Easy and Good Camp Food

[Loy_36]

Our Pack is having it's first overnight camp out coming up and I wanted to get some suggestions on some tried and true dinner and breakfast ideas that both Cub Scouts and Adults seem to like.

[mashmaster]

Chili is always a favorite and the boys can help cook it.

 

Boil in the bag eggs are fun with tortillas, precook the bacon and just warm it up.

[Sentinel947]

Dinner. Chicken foil meals. Rice, vegetables, chicken, and some sort of soup, cream of mushroom works well add water, then wrap in foil. Place in coals, self cooks on the coals.

 

Tastes fine and the cubs can easily assist in assembling the meals.

[AKdenldr]

We found the foil packet cooking too much for Pack sized campout. (plus the waste of the tin foil)

 

Dutch oven, #10 can of chili with Jiffy box corn bread topping. A couple of dutch oven deserts (dump style recipes -- can of pie filling, box of cake mix, and ...). Or baked apples in the D.O. -- boys can use their pocket knives. Yes the boys can help, in fact they will eat more if they do. (Instruct the adults, "only scout hands do the work...")

 

hotdogs on a stick over the campfire.

 

Mountain man breakfast (D.O. again, eggs, precooked bulk sausage, grated cheese, and frozen shredded potatoes). Set up a camp stove with griddle and the webelos can cook pancakes to add to the D.O. breakfast. Big Kettle of water for coffee, hot choc, and instant oatmeal.

 

Do, set up a dish washing station (boys do wash at least their own) and don't rely on bags and bags of disposable cups and plates.

 

Have fun!

[qwazse]

The OP's is a small pack. So, don't write off "tried and trues" like hot-dogs (still can add chili), marshmallows, and mountain pies (if someone in your families has a couple of irons). Reflector oven baking is a good thing to teach in small groups as well.

[LeCastor]

There are two early Scouting experiences I remember vividly in regards to food cooked in the open:

 

1. At Cub Scout Day Camp in Atlanta I was bored to tears in the dang gym of a local high school. But when we went outside and cooked hamburger, onions, potatoes, and carrots in aluminum foil, man, I was in hog heaven. I can still taste it now! Sure, you have to toss the foil afterwards but it's a fun experience for a small group--especially a Cubbie.

 

2. When I crossed over to my Troop my Scoutmaster showed us how to use a backpacking stove--a Coleman Peak 1--and we made Lil' Smokies with BBQ sauce in an aluminum pot. Again, I can taste it now! It's incredibly simple but Cubbies can pour in the sauce and stir them Lil' Smokies around. Heck, they can even each 'em with toothpicks out of their messkits.

[walk in the woods]

We did DO pizza casserole at our last cub outing. We had the boys get involved by greasing the DOs, rolling out the pizza crusts, jumping when they popped open, adding the toppings, etc. Mountain Man is always good. Also love doing the foil packets.

[perdidochas]

Our Pack is having it's first overnight camp out coming up and I wanted to get some suggestions on some tried and true dinner and breakfast ideas that both Cub Scouts and Adults seem to like.

 

Hot dogs over the fire, with chili. We often had a chili cookoff as part of a Pack campout.

 

I agree with the poster who said that much beyond a den size, foil cooking is impractical.

[Stosh]

My first question would be how many people are going to be served. If 50+ people that's going to be about 10-12 dutch ovens.

 

If one doesn't have enough DO's then all those recipes are off the table (so to speak. )

 

Big pot items go well. Spaghetti/pasta with a sauce dump. Rice with a chicken sweet/sour sauce dump. Boiled potatoes with meat/gravy (sauce) dump. Serve in paper bowls, with plastic spoon, Burn bowl, keep spoon.

 

If you're not worried about taste, go with the Dinty Moore stuff, chili cans, I would do the canned stuff only out of desperation.

 

Otherwise you need to go with the hand foods, hotdogs, burgers, kinds of stuff. Sloppy Joes/pulled pork would be a sauce dump hand food.

 

Hard boiled eggs make good am hand food, no plate, no spoon necessary. Same for apples/oranges/bananas and other hand fruit.

 

Pita/pocket breads go well with the sloppy joes/pulled pork

 

Big pan items - fajitas sloppy joes, etc, anything messy that can be rolled up in a soft taco. Cuts down on the paper plates and silverware.

 

Big pot items - Mac/Cheese w/bacon, Spam, hot dogs, cooked burger, etc. Serve in paper bowl with spoon, toss bowl in fire, keep spoon.

 

One pan foil dinner:

 

Fry up all the burger/onions that would have been used for foil dinner. add a broth and thicken for gravy

 

Boil potatoes and carrots separately

Mash potatoes and dump brown sugar/butter on drained carrots

 

3 items to wash, serve food in paper bowls plastic spoon, burn bowl, save spoon.

 

Am b-fast

 

Heat water, hand out oatmeal packs. pour juice in paper cup. When done with juice put in hot water and oatmeal/stir. Burn cup save spoon.

 

Pudding for desert.

 

Pkg pudding mix in zip locks, add 1 c. milk zip shut, massage for 2 minutes, pour into cups, with spoon, garbage plastic, burn paper, keep spoons.

 

Cobblers, serve up in cups with spoons. Burn cups, keep spoon.

 

How to camp clean plastic spoons. Whip clean with paper towel. Wipe down with alcohol wipe, toss towel and wipe in the fire, stick spoon in pocket.

 

Set out a huge bucket of unshelled peanuts. Tell the boys they can eat whenever they want.

 

Stosh

[King Ding Dong]

Camp fork biscuits for breakfast. The boys love cooking over the fire. Burn off crusty marshmallows on fork from last night. Wally World bicuit cans, stretch and wrap dough around camp fork, roast over fire, roll on stick of butter, then roll in cinnamon sugar on paper plate.

[Twocubdad]

Any sort of chili, soup or stew is good and easy to scale up of down for the size of the group. One trick we used was to make foil dinners for the Webelos (who needed the cooking for a requirement) and use the same ingredients to make a beef stew for the rest. Large round loaves of sourdough bread are a great addition and can be warmed in a DO or in foil next to the fire.

 

AKdenldr mentioned mountain breakfasts. We do that a frequently when have a bunch to feed. It's a good, hearty meal and all in one pot. I have a large cast-iron, casserole-shaped pan with a lid which is perfect We can serve 8 or 12 out of it. But of course a DO will work, just not as efficient.

 

When I was CM our pack was about 120 Cubs and we would sometimes have 250 people on campouts. To serve that crow breakfast we created a "porridge bar" which was a two huge turkey fryer pots full of oatmeal and grits. The boys all HATED the thought, but we found it was because none had ever had real, cooked oatmeal of grits. Salt, pepper and butter is about all you can do with grits, but for the oatmeal we had all sorts of toppings -- of course brown sugar, but also bananas, strawberries (or any other frozen fruit), chocolate chips, etc, etc. The boys LOVE it. And you will be amazed how many people you can feed oatmeal and grits for a few bucks.

 

 

[O'Scouter]

We do a lot of pie iron cooking, it has gotten to be kind of a thing where we have some the troop owns and a lot of the boys have their own. Pie iron pizzas are really tasty, everyone likes them. They are great for breakfast sandwiches as well.

 

We have often done hobo dinners in foil packets when the cub dens were divided into camp sites but it would be difficult to get them all cooked with limited heat sources.

 

Breakfast pizzas are easy DO meals. DO french toast bakes are popular as well. Just grease DO, toss in cubed bread (we usually get cinnamon bread for this) pour over egg mixture to cover, dot with butter and bake. Serve with syrup.

 

Did someone mention the breakfast burritos in the ziplock bag?

 

Tacos can be easy to do. We tend to use canned diced tomatoes for ease. Make up some beans or burger in your pan, season and then everyone can fix em how they like em.

 

We also do a lot of popcorn in the evenings around the fire..or in our DOs.

 

A really easy one that we do now is pizza pull aparts. It is a large sourdough unsliced loaf, Butter and garlic salt the outside of the loaf, slice it into 1" slices leaving about an inch on the bottom to hold together. Fill the inside slices with pizza sauce, cheese, mushrooms, pepperoni, whatever you like, wrap it up in foil and put it over coals or bung it in the DO. Heat until hot, bubbly and crusty. One loaf feeds, what, 3-4 people probably. You put it in the middle of the table and everyone pulls off what they want. We usually serve this with bagged salad and dressing.

 

Gotta do the cobblers, cherry chocolate is the favorite right now with our guys.

[Rick_in_CA]

Boil in the bag eggs are fun with tortillas' date=' precook the bacon and just warm it up.[/quote']

 

These are a very bad idea unless you use specifically designed boil bags. Ziplock bags are not boil safe and will leach toxins into the food.

 

http://camping.about.com/od/campingrecipes/a/ziplocbaggies.htm

http://www.ziploc.com/Pages/Safety.aspx - See "Can I boil in Ziploc® brand Bags?"

 

One source of boilable bags: http://www.packitgourmet.com/BoilableBags.html

 

[jpstodwftexas]

Anything you cook at Home.

[Sidney Porter]

Without more info from the orginal post we are shooting in the dark.

- how many scouts and adults

- What coooking equipment

- open fires allowed

- duration of the Trip (Friday night thru Sun Morning or Sat through Sun).

- what other activities are planned

- Do you have adult help that will be helping with the different meals or is all of the prep and process going to fall on one or 2 people

 

If it is is Friday through Sunday. For friday have them on their own for dinner. People will be arriving after work, it will be getting dark and camp needs to be setup. You don't want a big dinner production. Sat I would do a larger breakfast (eggs, meat, pancakes etc but the method is going to vary). Lunch is really going to depend on what you are doing, are you going to be near camp and some people can prep, cook and clean up or is a 2 hour hike planned? If the later either some scouts and parents will miss out on the activity if you plan a large cooked meal. In that instance I am going with something that comes together quickly (deli sandwiches etc). Dinner is going to be a larger cooked meal but knowing your equipment and limitations is needed. Sunday morning. I am boiling water for oats and fruit. I am not making a big breakfast while camp needs to be broken down.

 

What ever you decide publish the menu several days a head of time so that picky eaters have time to plan alternatives. I have found that adding sauce late is helpful. So if you are doing pasta and sauce heat them separately and add the sauce at serving, that want the kid that doesn't like red sauce can eat plain pasta. I know that several have recommended chili in my observation a lot of kids cannot handle any heat in the food so it needs to be cooked pretty bland you can have hot sauce on the side but it isn't the same.

 

If you do foil packs, get precooked chicken or sausage. If not you will have a kid who eats raw chicken.

 

You want the scouts involved. But age appropriate rules state that only Webelos can cook outdoors. I don't know how foil packs are viewed if they are not adding and removing from the fire I don't think they are really cooking.