nuts, chips, and of course some cookies. We dont have kids so doing smores and roasting marshmallows is no longer part of our agenda, a cookie or two does us just fine.

We just loaded the back of our car with our camping gear, hopefully heading out to the woods this coming wknd for the first time for this season.

We love "pudgie pies". I'm not sure if this is the official name or not. You can buy the irons at walmart, target, or sporting goods stores. You can make sweet pies in them (using bread, butter, pie filling) but we like to make pizza pudgie pies. You spray the insides of the iron with spray butter, and then between two pieces of bread you put cheese, sauce, veggies, whatever you like on pizza. You clamp the two sides of the iron together and grill over the fire. These are always a big hit!
Have fun!

We were camping junkies when I was growing up. I loved it so much. Now, as an adult, we camp in the backyard :( Anyway, I was going to tell you what my favorite food memory is of camping. My aunt always made rotel (you know the velveeta cheese melted with rotel tomatoes in it) anyway she always added extra tomatoes to make it runny, and we always had it cold in the cooler and dipped carrots and celery in it at night by the fire. yummy!! And my mom always used to make bacon cheeseburgers at least once for us over the fire. Hope you have a wonderful time!!!!

I like to peel back one side of a banana, put chocolate pieces and marshmallows, then put the peel back down. Place that on the grill, and you have a delicious desert.

We really only camp in fall here. The summer is impossible. I can't camp in 105+ highs, and lows that don't even dip into the 80's. It's pretty miserable. I do LOVE camping, and we plan to go some more this fall.

Shannon- Thanks for that catch!! Not sure why I typed mushrooms ;)
I love mushrooms, but that would be awful!

Love to camp! I have already been bugging my husband to go, but I'm not sure if schedules will permit this summer for anything other then the one big one we have planned.
I have different dietary requirements then my husband and boys, so food gets to be really interesting! I have found 3 camping/backpacking cookbooks that I love! These are for making meals ahead and dehydrating at home. Then there is minimal beyond just add water in camp. It leaves the coolers free for the 3 different kinds of milk and fresh fruit and veg that are requirements for our family. There is always stuff for smores and a couple of bottles of wine too!
One of their favorites is biscuits and gravy. I make the sausage and gravy with a little less flour and a little more milk and then make up bisquik dough for biscuits, dropping the dough onto the simmering gravy and cooking them like a dumpling. As for the dehydrated meals I have done everything from lasagna to chicken pot pie. I normally have our camping companions envious at meal times!

Backpack Gourmet Linda Frederick Yaffe
Lip Smackin' Backpacking and Lip smackin' vegetarian Backpacking by Tim and Christine Conners

I am a definite camping junkie and we are gourmet campers extraordinaire. My philosophy is "you can pack asiago cheese as easily as american, so why not?"

I love to wrap stuff in foil and put it on the side of a fire: asparagus with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, a head of garlic, even pre-cooked rice. I once did a whole fish with lemongrass that way. Corn soaked in water and put next to the fire right in the husk. Marinated portobello mushrooms over the fire (with asiago cheese and a some arugula) make a fabulous "veggie burger." Kabobs are always a great idea too.

Some nice cheese and crackers for a snack... omelette with the leftover veggies in the AM. I just want camping and this is making me want to go again - right now!

Dessert is always s'mores, so no fresh ideas there....

We LOVE camping! We have already been twice this in May and have several other trips planned throughout the summer : ) I feel like all we do is EAT HA...but they are all about friends and family and just getting away from the phones/email/computers/etc...we prefer camping to the big fancy trips...more relaxing! And we have packing/eating down to a science now, so its really not that much work anymore. And we have a 6 mo old and a 3.5 yr old!
Favorite foods: homemade ice cream one way or another, chili dogs (so unhealthy, and we only them camping LOL), "chili n eggs burritos" (1 pan breakfast...you can use sausage instead too), Smores....with Peanut Butter cups...YUM! And some snacks include cream cheese and salsa, watermelon of course...pretty much nothing healthy usually!
To Do: NOTHING : ) And the kids simply amaze me by keeping themselves busy while camping...I love it...their curiousity and creativity is full bloom while in the outdoors...priceless to watch!

Camping is good for the soul....so glad to see others enjoying it as well : )

We were camping junkies but took a few years off with back to back babies. We went last year and I still had my lists, camping gear etc all ready to go. We did make the meals super easy this time. I made a pot of chili before we left for the first night with bagged salad and foiled garlic bread, then hot dogs and can of beans for the second night. Kept it really easy since I was running around with 2 and 3 year old. Kids loved it and we'll do it again this summer. Happy camping!

OMGoodness! I want to take my twins camping!

My favorite smores tip is to use fudge striped cookies instead of graham crackers and chocolate! So easy!

Slight variation on the "iron dinners" is to use tortillas instead of bread.

Fun camping activity: My daughter and her BFF had an "iron chef" competition when we were camping. Apparently the secret ingredient was granola bars - not great in the hot chocolate (don't like chunks when I'm drinking), but her smore plate drizzled with chocolate around the plate won hands down! We also discovered that deer sticks boiled in beer were pretty good...

have you checked pinterest?

Lately we've just been doing a lot of roasting hot dogs over the campfire. It's quick and easy and kind of fun.

We call those aluminum foil dinners "hobo dinners." That's probably my fave but the hubby doesn't like them as much. You can make them however you want: I usually use either chicken or ground beef or any kind of fish, and change up the veggies each time. I've added cheese before but a lot of times it gets stuck to the foil.

Something I'd like to learn more of is using a dutch oven. I have several friends who are in to dutch oven cooking, and when we go camping together the meals are always great! And they do most of the prep work before they leave home.

I love to camp too. I like destinations where you can hike around and see stuff. We just went up to Burney Falls for the long weekend.
Not sure how expert we are at it and can't think of any tips. Hoping to see some good ones here. The Girl Scouts use fun things to cook with like a dutch oven and a foil wrapped box. I'm interested in the dutch oven but don't think the box oven will go over well with family camping.

If I think of any tips, I'll let you know. I do know the girl scouts use hamburger a lot and precook it.

Oh yeah :)
My MIL is a camping gourmet and loves to get more and more complicated in her camping meals. She likes to freeze something delicious and defrost it over the camp stove, we eat better when we are camping with her than we do the rest of the year!
I prefer old fashioned type of camp food, the old standbys like smores and stuff from the girl scout days.
My fave- Doughboys: refrigerator biscuits wrapped around the end of a broom handle (spray liberally with pam) and cook ever so patiently over the fire. Then pull it off and load the middle up with cinnamon sugar and butter... or syrup or whatever you want. It also fits a breakfast sausage quite well. Its so good especially to leave the center kinda gooey.
Individual Plastic bag omelets- crack an egg into a plastic ziploc bag and throw in whatever else you like (cheese, mushrom, ham, etc) squich it around. Double bag it in another ziplock and cook them in a big pot of boiling water (using tongs to move them around and make sure the plastic doesn't melt to the side of the pot)

I also like to make homemade pizza over the camp grill or old fashioned foil dinners... My fave as a kid was to make a "foil oven" in a box and bake mini pizzas... haven't done it in years and would have to look up how to do it, but your post is inspiring me, maybe this summer is the summer to do it!

OH and I can't believe I forgot ice cream. To me homemade ice cream and camping go hand in hand... in the old fashioned crank with rock salt and ice surrounding it and everyone takes turns cranking til it's done. Though my SIL figured out a way to make your own individual ice cream in a plastic bag (again, involves squishing and shaking around the ingredients in the bag) and it is much faster.

We also do Taco salad in a bag... basically anythig you can put in a big plastic bag and shake around is good for us :)

ETA: after reading these... MMM I forgot about the split bananas with yummy things stuffed in cooked in their peels over the fire!!! (But I think you meant marshmallows not mushrooms and chocolate... eeew!)

We enjoy cooking/grilling on the fire... steaks, pork chops, chicken breast. We always make baked potatoes by wrapping in alumium foil and throwing in the hot coals. We make extras so we have home fries in the morning for breakfast.

I wash and cut up veggies at home. You can eat raw with some dip, or easily steam them. Blanch green beans, great cold or you can heat them up.