Campfire cooking

[Silverback]

We’re going camping for Memorial Weekend. I grew up camping with my family and still love it. Some of the best memories are cooking incredible and simple foods over the fire. Whole meals wrapped in layers of foil and placed on a wire grill or right in the hot embers. We still do that but also use cast iron pots, pans, griddles and pie irons. The flavor of a steak seared to perfection over a fire with foil baked potato is hard to beat. Then a apple or cherry pie iron pie for dessert. Can wait!!! Of course there will be S’mores in high quantities too. We missed out on camping last year due to a back injury but I’m all fixed up and ready to go
What are your favorite camping foods and cooking gear? Share a recipe if you’d like to.

 

[warren]

I'm not a fan of "steamed" (in foil) potatoes. Here's a recipe guaranteed to to be loved.
Fry up some bacon, set side the rashers for topping the potatoes. Puncture the Russets with a fork a couple of times. Roll the potatoes in the bacon grease, coat well. Then roll them in coarse sea salt. Roast over a favorite wood charcoal until the inside is soft to a gentle poke or squeeze. They well be creamy inside, crispy skin and the salt explodes with flavor when you crunch one. Load the tater with your favorites, butter, sour cream, chive, bacon, etc. Bask in the accolades and enjoy!

 

[trudger]

I’m a vintage Colman guy so single burners and double burners with cast iron skillet or griddle and Revere Ware pots. We also do pheasants over the coals on a spit, glazed slow with bacon fat. Dutch oven desert if the evening hatch is a bust or we are going for Browns at night. Brookies for breakfast with potatoes are a winner. Fried grits cakes are nice with eggs. Mmmm camp food!

 

[elessar]

I groove on the bag potatoes. I like to slice them up, put a couple pats of butter on top, then sprinkle with Lipton onion soup mix (dry stuff). Then roll up the foil to make a pouch. Gives some great flavor. Also, cornbread over the fire is great but hard to get right. I've burnt more than a couple of my attempts.

 

[jpmcwjr]

So, campers, what are your tobacco pairings with your menus???

 

[thewanderingdude]

I'm a big vintage Coleman/ camp gear collector as well. Nothing better than a feast in the outdoors on 100-year-old gear! I have a great dutch oven recipe I will share. Take a 12" DO and dice 1 yellow onion, add 2 tablespoons minced garlic and a 4oz can of chili peppers. Add in 1 12oz tube of your favorite sausage and brown. Next, add 1 dozen eggs and a 1 pound bag of hashbrowns and mix the concoction together. I then open one can of biscuits (easier for camping) and place on top of the mixture. Cover and cook for about 1 hour, but check at 45 minutes. Sprinkle cheese on top for the last 5 minutes of the cook and serve with gravy. Slap your mama good.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

The trick (for me) for making a trip for under three days more fun and efficient is to prep and freeze everything beforehand. IMHO. It sucks to be cutting up chicken or apples in the outdoors only to have a cutting board slide off the hood of your truck or a dog gets to your board. I will prep each meal for my family into plastic bags, and then freeze them. The added ice helps to keep the cooler cold also.
I will prep Conecah sausage and peel and slice apples to be cooked in the cast iron pan over the morning cookfire.

Veggies prepped and all meats marinated and frozen. I can then grill them or put them intro foil packets as needed.
If a trip is longer, we would just go to the grocers as needed. Or, just go out to eat occasionally, as spending all of that time constantly prepping and cooking and cleaning would be more work than if we just stayed home, especially if we have to walk any distance to access water for cleaning cookware.

 

[haparnold]

So, campers, what are your tobacco pairings with your menus???

Always an English. I'm mainly a Burley and VA/Per guy at home, but I crave Latakia on the trail. GL Pease Westminster and C&D Epiphany both get pretty heavy usage.
Mrs. Hap and I do some pretty serious ultralight backpacking, so luxurious foods are out on those kinds of trips. But when we go car-camping with friends, one of our perennial favorites is making fajitas in a big cast-iron griddle over the campfire. Bell peppers and onions travel well, and heating tortillas over the fire is near-orgasmic.

 

[buster]

First night at the camp site. We bring a zip lock bag of cooked rice. Bacon, green onions, eggs. Bacon fried rice. Next night is baked potatoes in the coals and rib eye steak. Love pie irons for sweets or savory sandwiches. If we catch fish, even better dinner. One of my fishing buddies hunts pheasant so sometimes we have those as an appetizer.

 

[mikethompson]

You guys both make me want to go camping, and make me want to cook something.
I haven't been camping in years, but hope to take the kids this summer. I'm with Cosmic, we always prepped beforehand so the cooking at the site was easier.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I have plans to try Warren's bacon potatoes idea in a few weeks. But, sometimes when camping in bear country, I get worried about really aromatic foods, like bacon. If I am in a National Park, I will go about six or seven tents down, and put a chocolate bar under their tent. That way if there is a bear that is going to terrorize the campground, the sounds of screaming will give us a chance to get to the truck. ::

 

[warren]

Bears gotta eat!
I have bears in the yard, Blacks and Browns, periodically. Blacks have been known to climb up to the 2d story deck. I've found the smoker open and ten feet from its original place. They're just part and parcel of living in bear country. They shun humans for the most part. But, a hungry bear, Springtime in particular, is a dangerous bear. Shotgun usually in reach and bear repellent is always handy. This time of year makes my part of the hillside a smorgasbord for bears with all of the moose calving. Sows have cubs to feed and protect from black and brown boars, cannibalistic omnivores that they are.
When camping, food is always suspended high in a tree, never kept in a cooler or vehicle, never cached in a tent.
Walking the Chocolate is always an adventure. Yesterday a 2d winter cow moose tried to participate in a bit of Chuckit with Gus on the driveway. Fresh scat in the yard and the neighbor saw a nice looking Black in her yard. Just gotta keep one's head on a swivel, tuned to the dog's nose and ears.
A tip for those of you going into bear country: Always travel with someone slower than you are.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Always travel with someone slower than you are.

Ha ha!!
Yeh, we have been getting bear reports down here recently, and we have always had panther sightings. But, I have never heard of them attacking or interacting with people in any way. They just seem to stay invisible in the woods. I do have a menacing woodchuck family, and they are the +80lbs variety, big mean suckers. They like to tear down corn stalks and will devour a large areas of corn. They also just pull down privacy fences and rip up picnic tables like ganstas. During the summer you'll find me running around trying to kill them like like Bill Murray in Caddy Shack.

 

[cossackjack]

No campfire cooking for me, except when SWMBO is with me as she likes the warmth & ambience, though the food is as listed below.

Backcountry/Wilderness camping only (haven't been at a campground in >25 years), usually alone with my dogs.
Leaving no trace & camping in Red Flag Zones, I only use ultra-light multi-fuel stoves (MSR or Primo), typically burning white gas. It works in almost all conditions & elevations. Quick, quiet, clean, & no impact.

I usually carry a small collapsible solid-fuel (twigs, sticks, scavenged charcoal) stove as a backup.
Since its pack-in/pack-out, I only take dry packaged foods, high-protein bars, honey, homemade pemican, homemade jerkies (beef, turkey, salmon), milk powder, corn meal, pea meal, 90% grain alcohol (for a backup alcohol stove, antiseptic, & diluted for drinking), instant coffee, & bulk or bag teas. I'll scavenge for wild edibles when available & occasionally supplement with Brown Trout or Pine Squirrel. Plenty of Vitamin C from pine needle tea. Lipton Extra Noodle Chicken Soup with a packet of instant plain oatmeal, or Knorr Vegetable Soup are two of my favorites.
I have never been hungry or unsatisfied.
As per Warren, be Bear Aware (Moose & Cougar, too).
For anyone interested in light backpacking, check out Wiggy's Freedom Shelter - multi-purpose bivy shelter (Disclaimer: I have no financial or business interest with Wiggy's).