EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

I need some new meal ideas for camping out. Either cooking over a flame, in dutch ovens, or on a camp stove. I have another extended camping trip coming up and looking for something different to cook.

Here are some of the things we have cooked in recent camping trips.
Breakfast:
Breakfast tacos, bacon, fried and scrambled eggs, biscuits, hash browns

Lunch/supper:
Deer Chili, King Ranch Chicken, Fajitas, Camp Potatoes, Steaks

Desserts:
fresh baked cookies, peach cobbler

Never did much camping as a kid, so I don't have the experience camping that many on here do...hence my limited menu. I've been trying to take my daughters (10 & 13) camping lately, and would like to have a bit more variety.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Chris

how do you not have stew on that menu??  that's the perfect camp meal.  you can substitute whatever you kill for meat... and i do mean whatever (squirrel, rabbit, dove, quail, deer). 

i'll think of some more here in a minute

Breakfast: French Toast

we usually put something on the pit for lunch/supper.

Stew and French Toast both sound good and simple enough.

I make french toast often enough to know how I like to fix it, but not stew... Dabutcher, Got a stew recipe you care to share?

the one my kids like the most is more of a vegetable beef soup more than a stew recipe.  it's super easy.  if you don't mind store bought canned vegetables. it goes as such.

2lbs of desired meat.. (season to taste)
1 8oz can of diced tomatoes
4 cans of sliced potatoes
2 cans of cut green beans
2 cans of sliced carrots
1 can of whole kernel sweet corn
1 onion chopped

worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper,  and a little Cachere's (never hurts).  if you want a real stew add beef broth instead of the diced tomato and use flour to thicken if so desired.

almost forgot the main component..... CORNBREAD!!  you can't have a good stew and not serve a little cornbread.

or you can do a nice Roast in dutch oven.........

i use usually 3lb roast (cut of your choice...i prefer a nice shoulder myself) Seasoned with Fiesta Fajita seasoning.

4 cans of cream of mushroom soup.
2 packets of Lipton beefy onion soup mix
6-10 Red potatoes diced or quartered (whatever you prefer)
2-3 carrots sliced
5-6 buttom mushrooms sliced
1 onion chopped

add water to bring liquid volume up and let cook out to desired thickness.

and for Breakfast... my dad always made us Pancakes and some good ol pan sausage for breakfast.   You can bake cinnamon rolls too.   What we do a lot at deer camp is a sausage, egg, and potato tacos.
cook your sausage first.  remove from pan and use that grease to cook your taters.  add the sausage back and scrambled egg mixture.  cook til done and then shovel it in a nice warm tortilla.  cooked all in ONE pan. 

Might be simple but good ole hot dogs roasted in camp fire on coat hangers! Also smores are a must for any camping trip.

Gizzard Stew
Chicken n dumplings
Ziplock Omelets

Limited? man thats a large menu compaired to the campin menus ive had. LOL

Chris,

Camp cooking is one of my favorite hobbies. I have some great recipes at the house and I will be home this evening to post a few.

These dishes are tried and true and the best part with most of them is that they won’t have you cooking and preparing all day.

I really enjoyed the cooking but when food preparation and cooking started cutting in to my fishing and hunting time then I started getting creative and planning better.
I have quit a few recipes that I barrowed and modified from other folks too that are great!

I must warn you though. Dutch oven cooking in a public camp ground will have everybody down wind of you coming to visit! Lol. I am not joking either.

I always plan my meals like you do and I go a step further. I prepare everything I can at the house. Pre measured ingredients are the only way to go if there is fishing and hunting to do.

dabutcher you got it figured out!

Hard to beat good biscuits and gravy out of a dutch over, make sure theres tons of breakfast sausage in the gravy. Somewhere I've got my grandads old gravy dutch oven, it's about 6 inches across and 4 inches deep.

When we were kids dad did ( Camp Spare Ribs) build a good fire let it burn a while then put the ribs in tin foil with bbq sauce and bear rabbit syrup poured over them wrap another 3/4 times with tin foil ,,,, then he would speed the hot coals put the ribs in put some coals on top...put 3-4 good size logs on to keep it burning then we would go do our evening hunt ... Get back just after dark hang/ dress any deer if we got one ... Dig the ribs out of the coals warm some ranch style bean in the cans ,,, meat would just fall of the bone ,,, just taking about it makes me wanna go build a fire lol!!!

I used to backpack a lot.. had to think minimalist when you carry most everything on your back.

Another good one I always liked camping is what we called a "ho-bo dinner".
This would be good for you, as your girls can do it while you take it easy.
Take a piece of foil, lay out on flat surface.
Place a hamburger patty on the center.
Stack on top of patty, onion slice, tater slices, baby carrots, baby or sliced mushrooms, asparagus sticks, etc.
Season stack with pepper and garlic salt. Fold foil up around and seal it well.
Shovel full of coals to the side, place "ho-bo dinner" on top, then another shovel of coals over it.
Neat thing about these is everyone can make thier own and use whatever veggies they prefer.
About 30 minutes cook time and you've got a pretty cheap, hot meal with no clean up, except the cutting board.

Slim,
   "Hobo dinner"  I remember making something like that at Garner several years ago, the people I was with called them "silver turtles"   The kids made different shapes in the foil so they knew which one was theirs. I'll have to plan on some "Hobo dinners" on the next trip.

BTW, the coal shovel you made for Mandi has been a real life saver.

"Peach cobbler"
Make with yellow and white Betty crocker cake mix, 1 of each
2- sticks of butter (melted)
2-cans peaches and small can of pears( any fruit can be substituted)
Sprinkle top with sugar, cinnamon and crushed pecans

Cook until outside and edges begin browning and crusting up, center should be moist! Different version with a creamy cake batter taste to it

Keith made this for a us a few weeks ago so I got him to send me the recipe for this post.  It was VERY good and can serve alot of people for about 10 dollars.

Arrow Pilot's Famous TACO SOUP


INGREDIENTS:
•    2 LBS LEAN GROUND BEEF
•    1 FRESH WHITE ONION
•    1 CAN DICED ROTEL
•    2 CANS DICED TOMATOS
•    1 CAN WHOLE KERNEL CORN (Drained)
•    2 CANS PINTO BEANS
•    1 CAN RANCH STYLE BEANS WITH JALAPENOS
•    1 PKG TACO SEASONING
•    1 PKG RANCH DRESSING MIX
•    1 "CLUMP" FRESH CILANTRO (OPTIONAL)
DIRECTIONS:
•    Chop the onion.
•    If you'll be using cilantro, chop it very finely.
•    Brown the ground beef with the diced onion in a large soup pot.
•    Stir in the taco seasoning and the ranch dressing mix until the meat is evenly coated.
•    Pour in all the canned items, continuing to stir and heat.
•    If you're using cilantro, put that in last after all the canned items.
•    Heat the soup until hot. If you have the time, simmering makes it better.
Variations and Serving Suggestions:

For those who like it spicier, you can "turn up the heat" by substituting more Diced Rotel for one or both cans of the Diced Tomatos, substituting more Ranch Style Beans with Jalapenos for one or both cans of the Pinto Beans, and/or substituting HOT Taco Seasoning for the regular kind.

I like a thick soup and so I drain the water off the corn and leave the lid off the pot to let some of the water evaporate during heating. If you like a thinner soup, you don't have to drain the corn and you can keep the lid on the pot. For my tastes, the leaner the ground beef, the better. If you use ground beef that is not lean, you'll probably want to drain off the grease after you brown it and before you add the other ingredients. For a wild game version, you can use ground venison or ground wild pork instead of the lean ground beef.

The soup is good poured over Fritos corn chips or crumbled tortilla chips. Try sprinkling grated cheese over the top and letting it melt in with the soup.

This makes, I'd say, about eight good servings. The original recipe didn't include cilantro, but I found that it really adds flavor and highly recommend it! The soup is actually quite a bit better when reheated the second day. So make a big pot and enjoy the leftovers!

Matt,

     That is almost the same concoction I came up with a few weeks ago just throwing stuff in the pot. Except I didn't think to put ranch dressing mix or cilantro.  It was so good I have made it two more times.  I'll have to try the ranch and cilantro on the next run.  One more thing I have a bit different, is that I have my venison ground with smoked bacon and jalapeno, so it gets a bit of kick not found with hamburger.  I made some sweet cornbread to go with it, I was so proud of how it turned out, I even took pics ;D

Taco soup
(http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p204/ccoughran/5080e7d9.jpg)


Cornbread
(http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p204/ccoughran/b53c269e.jpg)


Tony,
 
     I'll have to try your cobbler recipe too.  I've been making mine with one box yellow cake, two cans sliced peaches, stick of butter, and lots of cinnamon. Never thought to add pecans to the mix, but it sounds good.


Still waiting on Craig to post up his famous Pineapple Upside Down cake that he made at the Rooter Roundup.

The hobo stew is what I was going to recommend.  I was a girl scout leader at a camp for one summer.  The kids loved making them since everyone makes their own and adds the vegetables they like.  We called it pocket stew.  My boys at home liked it so much that we started making it in a pan to eat at home even when not camping.  The neat thing is you put it in the coals and can go do other things and it is done when you get back.

Also for breakfast we took canned biscuits and rolled them between our hands to make a long snake looking thing.  Wrap it around a stick so that there are not gaps - roast (bake over coals like you would a marshmallow).  When done, slide off the stick and put jelly in the hole where the stick was.  Just fun to do.

Also for breakfast make eggs in a nest.  Take a slice of bread, use a small glass to cut a circle out of the middle.  Butter the bread and throw in a skillet to brown.  Bust an egg and place in the hole.  Cook like you would a fried egg, flip over and cook on both sides, then spread jelly on bread.  Fun for the kids to do and much more fun to eat than just a regular fried egg and toast.

I bust open a can of Beanie Weenies if I go gourmet I warm it up. I can put a couple cans in my pocket and a spoon. Then I can hunt all day. We used to get thick sliced ham for sandwiches. If you want to eat good you have to kill something. I have eaten lots of different things because of this mentality. Armadillo is pretty good.

There should be a WARNING in the post title stating "warning reading this post may cause hunger". Pictures should be left out, it only makes the hunger worse...
I'm sitting here at work just before lunch, reading all these tasty recipes and my belly is grouling.

We make the taco soup at my house and dip it with cheese doritos, its pretty tasty.

10 Can Soup is really easy / Zatarans Jambalaya with little smokies always hits the spot

I am not sure where he heard about it (and I kinda think you might have been around Chris) but Thomas made some kind of Pineapple upside down cake in a dutch oven while we were on our Public Hunt in Edna and it was pretty darn good.  I wont mention the crawfish ettouffee he made too cause then we would have to talk about slappin a momma and that just aint right.

where are ya'll planing on camping so i can keep the ninja from hijacking your campsite. on second thought, he said he likes to cook.

Old family recipe, Pineapple bread desert.

In a dutch oven melt 2 sticks of butter, with the oven setting on some hot coals, lid should be preheating.

To the melted butter add 10 slices of bread, cut into 1" cubes.

Cook untill bread is golden brown.

Add 1 cup of sugar and 2 cans crushed pineapple, stir well.

Cover and continue to cook with top heat for about 30 minutes.

There has to be a way to cook a pizza in a Dutch oven. I know when I was younger my mom made pizza all the time and she made it with biscuits as the breading. It wad good good, I would like to see y'all try it. My sister also has a bad ass recipe for a cinnamon flop with biscuits as the breading, I will get it for you it is really goo.

Paul,

    I was hoping you would chime in on this thread, as I recall seeing some pics of you and Emily with some good looking camp grub in the past.  Being relatively new to dutch oven cooking, I started with charcoal, and I am slowly evolving to cooking with coals. The pineapple bread dessert sounds tasty and simple.


Boarmom,

     The eggs in a nest and the biscuits on a stick sound like something our daughters will enjoy making.

Matt,
    You need to have your mom kick out a recipe for the pizza...what type biscuits, sauce, cheese, and toppings she used. Sounds like another meal the girls would enjoy being involved in.

Stick N Move,
    Mandi and I had a week long trip planned to the Caprock last year and had to back out at the last minute... This year we have been taking some short 2-3 day trips camping with the horses and doing some trail riding at different areas. Last weekend we went to Lake Somerville. Mid January we will spend some time in Bandera. After deer season we will take some extended trips camping and hog hunting horseback on some of the nicer properties we have to hunt. Then hopefully mid to late spring we will actually make it to the caprock. BTW, you and the ninja are always welcome around our fire... y'all should plan to meet up on one of these trips.

Salmon patties are always a good change of pace for me. Caned salmon, Ritz crackers, one egg, onion, garlic, cayenne, parsley, salt, pepper, make patties and roll in corn meal. Fry in a med hot skillet untill brown.

Another favorite, called Tom Fuller....

Take about half the skin off russet potatoes, chunk them up and add to a boiling dutch oven. Add onion, chopped and garlic to taste, salt and pepper.

While the potatoes are boiling, cube up a pound or pound and a half of good bacon and fry it in a skillet, cook it just to firm but not crisp.

When potatoes are done drain the water and add the bacon, grease and all, (the more bacon grease the better)....then stir in a can of white corn and add a stick of butter.

Let simmer for about 30 minutes and serve. This make a very hearty side dish or can be rolled in warm tortillas as a meal of its own. 

Here is one that we always make when we go to the ranch on opening bow weekend. It is awesome!



2 #’s of raw shrimp
2 links of Smoked sausage
2 Red Bell peppers
2 Serrano peppers…diced very fine.
2 large red onions
2 bunches of Cilantro…(If they are large bunches, I use 1 ½ )

Just chop up the veggies …especially the Serrano’s… put in a large skillet or dutch oven, slice the sausage into rings, throw in the shrimp, turn to med. Heat and let it go. Stirring occasionally. It’ll makes its own juice.

Cook till veggies are soft (30-45 minutes) and covered in juice,… turn to simmer and eat when your ready.

Tweak it to suit your taste…I’ll add an extra Serrano or add extra onion sometimes…or more shrimp. Serve over Spanish/dirty rice or eat in a tortilla! Good stuff~!

easy way for a meal camping is to make it and freeze it in gallon baggies before you go  this can be done with pretty much everything from spegetti to chicken alfredo to hamburger helper . just keep cold and stays good for awhile!  good luck

I like this for breakfast.

needed

dutch oven
bag of frozen hash browns
1 lb of Jimmy Dean sausage or you favorite
1 dozen eggs
1 lb cheese, cheddar, American or whatever you like


Brown the sausage, scramble the eggs and cook about half way done

Layer the hash browns in the bottom of the dutch oven, spread the sausage over the hash browns, pour the semi cooked eggs over the works and top with as much grated cheese as you like.

Cook for about 30 minutes at 350 or how ever you work your coals

I make this in quail camp every year. It is a rib sticker, especially if you cook up a batch of biscuits to go along with it.