We went camping last weekend with Marisa’s family. It was our first camp out of the year, and the first time the babies had ever gone. Marisa isn’t big on camping, but she was a trooper. It was hot, humid, and not very pleasant when we first got there. We got a late start because we were waiting for her mom to get off work. By the time we got all the tents set up, it was dark. We ate some dinner, and everyone was finally able to sit down & relax. We had a few beers, & the girls drank some wine. We put the babies down to sleep in the tent, but they weren’t having any part of it. They heard us all up talking, and they wanted to be part of the action! They finally fell asleep around 11:00. We thought that they would sleep in the next morning, but they were up with the birds at about 05:30.
The next day was better as far as the heat. We were blessed with cloud cover for the first half of the day. I got up & got the fire started and made some coffee. We were kind of rushed when we left, & I grabbed the wrong cook set. The one that has my percolator in it got left at home. I wound up putting coffee into a coffee filter, and tying it closed with one of the inner cords from a piece of 550 cord. Then I just threw it into a pot of water, and boiled it until it looked like coffee. I hadn’t ever made it like that before, but it worked. It tasted good, and I wound up making anther pot. Note to self: the other cook set needs a percolator also!
We had a pretty good breakfast. Bacon, scrambled eggs, potatoes & onions in the dutch oven (that is one of Noah’s favorites!), and Marisa and I tried making some sourdough biscuits in another dutch oven. I got busy, & left the biscuits in the fire too long. The bottoms of them burned, and the ones around the edges burned, but we were still able to salvage enough for everyone to try them. The part that didn’t get burned tasted pretty good. I’ll make them again, and watch them a little closer next time.
I also made some campfire beans that turned out pretty darned good. I’ll put the recipes for everything on the recipe page.
I love to camp! Not only is it fun, but it’s also good practice for doing things like learning to cook without modern conveniences. Have you thought about how you would feed yourself and your family if you had no electricity or gas to cook with for an extended period of time? Cooking on an open fire isn’t like cooking on your stove at home. I’ve camped a lot, and I have cooked a lot of food on a campfire, but I still mess up. Most of the time I can produce something edible (usually pretty good), but I want to get better at it, so I’ll keep practicing.
One thing to consider is what you are going to cook your food with. Most of the teflon coated pots & pans that people use on a daily basis would be ruined quickly in a camp fire. Cast iron is a much better alternative for cooking over an open fire. I have several cast iron skillets, and several cast iron dutch ovens. I also have a very cool, very old, cast iron griddle that Marisa bought me that I love.
Many things can also be cooked in foil on a campfire if you don’t have the right kind of pots & pans. Next time we camp, I’ll bring the video camera along & make a video on aluminum foil cooking. Noah has mentioned that he would like to make some “how to” videos, and I think that will be a good place for him to start.
The babies got their first taste of camping, and they did just fine. They also got their first swim in a lake, and their mean ol’ daddy dunked them under the water. They didn’t seem to mind too much. We didn’t stay in long, because the water was pretty cold, despite the heat that was melting everyone. They also got a couple of breaks from the heat when we put them in the van & turned on the AC & drove them around the lake. Honestly….Marisa & I didn’t mind that part at all!
That’s about all I have for this first post. I’ll add the recipes later tonight, and we’ll be having more camping adventures to share over the summer. Thanks for stopping by & reading! We’ll have more stuff on family preparedness, survival topics, gardening, etc, coming soon.
^MM
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