Eating and Camping

The month of July is such a busy one even though summer is supposed to be the time we slow down.  Even though it is busy with fun things, like swimming and going to the library, it is still busy.  Even our weekends have been busy with camping!  So I've decided to dedicate my July blogs to camping food.  Some people camp by eating cold cereal, stale doughnuts, top ramen noodles, chips and oreo cookies, but I prefer to enjoy the outdoors by eating well.  And I mean WELL!  Fancy well.  I don't totally skip the junk food, my kiddos have discovered the joys of roasting marshmallows and I would never deprive them of this childhood ritual of fire and gooey goodness, but for the most part, I do like to eat fancy.  Here is the menu for our most recent camping adventure.

Day 1:  Dinner:  Orange Herb Salmon, Olive, Orange and Couscous Salad, Fresh snap peas.

Day 2:  Breakfast:  Raisin Bisquits with Orange Honey Butter and Fruit.

      Lunch:  Turkey Cream cheese Roll ups with red onion and cucumbers (we did have chips with this meal!)

     Dinner:  Cheeseburgers, Cole slaw, Marshmallows

Day 3:  Breakfast:  Banana Pecan Pancakes, Fruit, Juice.

The picture on this blog is of the dinner from Day 1.  Doesn't this look better than sub sandwiches or even (shudder) top ramen noodles?  Because we use disposable dishes and utensils while camping, the clean up consisted of one pot, and a spoon.  You can do it, don't settle for bad food!

Orange Herb Salmon taken from Campfire Cuisine:  Gourmet recipes for the Great Outdoors by Robin Donovan

Olive oil spray

4 6oz. salmon fillets

salt and pepper

juice and zest of 1 orange

1 tsp. crushed red pepper

1 Tbls. fennel seeds (crushed if you don't like the occasional crunch in your salmon)

1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick) cut into pieces

Spray 4 squares of aluminum foil with olive oil.  Place 1 salmon fillet on each foil square.  Sprinkle the fish with salt, pepper, orange juice and zest, red pepper, and fennel seeds.  Dot each fillet with butter.  Bring the sides of the foil up around the fish and fold over to seal the package tightly, leaving room for heat and steam to circulate inside.  Cook on a grill over high hieat about 20 minutes until the fish is just cooked through.  Serve immediately.  Serves 4.

*My adaptations:  I just used one big foil packet to cook a large fillet for my family instead of cutting it in four pieces.  Also, to make cooking easy once I get to camp, I do prep in advance.  I put all of the ingredients, except the salmon, in a plastic bag before we left and put it in our cooler.  Once I started to cook, all I needed to do was heat the coals for the barbeque, make and spray the foil packet, put the fish in it, and dump the contents of the plastic bag over the fish before sealing it.  I also brought along a disposable 9 x 13 inch baking pan, inverted it and put it over the foil packet on the grill essentially turning it into a little oven.  That worked really well.  No clean-up involved in this one!

Olive, Orange and Couscous Salad from Campfire Cuisine:  Gourmet recipes for the great outdoors by Robin Donovan

1 cup water

1 tsp. salt

1 cup couscous

zest and chopped segments of 1 orange

1/2 cup chopped, pitted cured olives, such as kalamata

2 green onions finely sliced

2 Tbls. olive oil

juice of 2 lemons

salt and pepper

4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled.

Bring the water, with the salt added, to a boil in a saucepan with a lid on a camp stove.  Remove from the heat:  add the couscous, stir, and cover.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  Fluff with a fork and allow to cool  Mix in the orange segments, olives, green onion, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and feta.  Serve immediately.  Serves 4.

*My adaptations:  To make cooking easier at the campsite, I put the green onions, the olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper in a plastic bag.  Once I started cooking, I put the couscous in the boiling water, letting it sit and fluffing it with a fork, I just needed to dump the contents of that bag into the pot of couscous, open the can of pre-chopped olives (4 0z.) and crumble in the feta.  Clean up consisted of one pot and a serving spoon.

Keep an eye out for other blogs in July to complement the camping theme.  Bon camping!