TOTW - Camping Discussions - Eats

Yay!Gurrr

Yay!Gurrr

Better Faster Stronger
Moderator
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Location
N. N. Raleigh, NC
Ok gonna start a series of Topic of The Week discussions. Mainly I'm curious as to what everyone else does now or has tried etc..

This week lets talk about EATs !!



1) How do you prepare your meals? (some of your favorites)
2) How do you cook them ?
3) How do you serve/eat them ?


[Note] Joel, please feel free to shame us with how to influence our friends and make more enemies. :flipoff2:

edit: Some Compiled Highlights
Some highlights
Hobo Dinners - (Rob Sitze) We prefer to use stew meat instead of hamburger, but either works, place it in tin foil, with your favorite veggies, onions, taters, mushrooms, yellow squash, are my favorites. I put garlic powder, and pepper on them, wrap in tin foil, usually two layers for protection, cover them in coals for 20-30 mins, depending on heat. Dump them on a paper plate and eat. Very little clean up, if you prepare them before leaving home.
Pie Iron (and several other names) - (Craig Scibetta's father), Dicks sporting goods have cast iron sandwich makers. We bought the double one, take some Ragu spaghetti sauce, bread, butter, pepperoni, cheese. Butter one side of the bread, place in sandwich maker, put sauce, meat, cheese, close and heat over a fire, instant pizza pockets, minimal clean up. Could work with anything you can put in bread. Editor's note: I've made these with canned pie filling and smore ingredients.
Breakfast Bag - (Greg Slade) learned this one from friends. for breakfasts I will typically cook my breakfast meat ahead of time (bacon, sausage) and set aside. mix up your eggs and season them how you like and throw them in a large ziplog freezer bag, add your meat, potatoes, onions or whatever and freeze it all. Come breakfast time all you have to do is boil water and drop in your bag.
Tater Tot Skillet - (John Craven) Lately I've taken to baking a bunch of Tater Tots and then freezing them. Usually throw a steak or a couple of Johnsonville sausages in the pan, add tots when almost done and eat out of the pan for easy cleanup.
Breakfast burritos - (khokhonutt) are a standard when we go camping, done on the Coleman stove:
tortilla wraps
corn beef hash
shredded sharp cheddar cheese
salsa
eggs
Fry up the hash til it's crispy, cook the eggs to order, layer - hand, tortilla, hash, cheese, egg, salsa - roll and eat.
Basics
-------
Hot dogs, bread, tin foil, set in coals
Veggies boiled on stove
Rice (water boiled on stove)
prep and marinade meats before hand and store in zip-lock bags
black eyed peas
black beans and rice
beer <--- Stout = Meal in a bottle
Rice/Noodle Packets - boil 7mins
Canned tune/chicken
 
One of our favorites is hobo dinners. We prefer to use stew meat instead of hamburger, but either works, place it in tin foil, with your favorite veggies, onions, taters, mushrooms, yellow sqaush, are my favorites. I put garlic powder, and pepper on them, wrap in tin foil, usually two layers for protection, cover them in coals for 20-30 mins, depending on heat. Dump them on a paper plate and eat. Very little clean up, if you prepare them before leaving home.
Another favorite I learned from Craig Scibetta's father, Dicks sporting goods have cast iron sandwich makers. We bought the double one, take some Ragu spagetti sauce, bread, butter, pepperoni, cheese. Butter one side of the bread, place in sandwich maker, put sauce, meat, cheese, close and heat over a fire, instant pizza pockets, minimal clean up. Could work with anything you can put in bread.
 
i just make sure girls are involved and food is their job.:flipoff2:

otherwise it's hot dogs for breakfast/lunch/dinner.:lol:
 
Hotdogs + tinfoil + hot header on the cruiser = easy lunch on the trail:huggy:
 
1) However the wife sees fit
2) on a stove, grill, in the oven, crockpot ect....
2) Usually on plates and with utensils

















Just kidding

We do a lot of crockpot meals because they are easy. Toss the chicken into the crockpot with some cream of celery soup and then fix some vegetibhles to go with it.

Country style steak we do the same way. Flour it put it in the crockpot with cream of mushroom soup and then cook some fixins and it is good.

My favorite is roast and rice. Roast is prepared in the crockpot and simmered all day (flavor to your taste). Cook up the rice and some vegies oh yeah and some bread and your good to go.
 
Whaz

MRE's & Beanie Weenies here. Or Try and capture/scrape up some dinner while wheeling or on the road somewhere

:popcorn:
 
I take and get a huge thing of boneless breasts. Cut them into 1lb portion into small bite size pieces, place in a gallon ziplock bag with different seasonings and freeeze. once at the camp site take them from the cooler as you see fit and cook. Fix which ever veggies you want as a side dish. The wife likes to cook these things on foil over an open fire. I cook on the coleman stove. I prepare my chicken the same way at home so that once I get home I have an easy dinner that just needs some side dishes. Also makes it so you only have to make a mess cutting chicken up once instead of everytime you cook. I cut my beef up the same way and freeze it.
 
yager said:
[Note] Joel, please feel free to shame us with how to influence our friends and make more enemies. :flipoff2:
Click to expand...

:lol:

It all depends. If it is a large group we usually come up with a gigantic shopping list and distribute it equitably and bring my smoker/grill with. A lot of what we have depends on the time of the year and personal preferences. The beer brats have been a trail favorite so those seem to happen quite a bit along with burgers. We have also done anything as easy as dogs on the fire to steak either pan fried or on the grill. I would like to figure out how to take the wifey's beef ribs with. Those would be perfect after a day of wheeling when you really don't care about getting any messier.
 
WE SOMETIMES BRING A BIG POT.WE FIRST BOIL MACARONIE NOODLES AND SET ASIDE. THEN WE MIX TONS OF STUFF,INCLUDING ONION,PEPPERS,POTATOE SLICES,CARROTS CAN CORN,ANY KIND OF CAN BEANS,MAYBE SOME HAMBURGER AND BACON,AND ALWAYS ADD SMOKED SAUSAGE.BASICALY ADD ANY THING YOU WANT THAT SOUNDS GOOD TO YOU.WE CALL THIS CONTRAPTION JEEP STEW. SOME OF MY TOYOTA FRIENDS ASKED ME ''WHY DONT YOU CALL IT TOYOTA STEW?'' MY RESPONSE WAS''WE DO BUT ONLY WHEN IT COMES OUT!'' LOL LOL
 
turn the caps off....:shaking:
I usually make steak kabobs, pretty cheap. Get a small amount of meat, tomatoes, onions, green peppers mushrooms. Add some salt and pepper...pretty freakin good if you haven't had anything all day.

Zack
 
This thread sucks because I'm freaking hungry.

Usually it's peanut butter and apple butter sandwiches or eggs and bacon for breakfast/trail snacks, some kinda deli meat sangwich (or another PB/AB) and burgers, chicken, hot dogs, or any combination thereof for dinner. If we're feeling particularly fancy, some kinda potatos or grilled vegetables.

There are some killer ideas in this thread.
 
I try to do all the prep work at home. Meals used to be extravagent but have gotten simple with time.

Everyday starts with breakfast. I try to do sausage, egg, hot salsa, and cheese burritos and some water or gatoraid to replace the fluids I lost while drinking the night before. Sausage, pancakes, and hashbrowns is also a favorite.

Lunch is typically deli sandwhiches because I haven't installed a cooker on the engine yet. So deli sandwiches and cheeseits with some fruit.

Dinner. This can go anywhere. Typically more deli sandwiches because I don't have to cook them. Bigger trips I enjoy chicken, pork, fish on the grill with rice and veggies on the side. Cook the rice at home and reheat before serving. Or toss it all together into a stirfry type dish.

Dessert. Cookies, snak packs, smores, roasted marshmellows, beer, jager. Whatever makes its way into the cooler.
 
I'm new here but
any thing's possible depends on what I'm feeling like and how much time I have when I'm Loading up + where I'm camping at.
for breakfast.
If time permits I cook up one of those Jimmy Dean scrambles packets. If I sleep in it's pop-tarts
Lunch on the trail.
I always bring some Lunch meat, potato rolls and a small bag of Chips
Dinner
If I'm being lazy or in a hurry It's Hot dogs cooked over the camp fire
If I got time Could be anything from burgers to hobo special
or maybe one of those freeze dried meals (I always bring one or two along. They are Self contained, Quick, Easy, and some of them don't taste all that bad)
 
Great idea for a thread. I'm visiting all of your campsites for dinner.

I always watch how people camp and cook for ideas. I learned this one from friends. for breakfasts I will typically cook my breakfast meat ahead of time (bacon, sausage) and set aside. mix up your eggs and season them how you like and throw them in a large ziplog freezer bag, add your meat, potatoes, onions or whatever and freeze it all. Come breakfast time all you have to do is boil water and drop in your bag.

Longer trips mean I also prep and marinade all my meats ahead of time and keep in ziplocks. im a big fan of the easy cleanup but i also like to eat well. the more prep i can do at home the better.
 
Like others have said, prep before leaving home is the key. Lately I've taken to baking a bunch of TaterTots and then freezing them. Usually throw a steak or a couple of Johnsonville sausages in the pan, add tots when almost done and eat out of the pan for easy cleanup. Will be following the thread as I will have four meals while at Tellico next week, thanks, Mike.
 
being a reenactor,I try to cook when out on the trail as if I was at a reenactment for the weekend.Infact when we have our camp of instruction weekend,I usually teach the newbies how to cook for themselves.
I love salt cured ham.Might not be good for you but man it will keep without refridgeration and can be eaten days after being cooked.So usually first thing cooked for breakfast is a good amount of ham to eat then and later on down the trail.Use the grease to fry tater slices or an egg or even corn meal.
That ham and some bread will cover lunch unless I'm near a fire and then I can boil a tin cup of rice with dried beef(not jerky).The beef and rice takes a little while to cook tho.
I love cooking a pot of black eye peas for dinner.Make a hog out of myself.Sometimes I might string some sliced beef on a ramrod and let it slow cook near a fire.Semi-dried sausage is good anytime of day or night.
Except for the sliced beef,all this stuff can be carried without refridgeration and carried/stored easily.
The only modern thing I miss when out in the field is a good cold drink.Pepsi,coke,mt.dew,it doesn't matter.Water does get a little old after a while.
 
Growing up, fishing or whatever, it was Lil' Debbie Nutty Bars and vienna sausages... ;)
We've done more elaborate stuff when we've had the time/room in the cooler... I made beef stew in camp out in CO once... But usually try to keep it simple... leave more room in the cooler for the, ahem, important stuff... or at least not have to worry about anything going bad.
When we were out on the Rubicon Trail last September, it's pack everything in and pack everything out... For dinner, we had a bunch of different flavors of the Lipton's rice or pasta mixes (about 7 minutes to cook in boiling water) and Ramen, canned diced tomatoes, canned tuna and canned chicken. With a little olive oil (in the plastic bottle) and some packets of mustard and hot sauce... It is pretty amazing what you can do...
 
As with many, depends on where we're going, who we're with and what the time frame may be.

Breakfast has consisted of pancakes, sausage and bacon, or Scrambled eggs with veggies and meat ( steak, sausage, bacon, ham,, depends on whats on hand)

Lunch is generally deli meat/cheese sammiches and chips.

DInner, well now, this has been cause for a few um, discussions.

Have had steak, merinated during the day, then tossed on the fire once it's going again.

a few 'taters tossed in the coals, or ears of corn. maybe a salad if things are well.

THe guys camping next to us who had no forthought or planning were drooling by the time the steaks were proper.

Their dinner was either Dinty Moore or Capt'n Crunch ( either or a suitable stand in, in a pinch )

Camping at the beach presents a whole new venue, we've had party to a nice crab boil, with shrimp, blue crab, corn and taters ( very improptu, used wrenches an plyers to open the crab)

I tend to be pretty impromptu when workin up a meal, no real plan, but the results are usually pretty good.
 
food

Keep eating all that fat, those of you who are immune to cholesterol. I had by-pass surgery at age 42, and it was no walk in the park. Actually my cholesterol was only 192 before my surgery, they blamed it totally on family history. So now I eat pretty healthy ( maybe 60%) . We make a Buffalo Chicken Salad, chicken breast cut into nuggets, cooked in olive oil, tossed in buffalo sauce , on top of romaine lettuce with a lot of sliced celery and onions, with bleu cheese dressing and croutons. That wll satisfy your buffalo wing cravings well. (along with numerous cold beers )
 
my new plan, camp next to Joel and buy what ever he says !!!

seriously, there are some great ideas, im gonna pull out some and condense them in an important info section..

So far the main theme has been prepair stuff before hand !!

To add some stuff i've cooked. Precooked cubed chicken, in a zip-lock w/ spagetti sauce, Boil noodles, heat up sauce and chicken. Dinner in 10min..
 
My standard supper is steak and Kraft Deluxe.
Poptarts for breakfast, and roast beef sandwiches for lunch (heated underhood).
 
I always use a Dutch Oven. All you do is line the dutch oven with tin foil. It is easy, you can cook beef stew, cobblers, taco casserole, or about anything. I like it because you can get hot coals and leave it sitting all day and when you come back hours later it will be ready.
 
One of my standard meals for the campsite can consist of any type of meat, marinated with my secret recipe and then stored in ziplock bags until cooking time. This is usually prepared the morning of or the night before I leave for the hills.
The veggies usually consist of garden grown Zuccinni, yellow squash, onions, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, roma tomatoes, potatoes, spices, and BUTTER. These are all cut to size, folded up into a two layer, heavy duty, pocket of aluminum foil and also stored in the cooler until the dinner time.
When it is cooking time, I put the foil packets on the grill and let them cook for about 30-40 minutes while turning them a bunch so they don't burn. They're ready when you can hear them bubbling profusely. Set them aside and put the marinated meat on the grill.
If I have fresh corn I put them on the grill with the shucks on them and let them roast also.
Red meat on the grill gets charred a bit on the outside and allowed to be heated internally but never more than medium at most. If cooking thick pork chops, cooking time is just enough to cook them and not dry them out. That's where most people screw up pork. Chicken is basically 20 minutes per side on a medium hot grill.
Toast up some Bunny barbecue bread and pop a top on a cold one and dinner is served. The veggie packs stay hot while in the foil.
Another tradition at the Dixie Run is for me to cook up a couple of pots of hot chili the Sunday before I leave and stick in the fridge until ready to go. I bring along Saltines and shredded cheese and we usually get a couple of nights of dinner. Since I take care of the dinner, my buds at camp will do breakfast.
Lunch on the trail is sandwiches and junk food.
 
Man can I tell you about camp cooking, to me that's a big part of camping and wheeling. I have a lot of the Lodge stuffhttp://www.lodgemfg.com/ and it is good stuff for camping. You can use it on the fire, charcoal, Coleman stove, or any heat source.https://secure.lodgemfg.com/storefront/products1.asp?idDept=1413&menu=logic
The Dutch ovens are real nice for one pot deals and if you want to do two or more of the you can stack them and do vegetables in one meat in the other and bread in the other.
This is a few of the one pot ones I like in short....When returning from the ride, hunting, fishing, shooting or whatever what I do is start the charcoal, let it get hot and get the rest ot the stuff set out, pull out the dutch oven put the meat in it an then cover with charcoal and go shower or clean up , clean guns fix the rig, build fire or what ever. But for the most part it is always a little time in thereto have a few and kick back for the first part of cooking all the time.
Now for what I cook.
Follow what I said up top for the most part for all then we get to this.
Ground Deer, olive oil, chopped onions have been cooking in DO (dutch oven) tell done and now add can of bake beans mix tell hot and eat.
I do this the same way with pork and beef , and ground beef. Just add olive oil to lean meet and drain/ spoon off grease from fatty meat.
Next one is is a stew with pork , beef or deer. I cut the meet in 1" cube and roll in flower with hot DO and olive oil in it place meat in it mix up a little then take onions, tatters, celery, and what ever you like and some spice, about 1/2 beer cover cook for 1-2 hrs mix easy and eat. Real good when cold.
If you want to stack the DO, I have 5....
Get a rib eye and rub it down with spice of choice and little beer plus little water in the bottom DO about 4 hr cook time on low heat then the next one put tatters and cover them with a few big pc of country pepper bacon with a little beer in it to steam them. Next is the Veg of you choice, I like corn so I take corn on the cob and cut them in 1/2 to make them fit the plate easy little water and butter, your going to steam them. and at last on top mix up a box of corn bread or biscuits, I do biscuits if I'm cooking corn..
You can time it to all come out at the same time and be good and hot.
Fun to watch people's face when you walk around with fresh baked goods out in the middle of no where....
Also do a cobbler that is killer and easy just use pie filling, top it with yellow cake mix and cut up butter and put on top of it. Takes about 10-15 pc charcoal on top and bottom and about 1 hr to cook for 20- 25 people small ones take less.
Lot of stuff on there web site and one the web for DO cooking
 
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