Marie goes camping

Ok maybe I’m not sophisticated enough to make Campfire caprese Brie when camping. Maybe I like things kept simple. Or maybe I’m just lazy and give it a year, I’ll be rocking a campfire berry peach cobbler.

For now though, we’re veeery basic. We don’t even have a camping stove. Well, we bought one, but haven’t used it yet. We do prefer a good old campfire.

So, here are recipes you can on your very first camping trip, before you even buy a pot to boil water and a camping skillet.

My bf is vegetarian, so all of those “recipes” will be suitable for vegetarians or easily adapted.

This might be a naive post, but on our very first trip we struggled to come up with ideas…

1. Corn

Buy corn. Unwrap it. Put on a grill. Roast until slightly charred. Eat with salt.

You can obviously roast other vegetables, such as zucchini or eggplant. Corn is my favourite though because it’s the easiest and mess-free.

2. Veggie Hot dogs

Buy a pack of (veggie) dogs and some buns, mustard and ketchup. Make fire. Find a suitable stick (I prefer to just buy roasting sticks – here is a link with links to that and other basic camping essentials). Put hot dogs on the stick. Roast. Enjoy.

Note that some veggie dogs will be easier to roast than others. If things don’t go well and they burn, we just wrap them in aluminum foil and pop them on top of the grill.

3. Baked potatoes

Buy big potatoes, wash and dry them at home (don’t peel). At the camp site, poke each potato with a fork and rub them with salt. Wrap each potato in aluminum foil. Put them into the fire ring. Start the fire on top of the potatoes. Go about your business roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. Dig out the potatoes. Eat.

They go well with cream cheese and they are more delicious that you can imagine.

Pro tip: leftover cold potatoes (which you can save in a animal-proof container or simply in the car) are good for breakfast too.

4. Haloumi cheese.

I don’t know why nobody has heard about it here, in the UK that was a prime ingredient for any grill.

We buy Haloumi cheese at Costco.

You take a slice out of the plastic wrap, wrap it in the aluminum foil, and put it on the hot coal (or on top of very hot grill). It warms up and softens a little and it’s as delicious as grilling cheese gets.

You can also simply grill it.

5. Grilled cheese sandwich.

I’m sure you know how to make those, but basically you toast two slices of bread on the grill and melt cheese (any sliced cheese should work) between the toasted bread.

6. S’mores.

Ok non-Americans, I’m about to rock your world.

You buy marshmallows, chocolate and Graham crackers (or whatever sweet crackers they sell where you live, I suppose).

You roast marshmallows until slightly charred (they will burn, be careful). You put a roasted marshmallow on one graham cracker, put a piece of chocolate on top, and finish the “sandwich” with another graham cracker.

They sell s’mores kits at pretty much any camp store.

Snacks

We usually take chips and/or pretzels, cut fruit, sliced cheese and bread for sandwiches (This cooler does a fantastic job keeping things cold), nuts or trail mix, energy bars (we like the brand Larabar).

If you have a kettle…

A lot of kettles that are advertised for camping actually are only suitable for a camping stove and not open fire because they have a plastic handle (which melts).

After a lot of searching, I bought this one, which works great but unfortunately doesn’t have a whistle.

Anyway, having a kettle allows for instant meals and hot drinks. For instant meals, we take instant ramen, instant potatoes and instant oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal usually gets eaten, but the rest of the food are “emergency supplies” which we resort to only if we miscalculate the time.

A campfire baked potato is undoubtedly better than an instant purée…