My husband and I are going camping with my sister and her family in July. We have only gone camping a few times but both seem to enjoy it ... my question is .. when you guys go camping what do you cook/eat? We have a camp stove and there will be a bonfire but do you do anything other then hotdogs? Thanks for any help/ideas!
If you're like my MIL you'll cook 3 full, hot meals a day. She did it on a camp stove for a couple years until they got a camper. Drives my mom crazy because my dad wants to go to black powder shoots that my in-laws go to and of course they're supposed to camp together. Of course than my mom is expected to help my MIL make meals for the guys all day.
If you get a small table top grill you could do steaks, hamburgers, chicken, fish, etc. and it wouldn't take much time.
Bring lots of stuff for Smores, the only thing a campfire is good for (hotdogs are gross). 
We eat heavy meals and snack constantly on camping trips, but there are usually 8-12 of us. It makes a difference whether you are carrying in all your food on your back or car camping. Backpacking or kayak camping we each carry our own meals, drinks and a few snack items to share. For car camping, the sky is the limit. I prepare several frozen meals and seal them in food saver bags and freeze them solidly before we leave. I layer the meals in the cooler in the order we will eat them. We often go for 4 days or more. Last time I made chinese stir fry and packaged and froze the rice and veggie mix in bags. I then made a spaghetti dish the same way with a bag of pasta and sauce packaged seperately. We take a big pot and drop the food saver bags in to defrost and cook, while we have snacks and cocktails. I made a few cold meals, oriental cold noodle salad and macaroni salad and froze them in fs bags and then let them thaw on their own before serving them. The mac salad I froze and bagged with out the mayo, I added that after it thawed. Any casserole works for group meals. For breakfast we have pancakes, bacon and sausage. Lunch is cold cut sandwiches and cheese snacks. We've also been known to bring a large pot and make low country boil one night and a fried turkey the next. We had tinfoil pans of stuffing, a can of cranberry sauce, sweet and white potatoes double wrapped in foil and baked in the fire. Hobo packs are good - meat and veggies triple wrapped together in foil and baked in the fire - just don't forget to leave someone with long tongs in change of turning anything baked in the coals. You can also make breads and cakes, make the mix, add water and then cover a dutch oven with coals to bake.
Oh, that sounds like so much fun......
Dutch oven cooking allows for all manner of great eats 
But here's what I found using various methods of food preparation while camping:
http://www.mikebentley.com/camping/cooking.htm
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-DORecipes.html
http://www.koakampgrounds.com/recipes/campfirecooking.htm
http://camping.about.com/cs/campingrecipelinks/a/recipes001.htm
http://www.chuckwagondiner.com/
HTH
I went to Quetico park last september for a 8 day canoe trip and we had to carry everything in with us that we wanted to eat. Here is a quick run down of our menu. We did this over the fire and over the camp stove (we had both because in case there was a fire ban for part of the time we were out)
Steak (freeze before we left and packed on top so thawed out by our first night)
Hasbrowns (buy the frozen ones)
Eggs (Buy the egg beaters and froze them)
Bacon/ham/pork chops (again froze before we left)
Beef and Rice (dry the ground up hambuger before we left home, a box of rice A roni beef flavored and then just added the water to hydrate everything over the camp fire)
Chicken and Rice (Caned chicken and RiceARoni chicken or cheese flavored rice. Use the water to hydrate the rice then add the chicken.)
Spagetti (Make spagetti sauce and dehydrate in the oven before you leave-put in ziploc bag. Take your noodles. Then hydrate with water over camp fire)
We had a few other things but as you can see we did NOT starve!
I do not know if you will be near a place to buy some of this or if you are packing it in a cooler or taking a camper. But I hope some of these ideas get you thinking outside the box!
We definitely did not starve and we had some really good meals! (of course maybe it was becuase we were traveling 10-12 miles by canoe and over portages, but it was still really good!)
One of my favorites is to slice an onion in half, empty out the middle layers and fill with a hamburger mixture. Then Put the halves back together, wrap in foil and throw in the fire. SO GOOD! And you don't have any dirty plates, just open the foil and eat. If you fill the onions ahead of time and bring in a cooler, you don't have any mess preparing the meal either. PM me if you want the recipe for the filling. Another family favorite is to put bits of hamburger or meat chunks with potatoes, carrots, and other veggies, put pats of butter all over and wrap in foil and throw in the fire.
For breakfast we hollow out an orange and fill with muffin mix, wrap in foil and carefully place in the fire (so it won't spill). You get orange flavored muffins. Again, I would suggest making this either the night before or before you leave and refrigerate so you don't have to be mixing stuff first thing in the morning. Also there's less mess.
A great dutch oven recipe is black forest cherry cobbler (dump cake). Just layer cherry pie filling, chocolate cake mix, and one can of Coke or Black Cherry soda and bake till the cake is done. If you want peach instead, just use peach pie filling, yellow cake, and 7-Up. There are a million different combinations of this recipe so you can experiment and come up with your own. HTH
wow kayakado and leily! I want to go camping with you guys!! My brother in law is one of those "camping in a campground isn't really camping" unless you are hiking it up to timbucktoo with nothing on you except a safety flare you aren't really camping .. however, majority rules and we will be camping at a campground .. its close enough to a store for emergency necessities but far away enough to know you are not at home ... ie: the showers ... when my husband and I went camping on our own we actually left the campground in search of restuarants every day for dinner .. now we will be camping with my sisters family and plan on sticking around for dinner ... you guys definately gave me some great ideas on what to make!! thanks so much!
we are heading out for 9 days on Friday!!! We have a pop-up camper (with an air conditioner on the darn thing) so we are hardly roughing it too badly...but for food we only do 2 large meals a day (breakfast and supper) we do hash browns, pancakes, french toast, eggs, bacon, sausage etc and then we are pretty much out on the boat for most of the rest of the day...come in and cook dinner....and we do just about anything...we have a grill and a stove so just about anything goes, burgers, brats, (we even do a taco night), chicken, etc etc and last year we even had grilled shrimp (OH YUM).......I always bake a bunch of cookies and freeze them so that we can have an easy dessert when the sweet tooth hits.
Where is everyone going camping?
There's really so much you can do with your meals beyond roasted wieners. We've made scrambled eggs by putting them in a baggie and then in a pot of boiling water, then topped off with cheese and whatever else you want. That way the cleanup is basically zero as well (which is always MY goal).
I live in Kansas City Missouri....so we head south to the man-made lake (Truman Lake) created to keep the Lake of the Ozarks from flooding.....way less crowded and a lovely fishing lake. Been going down there since I was 5 years old and I am almost 29.
We cook fairly close to how we do at home.
Just think of what you want to eat and how to adapt it for cooking outside.
I like to pre-mix anything I can, so it's quick to throw together.
I once made spaghetti and meat sauce over the campfire, it was pretty easy actually! If you have one of those grilling racks that can sit over a fire, that helps with meats and veggies.
My all time favorite is the tin foil bag with meat pot and veggies all in one. we usually to chiken on night and fish the nxt night as long as you put different seasoning in they are completely different meals and it is nice because you can make then ahead if time. i always spray the foil with pam and dont forget to put in a couple ice cubs so everything stay juicy.
Dessert - smores we have are own version where we use chips ahoy in stead of gram crakers. My favorite are banaba boats. with banabna in peel slice down the top of the bananab fill with choc and marsh mellow wrap in tinfoil and put on fire for a few YUm YUm YUm
My crew is going to Day Out With Thomas next month and will be extending our stay for 3 or 4 days and we are going to take along the horse trailer and camp out instead of staying in a motel. Yeah, I realize that sounds strange giving we are not taking any horses but our horse trailer has living quarters with a microwave, fridge, sink, and a shower so it's worth pulling along. No, definately not roughing it but it's still fun. I am the world's biggest weenie when it comes to inconvience. I am definately going to check out some of the websites mentioned and get some recipes so at least it will feel somewhat like camping if i'm cooking over a camp fire.
we will be camping only about twenty minutes from home on a decent size lake. We reserved the same site we had last time as its right on the water and feels about twenty degrees cooler them the rest of the campground. My parents are not at all into camping and the same goes for my brother and his wife ... my husband and I do enjoy it as long as he has time off of work and can just relax .. my sister is into camping if she were to have a camper of some sort with a/c on it ... but she doesnt so she settles for not hiking up into the wilderness where her husband enjoys camping and hunting down food for dinner .... all in all we are looking forward to getting away for a few days ...
Ok I gotta join in on this one. We are a tent camping family. Would like a camper but tent is fine just give me a big inflated mattress and I am fine and a electrically outlet LOL
We go over DH factory shutdown over the 4th of July. With gas prices we stay close. Plus we have animals that need fed and watered so we only go about 7 miles south to a state park. Really nice place. Fishing is GREAT and Swimming area is GREAT.
I am a former Girl Scout and now a girlscout MOM. I have done my share of cookouts.
One of my families favs is something I made a twist from the hobo meal. First I make ahead a meatloaf mixture and freeze. When it thaws I use the Reynolds Hot Bags(these are AWESOME) First I spray the bag with Pam. Then I place a layer of sliced or diced potaoes, onion and diced or sliced baby carrots. Add salt and pepper. Then place meatloaf formed into 6 patties on top of the potato mixtue. Then I open a large can of tomato soup and spoon over the top and add a touch of water. Seal and place on big cookie sheet, then on to grill grate. And cook for about half an hour and then I place another cookie sheet on top and flip. Remove the cookie sheet on top and cook for another half an hour. You don't want a roaring fire for this to cook. If you were on a charcoal grill at home I would say a med to med high heat. I experiment with this at home first and then had the heat figured out by the time I got to the campsite.
Also allrecipes.com has alot of camping recipes. I don't know if that website was mentioned. I also made beercan chicken for the first time last year over a fire pit. I learned alot from that experience LOL It was good just took awhile glad I had my meat themometer.
P.S. I did take out my electric skillett for breakfast burritos. I usually do them on camp stove for the 4 of use but last year it was for 12 and I needed to speed it up a bit. LOL Oh and we took out a lamp cooking late at night with a lattern can be a challenge LOL And our rednack lattern puts out light but not by the grill. for direction on how to make a redneck lantern please Pm me LOL Our camoing trips we always develope a new redneck item. Last year was headlights for a bike. Long story but to funny.
Sorry so long. Can you tell I can't wait for July. DD asked today if she could start packing for our trip I was ROTFLMAO
the first time we went camping I spent all my time cooking and cleaning up. And we had to take 2 vehicles just to fit all the ice chests and cooking utensils. Now we do like Kaykado. Cook all the meals ahead of time, vacu seal them and freeze. We even grill our steaks and pork ribs ahead of time and vacu seal and freeze. We can spend more time enjoying the wilderness and less cooking and cleaning. I love it!!We also take alot of fresh fruit and veggies for snacks NO CAKE. Only thing cooked in camp is coffee and marshmallows
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