Cooking

 

First of all, the type of camp cooking you do will depend on what type of camping you’re into. Obviously your options vary if you’re backpacking in the wilderness, living the good life in a luxury camper or tent camping. In this article, we’re taking the middle ground and dealing with tent camping, with or without electricity or using a small camper that doesn’t have a full kitchen.

Personally, I enjoy cooking directly on a campfire when possible. It just seems to provide me with that great outdoors feeling that I’m looking for when camping. It’s nice to have a one or two burner camp stove on hand too. When you wake up in the morning on a warm summer day and want a cup of coffee, you might not want to start a fire just for that task.

If you’re cooking outdoors on a small stove during the summer, consider cooking before the sun goes down for several reasons. The first is, it can be a real chore locating everything you need to cook a meal in the dark. Another good reason is that having a light source near or over your work area can attract a huge number of insects. I’m not talking about being bothered by a few mosquitoes, I’m talking about being swarmed by thousands of light seeking insects. I’ve had more than one camp meal ruined by this. Sometimes they’re not that bad, but you won’t know until you turn that light on.

If you are cooking at a campsite with electricity, you might want to consider bringing a crock pot. You can make some good meals in camp with one and the ease of cooking while enjoying other activities is a bonus.

Remember to bring lids for your pans. Just like at home, they cut down on cooking time and keep stray insects from ending up in your stew. If you’re cooking directly on a campfire, they’ll keep your food free of stray embers.

If you’ve got a metal coffee can and some aluminum foil, or a small kettle with a lid, fill it with water when you’re cooking meals. Set it near the edge of your fire and you’ll have some hot water to clean with when you’re done cooking.

Make up a pot of chili or beef stew before you head out to the woods. Freeze it and it will help keep other items in your cooler cold. You’ll also have some ready made meals that are ready to eat after just a short amount of cooking.

If you’ve got the room, a small table top charcoal grill is pretty handy too. The only problem I have with them is having to haul a dirty grill home with me afterwards.

I have two methods I use to cook brats, sausages and hot dogs over the fire. For just a couple, I have a good long, (about 3 foot) two pronged wiener roaster. For cooking a half dozen or so, I use an item with a long handle that’s made to cook several fish filets. Open it up, lay the brats in it and clamp it shut. I also use it to cook a good coarse ring bologna. I always use pre-cooked sausages when cooking over the fire.

Start your fire early so it can burn long enough to produce a good bed of long lasting coals. Cooking over a large flame is very difficult.

 


The Cooler

 

I like to use a lot of zip locks to keep things separated in the cooler. There’s nothing worse than finding food items that have slipped into the bottom of the cooler and are laying in ice water.

If you’re using a large cooler, a milk jug filled with water and frozen will go a long way keeping your cooler cold. For a smaller cooler, toss in a few 16 or 20 ounce water bottles that are frozen.

Try to find a shady spot for your cooler at the campsite. Your ice will last a lot longer.

If your cooler doesn’t have a good latch, you might want to place something heavy on top of it while you’re sleeping. You might be amazed at how clever raccoons can be. If you don’t have anything heavy, put a few pots and pans on top. If the lid is pried open, the noise will wake you up.