Camp beans. Dice up a large sweet onion and a whole pack of maple bacon. Fry those up in a pan and dump a family size can of baked beans on top. Quick, simple, and delicious side that goes with everything at camp. Or in a pinch, is a meal itself.
Your favorite "quick & easy" camping dishes?
Hi all; the Mrs. & I are gearing up for our first excursion of the season. We've developed a 'system' over the years that works well for us regarding meals; but have fallen into a bit of a rut. Our camper is a little, old, hard-sided A-frame with a dinky little 'fridge; so we also put 2 coolers in the back of the truck. Most meals are prepped at home & frozen ("auxiliary icepacks"), so we don't do much actual cooking in camp. Now & then I'll put things on a fire, when weather & time allows. (We're some hiking/walking fools and it takes a lot of time out of the day "doing nothing" & "relaxing". 
) I'm fairly new to MO, and found this section and figured I would through out the question and see what y'all like to do.
Might add that we don't have a microwave; and half the time our trips don't include electric anyway. Mostly, it's chipping out frozen stuff to thaw & heat up on the 'Coleman'. When I take the time & have the fresh fixin's, I do like cooking like a "caveman" - which is ironic because I can't hardly do squat in a real kitchen....
Thanks in advance for your replies.
) I'm fairly new to MO, and found this section and figured I would through out the question and see what y'all like to do.Might add that we don't have a microwave; and half the time our trips don't include electric anyway. Mostly, it's chipping out frozen stuff to thaw & heat up on the 'Coleman'. When I take the time & have the fresh fixin's, I do like cooking like a "caveman" - which is ironic because I can't hardly do squat in a real kitchen....
Thanks in advance for your replies.
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Yes on the Boy Scout patrol boxes.
For me, most of my camp cooking is for just me or me and a hunting buddy, and I am there to hunt; eating is a distant secondary endeavor. Whether it's a fly-in hunt or going up river in my skiff, keeping weight down is always a good thing. I have a few fall-back-on items that are fairly consistent. Breakfast is often a Mountain House - scrambled eggs or biscuits/gravy. I frequently just pop open a package of Pop Tarts when I get to wherever I am going to begin glassing. Lunch is often just jerky and other snacks through the day, wherever I happen to be. If it is a meal, I like to make real meals at home, vacuum seal, and freeze them. Then it's a simple matter of drop them in some boiling water, and it's a very tasty hot meal, with very little fuss and no mess - always something to think about in heavily populated brown bear country. Even so - being in bear country - I always cook up backstrap for the first meal after a kill.
Examples: pork chops... beef and noodles...
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For me, most of my camp cooking is for just me or me and a hunting buddy, and I am there to hunt; eating is a distant secondary endeavor. Whether it's a fly-in hunt or going up river in my skiff, keeping weight down is always a good thing. I have a few fall-back-on items that are fairly consistent. Breakfast is often a Mountain House - scrambled eggs or biscuits/gravy. I frequently just pop open a package of Pop Tarts when I get to wherever I am going to begin glassing. Lunch is often just jerky and other snacks through the day, wherever I happen to be. If it is a meal, I like to make real meals at home, vacuum seal, and freeze them. Then it's a simple matter of drop them in some boiling water, and it's a very tasty hot meal, with very little fuss and no mess - always something to think about in heavily populated brown bear country. Even so - being in bear country - I always cook up backstrap for the first meal after a kill.
Examples: pork chops... beef and noodles...
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So do you use your swing-set BBQ to offset camping fees? 🙂 Or is that for a group?![American Chuck Wagon Association in 2021 | Chuck wagon, Wagon, Chucks]()
That is quite the set-up. You must enjoy that style of cooking.
I was never involved in scouting; not because I didn't want to, the folks always said something about money - like not enough of it. :-( But I like those boxes. We had one growing up that was smaller without legs that sat on the end of a picnic table. (Think my father built it back in his pre-married, solo trips to the woods....) I've been thinking about making my own but get bogged down with some of the details. The woodworking is easy; it's keeping it practical & portable that is the problem - after collecting and "inheriting" gear over a lifetime, it's hard to choose what goes in & what gets left. (Various sizes of plastic bins & totes seems to be the current 'temporary' solution.)Anyone remember the Boy Scout Patrol boxes?
Can do Al. In my case, my chosen living situation, two things have been invaluable. I've got a 3/4 horse grinder from Cabela's, from back when it was still Cabela's. It's a behemoth and I can't feed meat into it fast enough to keep up. I've had it well over a decade and it still looks and performs as new. And I have a decent vacuum sealer, also a Cabela's model. Because we harvest, process, and eat a lot of moose and caribou, both devices are necessities, IMHO. It'd be a much tougher task without them. Case in point: my moose last fall. It was a large bull, and I gave away maybe half to some families in our church that were grateful to have it. I am used to half anyway, because my long term hunting buddy, we have always went halves on any moose we shot. Last year he was gone -> I had a whole moose -> I shared half with church families. Even with that, and with carving out every possible roast and steak I could, I wound up with something like 130 pounds of burger... and that Cabela's grinder was a rock star in producing that.
Maybe you would or would not use it enough to justify it - only you can decide that. I am happy to have both. And as with sealing meals for hunts, the sealer does more duty than just putting meat in the freezer.
This is just a portion of the burger by the way.
Thanks AK! Game processing is what led me to think about a sealer; but as more time passes I can see other uses for one also. I showed the wife your 'camp meals' photos and got the 'go-ahead' to start looking into them more seriously.
Your critters are much larger there, so that equipment is a necessity. Not so much for us 'one deer a year' guys....Question - How do the "bags" hold up over time, compared to double-wrapped butcher's paper? [That's probably relative to the specs of whatever brand of bags you get.] Probably I can answer most of my questions by just 'Googling'....
Good luck & good hunting on the Dark Continent!
"AA"
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