Food always tastes better when cooked in the great outdoors. Camp cooking doesn’t have to be difficult; nor does leaving the confines of home mean that you have to go about primitive means to enjoy a great meal. Here’s how to put together a camp kitchen and enjoy some great food while camping.
Many people associate camping with cooking over an open fire. If you can flip burgers on the grill, you can cook over a fire. Basic tools for campfire cooking are a grate or grill, long handled tongs, spatula, and a long fork. I like to use a pair of heavy leather welding gloves if I need to move the grate or adjust the fire. Camping supply stores sell portable grates; otherwise most established campsites do have grates on their fire rings. A roll of heavy duty aluminum foil also comes in handy to make baked potatoes or dinner pouches. Just wrap your meal in the foil and place it on the hot coals.
A Dutch oven is a great addition to anyone’s camp cooking kit. Dutch ovens are large cast iron pots with legs and a lip around the lid. These ovens come in a variety of sizes, but the common and useful size is 12 inches in diameter. Hot coals or charcoal is placed underneath and on the lid of the pot so the meal inside is cooked much like it would be in a conventional oven. You can cook a wide variety or stews, roasts, breads, cakes and even pies in a Dutch oven. Many recipes that are designed for a crock pot work quite well in the Dutch oven.
A camping stove is a good addition to your cooking arsenal. Stoves give you more convenience, control and versatility that an open fire does. There are two types of camping stoves on the market: propane and liquid fuel. Propane stoves use bottled propane gas in either one pound or 20 pound cylinders. Propane is very convenient but does not burn very well in colder weather. Liquid fuel stoves use refined white gas in a tank that you pressurize with a hand pump. These stoves work great in cold weather but you have the mess of liquid fuel to deal with. Both stoves give you an easy to control flame so you can heat up water, fry, sauté, and simmer foods. There are even ultra compact backpacking stoves for lightweight cooking in the backcountry.
Other supplies for your camping kitchen include mess kits, utensils, pots and pans. Utensils and dishes don’t need to be fancy; you can search out thrift stores for inexpensive dishes and utensils. Use heavy duty freezer zipper bags and place them into large plastic tubs to organize your gear. You’ll find the most useful pans in your camping kitchen are the 12 inch cast iron fry pan, one quart saucepan, and a six quart pot for heating water. Add to that a 5 cup coffee percolator and you’ve got a functional camp kitchen. Now you can enjoy delicious cooking in the great outdoors.