Camping Cuisine

Every Labor Day weekend P and I pack up our two little cars to the brim and head downstate to Starved Rock State Park for a weekend of camping in the great outdoors. This year was no excpetion - even though the temps were in the 90s for Friday and Saturday! The dogs love the trip and so do we. It is a nice, relaxing weekend where we can catch up on sleep, enjoy each other's company and drink plenty of beers :)

We have gotten pretty good at the camping routine - packing up; setting up camp; planning out the hikes; tearing down camp. The one thing that we wanted to work on this year was the menu. We usually just do the usual grill food (hot dogs, burgers, sloppy joes) and some mac and cheese. But this year I got to spice up the menu. I can't stress enough the importance of having a multi-day cooler when camping. We got a fantastic 5-day cooler that we keep all of our meat and cheeses in and the ice stays frozen through the entire weekend - no opportunity for any meat to spoil!

Here are some of the meals we had this year...

Breakfast Burritos

• Tortillas
• Eggs
• Bacon (cook this the night before you leave and chop it into small pieces; store it in the cooler)
• Shredded Cheese

Scramble eggs in skillet over camping stove. Towards the end of cooking, add a small amount of chopped bacon to eggs to reheat the meat. When eggs are done, quickly heat up tortillas to make them more plyable. Portion egg and bacon onto tortillas and top with shredded cheese. Wrap and enjoy.

Buffalo Chicken Wraps

• Chicken breasts
• Buffalo wing sauce (we use Frank's)
• Lettuce shreds (you can find this by the bag salads at the grocery)
• Shredded Cheese
• Tortillas

Grill chicken breasts. Chop into bite size pieces and dry off with a papertowel. Pour chicken into ziploc bag and add buffalo wing sauce. Coat chicken pieces. Heat tortillas in skillet on camping stove to make them plyable. Add chicken, cheese and lettuce to tortillas and wrap.

Steak Kabobs

• Tri tip sirloin steak
• Beef marinade (we use Stubb's. Best. Marinade. Ever.)
• Green Peppers
• Red Onions
• Skewers

The night before leaving for camp, cut steak into kabob size pieces and put in freezer bag. Add marinade to bag. Put meat in freezer until ready to leave. Chop onions and green peppers and put in cooler - this minimizes prep time at the campsite.

When ready to eat the kabobs, take the meat out of the cooler and let sit for 20 mins. Assemble your kabobs and cook on the grill until at desired doneness.

CHEERS!