Dinner food ideas?

[Brittany Dogs]

When we do a weekend campout often times the Friday dinner has to be simple and quick. This is because we both put in a full day of work, then head off to the campground and by the time we set up and need to cook dinner, it is 8PM.

When we owned the Coleman tent camper which had no oven like we have now, our Friday meal was always the same. We would have a dozen paper thin slices of roast beef frozen in a Foodsaver vacuum pack, open up the pack and then just toss that into a pan with a the beef juice (au jus) and heat that up. We would also match that up with pre-made packs of Foodsaver vacuum packs of German potato salad mixed with canned corn for a starch and veggie. We would heat that up in a second pan.

So we would have roast beef sandwiches, the German potato salad / corn mix plus a salad-in-a-bag cold salad.

Then when we got the TrailManor unit, we just buy a quality frozen pizza and throw that into the oven as we do the final touches of setting up. After a day of work and setting up camp, that quick meal has really come in handy.

The rest of the meals we get a lot more fancy.

By the way, we gave up the zip lock bag with frozen foods thing a long time ago. I got tired of the bags getting a small hole in them when it contained frozen foods inside and being tossed around in the freezer. We would have a cooler of water-logged bags of food or the cooler would be contaminated with leaking raw meat juices.

I invested in a Cabela's vacuum food sealer which not only preserves the food better by pulling out all the air, the bags are 5mil thick and won't puncture even with rough handling inside the home freezer.

[jill4paws]

We use a Coleman Extreme cooler and dry ice which works well. Keeps food frozen for about 5 days. Pie irons work well also for making pizza, all types of grilled sandwiches etc. Have a wonderful trip!

[Northwoods]

We're long time tent campers and when we base camp for 7 to 10 days on the Current River in MO., we cook outside on my propane two burner stove. Use many of the selections others have listed, frozen leftovers from home or quick stuff on the spot. One of our favorites is an egg frittata. I saute fresh, canned or frozen potatoes in oil, add some bacon or ham, maybe a slice zuchinni and then ad 3 or 4 beaten eggs. Get the eggs to set up, then sprinkle with cheddar or grated parmesan & put a lid on it. Never any leftovers, but the few times we've had some, they were gratefully eaten cold! Have a good time. Olga Northwwoods

Yum! Sounds great for any meal, Olga!!
One to write down for sure!
Thanks
Karen

Well we went and had a blast. We ate sphagetti, sandwiches, hotdogs and hamburgers. I need to go buy some pie irons to take for hot sandwiches. Thanks for the great ideas. I guess I need to search craigslist for a foodsaver to vac the foods before leaving.

Thanks again,
Jeremy

Some of our favorites:

Zatarain's jambalaya or dirty rice mix - pick up fresh shrimp if you are camping near the beach! Serve with salad and toasted bread.
Spaghetti - make the sauce at home and then put in a Ziplock twist and seal container - doesn't leak in a cooler!
Tuna salad - store in same Ziplock container
Grilled burgers, dogs, chicken, or steak

My parent's quick and easy first night meal is a large salad topped with Perdue chicken strips and their favorite fixings.

Hmmm, I might have to try pizza next!

Chocolate chip cookies to bake in the oven. Nothing like fresh baked cookies.

We almost always use an outdoor gas grille. Usually steak, tri-tip or chicken.

I am a little thin on confidence in storing ice cream in the freezer. However, I like the freezer to be full to the max, so I use Otter Pops. If they get soft or melt there is no mess.

Pre-made frozen lasagna would bake well, I would think. I am not sure if we ever tried that.

Meatloaf. Then you can have sandwiches the next day if there are any leftovers.

I don't do the cooking so I am having a hard time remembering what we ate.

Pizza!! It's quick and easy with a little advance prep. We don't like the frozen pizza's that we have tried, so we make our own.

-- Before leaving (BL) -get a good tasting pizza shell - we buy ours at Whole Foods - and a good pizza sauce - we use Ragu HomeStyle - small jar makes two 10 inch pizza.
--- BL - lightly toast the shell in home oven - cut in half -SZL.
--- BL - cut and SZL some sausage, SZL green peppers, SZL onion, and SZL shredded mozzarella cheese - takes less than 15 min for two people.
--- BL - put garlic powder and small amount of olive oil in lidded containers.

--- Easy quick Meal - (DW lets me do it) - Take 2 pizza shell slices and coat generously with olive oil, spoon less than half the pizza sauce jar over the two slices, dust the garlic powder over the sauce, stylishly heap the SZL ingredients, and toast in oven until cheese melts and crust lightly browned.

Note: We have the TM installed microwave, so we carry an old toaster oven which is not heavy and also is good for biscuit wrapped sausage snacks for the road and cheese toast.

Note 2: We use the pre-cooked Tofurky Italian sausage which is easily kept sufficiently cooled.

I'll just add +1 for the Foodsaver and the Coleman Extreme. We use them both extensively. The Foodsaver is great for home food prep and just migrated to being our method of packaging for camping.

I like to smoke various meats, so we have packs for lunches and dinners. Other things - lots of grilling, in addition to meats, we grill lots of veggies; asparagus, green beans, peppers and onions to name a few.

Foodsaver packs that are starters for stew and chili. Sloppy Joe's and fajitas, tacos or burritos are also favorites. Tortillias heat up in foil pack to the side with some moisture added while skirt steak and peppers grill.

We cook mainly outside on grill and burners, but agree with Pop on the cookies. Funny story on the cookies...we tent camped the whole time our daughters were growing up. After they were both in college we bought the trailer (which raised their eyebrows, naturally.) On a late fall college visit to oldest, youngest went with and friends were invited from campus. One never camped before the other was self described as 'raised by wolves' :-) So they show off their open fire foil pack skills and youngest goes in trailer and bakes cookies. Half way thru the cookies, the rookie, after coming out of the trailer where they ate, sitting in her chair by the fire with hot chocolate and cookies says, "You know this camping isn't so bad." ... To which BOTH my girls said in harmony, " OH NO YOU DON"T..."

Bacon and Tomato sandwiches are a favorite. We cook a bunch of bacon beforehand and freeze it in ziploc bags. Easy to reheat and make the sandwiches.

We have several standard items for the freezer:

A couple of Costco enchiladas. These are big enough for DW and I to split
Packages of ribs. I BBQ a whole slab, cut into two rib pieces and freeze them in ziplocs.
Home made spaghetti sauce - again frozen in ziplocs

When fresh veggies are available, we often make pasta prima vera - just chop up some veggies, add artichoke hearts, sauteed green onion and garlic. Sautee the mix and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Mix with any pasta.

Another standard item for the freezer - Costco shreds their rotisserie chicken breasts and uses them to make their salads, enchiladas, etc. But if you ask, you can buy a bag of the shredded chicken. They don't always put it out unless they have extra but they will sell it to you if you ask for it. Comes in 2 lb. packages which we break up into smaller ziplocs and freeze. Good for lots of things when camping.

Keith