Food at Camp
Like I alluded to in the introduction of the Tips and Tricks section, I am a firm believer that planning and preparation will not only yield you a full and rewarding trip, it will result in more opportunities for relaxation and less work during your days away from home.
In the one to two days leading up to any outdoor adventure trip, our home is a flurry of preparation tasks. The main one, besides the obvious of packing, is food preparation. When we camp, I like to feed us meals that will fuel us before the day begins, and also reward our bodies at the end of a day of physical activity.
Not only are you hungry after a day of adventuring, you are probably tired. The last thing I want to do is to spend a bunch of time making dinner back at camp. My style is more of the pre-make the meals and warm them up at camp in order to have more time kicking back and relaxing with my friends and family.
The same goes for breakfast. A pre-made, home-cooked breakfast that will fill us up and doesn’t take a long time to make allows us to get going to the trailhead in the morning, get a parking spot, and hopefully have the trail mostly to ourselves.
Once I have made the meals and prepared any fresh items to come with, they package up nicely into my favorite containers and then into our Dometic cooler. Check out my review of the cooler here:
Typical menu options for us:
- Tacos – premake the taco meat, bring all the fixings and whatever you would like to put the meat on or in. All you have to do is warm up the meat.
- Spaghetti – premake the protein and combine with the meat sauce. Also premake the noodles and package separately with a drizzle of olive oil to keep them from sticking together. Warm them up separately for a good spaghetti dinner.
- Chili – premake and all you have to do is warm the chili at camp and add what toppings you have also brought along. We love Fritos, fresh avocado, and a sprinkle of cheese.
- Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables – wash, prepare, and cut, ready to eat at camp with any meal or for a snack.
- Breakfast muffins – these are my favorite for starting the day. I pre-make these and keep them refrigerated. I like to use maple sausage. In the morning, I cut the muffins in half to warm them on the camp stove and serve them with fresh berries. The best start to the day!
- French press coffee – need I say more for the coffee drinkers reading this.
Here are the links to my two of my favorite recipes from Well Plated and Mama Gourmand:
Stay tuned for more recipe ideas and food suggestions!